Trainspotting

Beautiful Thing

2011-12-21T11:08:00.000+05:30

Never in a thousand years had I imagined that she would say that to me.

We went back quite a long way, and she had always been the most beautiful thing I ever knew. I was hesitant to tell her that though, as I did not know how she would take it. It was just as well, better to be close to her, around her all the time than mess it all up with a moment of uncalled-for bravado. I was ok with that. It seemed for now, that she was too.

And yet here she was, sitting across from me, smiling radiantly as ever. My eyes were still tracing the upward curve of her lips, leading into those perfect cheekbones, before one splashed into her deep blue eyes. She must have seen me distracted because she was saying something again,

"I asked if you are coming for our girls' night-out. It'll be over at Katy's place, so it's practically a slumber party. It's gonna be..."

I must have been nodding along encouragingly. She kept going on about our night together in pajamas...

He suddenly realized he was still holding the phone, and she was still talking. How long had she been going on? What had he missed? Were they still talking about the same thing? What had they been talking about anyway? He tried to remember where he had lost track of the conversation. He started working backwards, with great difficulty, and arrived at a point where it looked like he had lost the plot. She had said something then, and he did not remember it. Something that had jerked him out of the conversation and into another plane. He even remembered thinking to himself,

"Never in a thousand years had I imagined that she would say that to me"

Oh.

Why the Sehwag double hundred feels different

2011-12-10T11:52:00.001+05:30

For that very reason actually. That title sounds so natural. The Sehwag Double Hundred. Because there is a need to brand it. Because there's already one before him. That was the one that was only called 'The Double Hundred'. That deserved the definite article. It was something as yet undefined by anyone, so there was no need to brand it. Like how we just call it 'The Sun'. Not the Walmart Sun, you know?

In a way, it's sort of unfair to Sehwag. After all, this IS the highest score on the planet in ODIs. But, it remains just a refinement of an already accomplished effort. The response to the double hundred itself was distinct. From the crowd, from the commentators, everyone. Compare Ravi Shastri's 'First man on the planet to do it, and it's the Superman from India' to Siva's 'Has he got it through the gap? Is it another four? Oh what a good shot... Oh hang on he's got 200 too!'. I'm exaggerating of course, but the focus itself was not on the 200 anymore but how fast he had got there, how everything had gone right for him etc.

And that's the second part that's been unfair to Sehwag. A lot has been written and said about his see-ball-hit-ball philosophy and his blank mind and everything. It's unconventional yes, but also simple. To the point of being too simple in fact, that it's not exhilarating anymore. When Sehwag reduces it to just two actions, everyone thinks 'oh yes of course, now it all makes sense'. And we all rejoice in how easy it is, and how effortlessly he does it.

But human inclination is to celebrate the skill that it does not yet understand, and watch a master of the skill perspire his way to it. In all of what I consider Sachin's three greatest innings - vs Australia (the qualifier), Sharjah; vs Pakistan, Centurion; vs South Africa, Gwalior - the most enduring images have been of Sachin puffing/cramping/puffing & cramping. Contrast that to Sehwag's effortless coast to the 200, and then some more. One is a master painstaking working his way to an art, the other is doing a 9-5 job. One is a butcher, the other a sculptor. The act is the same, but the art, not so much.

In many ways, the first double hundred just ran to a perfect script. The 200 didn't come till the last over,. There was the incredulity of whether the country's favourite captain would deny the favourite son just because he was dealing only in boundaries. Surely after coming all the way to 199, where he seemed to stay for about an eternity, he wouldn't be denied for lack of strike! Hashim Amla got perhaps the greatest cheer in an away ground for stopping a boundary. It was a perfect symphony of rising notes leading up to the crescendo. Like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Sehwag's innings on the other hand was like Pink Floyd's Echoes. A constant trip where you barely notice the high points, because you just want to keep tripping away...

Speed Racer

2011-04-27T18:02:00.003+05:30

He knew he never had the straight-line speed to catch him. If it had to be done, it would have to be done on the braking. And soon, they were on the last lap.

“And Schumacher starts the final lap still in pursuit of Hakkinen. Will he finally be able to make this one count, or will the McLaren’s straight line speed keep him ahead till the chequered flag?”

He felt the sheer adrenalin making him sharper, more focused. He had been called the greatest driver of his times by many, and the greatest driver ever by a few but all of that was immaterial right now. He tightened the grip on the steering wheel and pushed himself deeper into his seat by a fraction of an inch. That’s what this sport was decided on, fractions of inches.

“We turn into Beckett’s now, the series of long, sweeping left-handers that will suit the Ferrari’s balanced chassis. Can Schumacher gain ground here?”

He knew this circuit like the back of his hand. He could drive it single-handed through blinding rain, and had actually done it a few times as well. He went along the same route so many times that he knew exactly where to brake late, where to move that fraction of an inch closer to the edge of the road, where the upward slope was so that he could get on the accelerator early…

“Coming up to the first intermediate marker here, and Schumacher’s first sector time is faster than Hakkinen’s! He’s gaining here surely. Not by a lot, but he’s definitely gaining.”

He hated that his car was not just simply faster, and he had to drive his way out of this if he was to win it. But then again, wasn’t that what great sportsmen were made of. If everything was set for you- the best car, the best team, the best conditions, then what was to differentiate you from anyone else who got those. Thus consoling himself, he screwed his eyes closer and leaned forward ever so slightly, as if egging the car forward. The grip got harder still, the seat was pressing against his back now more than he was pressing against it and the legs had practically become welded to the gas and brake pedals. He was as close to being one with the car as he ever could be. As close to Nirvana.

“We’re past the second intermediate and it’s still anybody’s race. There’s barely half a second in this one now, and we are not making any calls. Hold on to your hats folks, this one’s going all the way to the last corner”

This was it now, he knew it. The last chicane, the sharp left-right before they floored their pedal to the finish line. He braked really late, as if making a move for the inside of the left turn. Predictably, the car in front defended, closing the inside line and leaving him no room to move. But then, he had known that. He hadn’t done 25000kms in a vehicle to forget the basic rule of racing, ‘Always defend your inside line’. He turned sharply right, simultaneously accelerating hard even while turning. A cardinal sin of course, but what the heck. He was now on the outside of the car in front, but more importantly, on the inside for the upcoming right. He practically stood on his brakes for the right turn, perfectly clipped the edge of the kerb to make the racing line and gave a quick glance towards his left. He could see the nose of the McLaren, in line with his seat. This was it!

“And Schumacher’s just pulled off the most amazing move! All the way around the outside on the left turn before diving inside for the final corner and flooring it all the way to the finish line. What. A. Finish!”

* * * *

There she was, in her usual seat next to the CEO’s office. She looked up, flashed him that brilliant smile of hers and asked, “You’re in a bit early today, aren’t you?”

He smiled back and nodded. Then, still smiling, he made his way to his desk, the noise from the grandstands still ringing in his ears.

It had been another record-breaking lap from his house to office.

TwitteRant

2011-02-16T23:43:00.005+05:30

Firstly let me clarify that this has been long due. That it has not seen the light of day can be attributed to various reasons, not least of which is paradoxically one of the things this post seeks to address. And thankfully, now that I've got my customary long sentence out of the way, I can get down to business.

Unless you've been living under a rock or, in massive over-preparation for 2012, in an ABC shelter, you cannot have missed the internet phenomenon that is Twitter. I was about to prefix that with 'latest' when I caught myself, realizing that in the digital world, Twitter is about as latest as the chubby Ronaldo is to football and the Pterodactyl is to the earth. Either way, your life has been touched by #twitter at least once. I am among the last of the muggles left in Twitter-warts magic school, simply failing to understand how a medium that needs such constant attention and allows no room for flowing, liberal prose could ever be such a popular medium of expression.

It's not that I don't like the concept itself, it's just that somehow I feel, it's no different from those big ol' public chat-rooms that Yahoo had. For me, twitter is like the Chennai Central station - as soon as I enter it, I just get swamped by this incessant buzz of chatter, each with their own voices and opinions and all talking at once. Similarly, most twitter conversations which go @reply after @reply after @reply seem like the chubby, late-middle-aged bureaucrat or businessman in a Safari next to you talking loudly into his phone forcing one side of the conversation completely upon you.

And what is this about joining the conversation. Most of the times the conversations fly by so thick and fast that I barely get to comprehend what's going on, let alone get a word in. Apparently there's 'clients' and 'apps' which can read your brain, paraphrase it in 140 characters, throw in a few links and hashtags and announce it to the world within 10 seconds. I, on the other hand, lose about 2 minutes just trying to see which @ I should reply to, and then thinking about the line which will best pack a 140-character punch. By then, the topic of discussion would have moved on entirely about thrice, rendering you clever, thoughtful and brilliant insights kinda 'old school'. Damn.

"If you know so much, you must be using it, Aha!" you say. I am, but it's mostly in such a passive state that bears in hibernation will have a longer timeline than mine. Mostly I'm just scared that I will break some unwritten rule in the flurry of all the @ and #s. Is it ok to address a guy you completely don't know as 'mate'? Should I ask for people's permission before @mentioning them? And seriously, what's the deal with celebrities?!! Questions to which deriving the answers from the iterations of my moral compass result in the same lack of alacrity as mentioned above. And on twitter, alacrity is everything.

As far as I see it, it has been most successful as a news dissemination medium, which is quite different from what it allegedly started out being. By the sheer strength of crowd-sourcing, it's been able to pull together stories from all over the world in a way no news agency can, and for that it works. Imagine a current affairs wikipedia, constantly edited and getting filled with some useful information by a modification of the Infinite Monkey theorem. And the power of customization letting you choose which parts of infinity you want to read, right here right now. Well, that's all just fair. I guess some of us would still like to wait for a more informed, thoughtful opinion in the next day's papers.

What do you think? Feel free to drop me a line on twitter @BFZ_MUFC and I'll be sure to get back to you. By 2013.

Or you can just leave a comment below.

Phase I

2010-09-16T23:16:00.006+05:30

(00:02)

Amit leaned across from his desk and dialed the number he dialed every day at precisely this time in the evening-The Goldilocks zone, when everyone required for the discussion across all time zones was awake and fresh. His fingers flew over the numbers on the phone and he stared absently at his screen as he waited for the cheery ‘Hello’ to interrupt the ringing tone.

He sat up straight and stared into the darkness in front of him. He was sure he was seeing the colours of his wall painting dripping from their canvas onto the floor. He was also sure he wasn’t. And what of that smell? There was no reason for that smell to penetrate his nostrils, where he was. But it was! This inherent mistrust of his own senses made him question whether to believe the message that the next of his senses was conveying- that noise! He reached for the button which he vaguely remembered stopped that noise. Ah, Silence.

(06:11)

The connection was being really bad today. It always happened on trans-Atlantic phone conversations, irrespective of the amount of progress that the telecommunications industry had made over the past few years. The person at the other end wasn’t helping either, with his constant mumbling. Amit looked at the clock and sighed. It had been more than 5 minutes and they hadn’t really got closure on the first issue they had been discussing. He sighed, forced himself to concentrate on the call and strained his ears to hear better.

He opened his eyes and let his mind register the dim light illuminating the room. He smiled to himself as he thought how just a single light was enough to dispel any amount of darkness. Amount of darkness? Was darkness quantifiable? For that matter, was light quantifiable? He remembered a conversation he had had a few days ago...

“What’s that?”

“It’s a lava lamp man. That’s electric arcs streaking inside”

“Sweet. How does it work?”

“So if you touch it, your fingers create the potential difference, and the electric arcs converge to it”

“Nice. But you should be able to control it remotely too”

“How?”

“With your eyes. Light is a particle right? So if you stare at it long enough, or hard enough, you should get enough light particles on the lamp to create that potential?”

“Yeah... no. Your eyes don’t emit light. They absorb them.”

"Ah. Damn”

(08:23)

Amit was beginning to wish the emotional baseline of this conversation was a little flatter. The caller had gone from monotonous mumbling to quite an excited state, even agitated. The deadlines were close and they had closed only one of the five issues they had to discuss. He didn’t like it when he had unclear issues on his hand; it messed up his mental plan. And he didn’t work well with messed up plans. He was getting increasingly impatient for his turn to speak, he was barely getting a word in right now.

He forced himself to shift his body into a vertical position. He knew he had accomplished that task when he saw himself staring at the painting again, as opposed to the ceiling that he had been staring at for the last ten minutes. The room was beginning to feel stuffy too, all of a sudden. It was so hot in there... No wait, it was actually cold. Nope, hot again. It was being... groovy. Either way he had to get out of the room but he just couldn’t make himself. He was beginning to feel mildly perturbed. Surely he should be able to get out of this room? Of course he could. As soon as he could get up.

(11:33)

Amit was relieved the call was coming to an end. They had clarified all that he wanted cleared up, though he was not sure about the confidence level of the person at the other end of the line. He wasn’t going to be unduly worried about that, he wanted to get home as soon as he could today. It was his son’s 5^th birthday, and he had already missed the 4^th birthday party because he was off on official business. He paused long enough to make sure that the person at the other end had nothing more to say as well, and then ended the call with his usual farewell message, “Alright then, Goodbye, Brian”

He rolled over and as if like a trained response, hit the button that he always did when he heard that phrase. Apparently it ended something...

Brian’s rocky journey ended twelve hours after it had so innocently begun. He was shattered by it...

CWG 'shame' is fine, but what about daily life?

2010-08-27T18:06:00.012+05:30

The last three months have seen cringe-worthy behaviour from all fields of our beautiful, huge, over-populated, 'developing' country. First the sports bodies involved with the Commonwealth Games, then the beauracracy involved with the sports bodies, and on top of it all, the press involved with all of the above, who outdid each other in claiming the 'first to have unearthed the scam'. Clap clap, congrats to you, you are up for the upcoming Peace Nobel for this monumental achievement. News seems to be the new entertainment - always on, unearthing 'breaking stories' hour after hour involving oil spills, games scams and Deepika Padukone's cat getting stuck up a tree. This arrival of 24x7 media hasn't exactly helped the world I feel, but that's a debate for another post.

So, as I was saying, there has been approximately INR 20,000 crore siphoned off the games so far. I have no clue how to type the new Rupee symbol - a symbol which represents our arrival on the world stage, our economic clout, and in this case, our unending corruption. It's a crying shame that the first widespread use of the new symbol was when those news items about 'Treadmills for INR 10 Lakhs' were splashed all over the pages of one of the above 'we saw it first' media houses. Just goes to show, you can change the symbol, but you can't change the people.

So now, unlike Beijing and later South Africa, the hosting of a games has mostly pulled down any respect India gained over the last 10 years. It's just been a case of the Emperor's New Clothes all along, India Shining, India and China, Neo-liberalization, all other associated bullcrap. And while all the attention has been rightly focussed on this monumental mess up, I have one minor question to anyone who cares to listen - What about the smaller people and the smaller 'somethings' that are given everyday.

Here's a small experiment. Someone please tell me the exact fee, as laid down by the law, for:

Getting a driver's licence from a state-established RTO.
Changing registration/paying a state's road tax (I don't get why the heck Road Tax is a state subject in the first place, but again, I digress)
Getting a passport, including that very famous step of 'police verification'
Getting a birth/marriage certificate.

Rates aside, I have one other question for the list. Why does it take, and is accepted as the norm, for an Income Tax refund to come after 3 years of the year of Assesment? I mean, it's the age of the TDS and NEFT transfer. I should pay my taxes promptly before I even receive my salary, but if I have to get a refund I wait 3 years? Heck, I probably belong to a very small percentage of our Billion+ sweethearts who even pay the friggin tax at source. The least that can be done is settle my accounts at the end of every fiscal.

I guess my point is that unless we stop this 'thousand for this saaar', 'chief officer will also have to be satisfied saaar', 'it will take 3 months to get this signed, but I know a way it can be done quicker saaar' habit of ours in our daily life, practiced by a million people every day, there's no point losing sleep over all those crores that went down a few very fat pockets in Delhi. Between us, India's famed New Middle Class, would've hit the total amount of the scam over the course of barely 4 years of our lives. We really can't complain about someone thinking they can get away with doing it over 4 weeks.

Sigh.

Another bag - and a very strange look

2010-06-14T11:19:00.010+05:30

In keeping with the usual Indian habit of not practicing what we preach, I almost stepped out yesterday to buy my breakfast items without a bag. Thankfully I was reminded of my preaching by my very alert roommate and I succesfully stepped out with what has now become my shopping cover (a plastic bag admittedly, but it is reuse!)

Note, this shop is different from the one in my previous post. It's smaller, family-run and less crowded than the retail chain. So with all required items purchased, I stepped up to the counter again. Again, just as the items were about to be bagged, I pulled out my own bag and presented it to the man. The look that I got from him at that moment was somewhere between what E.T got when it first landed on earth and the look that George.W.Bush has got throughout the time he has been on earth. In fact, if I weren't a regular customer, it seemed pretty sure he was going to label me crazy and chase me out of the shop.

If you're the logical type, it is an irrational act on many levels. I am saving them one bag, irrespective of how miniscule that cos saving is. This shop did not have any branding on its bag anyway, and neither did the bag that I took. Hence there is no marketing loss. And yet, from an anthropological perspective, it was a perfectly natural thing to do. It is called inertia. Or 'status quo' bias. I ticked him off so much simply by breaking his process of grabbing a fresh plastic bag from his stack, blowing it open, dumping the things inside... the whole line. I broke the process, with an 'unnatural' act, and hence it became extra effort for the person.

Any object at rest or motion will continue to remain in rest or motion unless acted upon by an external force...

I saved one plastic bag today

2010-06-07T22:12:00.003+05:30

Every time I go to a retailer, I get the mandatory plastic bag in which to put the items I have purchased. This happens repetitively, the bag is in use for barely 20 minutes (walking back home for a maximum of 1km) and they all pile up in one shelf in my cupboard one after another. Hence, they are also annoying.

Today, when I had to buy a bunch of household essentials from the friendly neighbourhood retailer, this time I took my own bag. Or rather, a bag I'd got from the same friendly neighbourhood retailer just three days ago. When I reached the head of the counter and the cashier reached for the bag, I whipped out my white used bag from my pocket in my best Clint Eastwood impression. The man at the till looked at me quizzically, but there's of course no reason for him to reject my wish to use my own bag. And he duly filled 'er up and sent me on my way. The bag held for the 20 minute walk, got emptied in my house and went back into the shelf.

It isn't exactly an earth-saving act. It's one plastic bag less and that too for a very selfish reason of reducing the clutter in my cupboard. But if it has served the purpose it was meant to serve just as well as a new bag, and if I can use the same bag over at least 10 purchases, that's 9 less plastic bags in landfills like these:

Of course, I am now naturally inclined to get holier-then-thou and ask you to think about how much lesser bags there would be if each of us reduced 9 plastic bags from being used. Or use fancy terms like BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) and expound upon the merits of doing that as well. Or tell you how we can even put that 1 bag out of use if we use a jute bag. However, I'll resist all those inclinations now. All that's for later. This post is only about what I did. And what I did was save one plastic bag today.

So what did you do today?

The UID Project

2010-05-08T18:31:00.005+05:30

Dear Mr. Nilekani,

Firstly, let me congratulate you for stepping back from the corporate world and consenting to take upon yourself the onerous task of accounting for every single one of our 1.3 Billion and growing population. As a 'giving back' step to society, it is very commendable and it also helps that you've picked what is definitely an area of expertise to give back in. Hopefully you can bring all of your expertise and know-how gained in the corporate world and see this project to completion successfully.

I remember when the UID project was announced and you were given special cabinet rank to execute it. I remember your interview over phone with Shereen Bahn on CNBC, not one on my regular-channels list admittedly. After that of course the project has been going on, as always happens with projects of this size and magnitude, at its own pace and time. And cost. So why am I suddenly reminded about this now?

The reason is because today, I got Uniquely IDed. A census officer came over to our place today as part of the National 2010 census, and also to collect details for the UID. And the whole experience left me with a lot of headaches about the management of the project, which I'm sure have crossed your mind as well and you are looking to solve. Still, as a concerned citizen, just my two penny worth of thoughts in what will finally give the Social Security number equivalent to all of us in this country.

Firstly, there are three of us living in a shared apartment - an undeniable feature of almost every house in a radius of 5kms from where I live. I'm sure the same is the case with houses in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and every other city in this country. Most of us are temporary residents there with permanent addresses all given differently. In such a situation, is there going to be an effort to cross-reference people scattered over the country to the actual households they belong to? By permanent address or something would be the way to go I'd think?

The second issue is with the language. The officer who came around took down our names in the regional language. I'm sure there is going to be a lot of Lost in Translation occurring when these names are transliterated back into English for the UID. And I don't want any issues when the spelling on my UID does not match the spelling on my passport because someone made a typo at the data entry point.

Also I would apparently receive my UID from the local Corporation, 6 months down the line. What if I'm not in this Corporation 6 months down the line? And have surrendered my local phone number? It is the only means of contact that the Census officer has for all three of us in this house, since he took my name as 'head of the family' - another concept which cannot apply to shared residences like ours. Anyway yes. I'm now tied down to this city's Corporation for the Identity Proof which is supposedly trans-national and should be provided to ALL citizens of this country.

Those are just some of the issues that I, solely from my point of view, thought about. Expanding my line of thought to the logistics and data collection of the exercise throws up a lot more questions. For example, will the Database be able to cross-reference me and my father as belonging to the same family, though our census happened in different cities? How would it do this, considering the permanent address cannot be a unique key on which databases can be related. The census officer mentioned that he'd come around 5 times to a house. Even allowing that all visits are on weekends, that's about 5 visits over a month. It's quite likely that families are out on month-long vacations. Especially in the summer. Do they just get missed then?

I'm sure there are some issues among these which have been dismissed as inevitable. But there are some points where one wonders, can this not be done better. For example, there's already a huge database of unique Identifications in the form of the PAN card, especially among the salaried class. That's about 250 Million people that have been covered already, and there must be a way to sync that up with the census exercise. For the migrant issue, or the language issue, there's only so much care that can be taking I guess. But the point is, the painstaking and accurate part of the work has to come at this first point of data collection. And I somehow feel there should be a better way to structure this to avoid inaccuracies or double counts.

I guess that's why you're heading the project then, and not me. Because given enough manpower, I'm sure any educated Indian can get the rest of the process after the data collection right. It's to figure out how to get that part right, while ensuring it's not a mammoth time and cost exercise, that your experience comes in I guess. Well, I sure hope you can pull it off.

Regards.

Karthik Call Waiting

2010-03-16T13:27:00.004+05:30

The multiplex-boom in India, with their over-cushioned seats, over-priced popcorn and over-stretched parking lots have led to a genre of made-for-multiplex movies. Movies coming from a distinctly setting, with characters that most people watching the movie recognize immediately as themselves, their cubicle-mate, their next-door neighbour... it's brought Hindi cinema a lot closer to its audience, at least the urban audience. However, it fails to take into account that this audience is also heavily into American/English pop-culture and is not going to appreciate one's recycling of old stories. KCK falls into that category.

A first heads-up for those who haven't watched the movie and haven't read up a synopsis of it anywhere - it's not a sugar-laden love story. Even if that's the impression you got watching Deepika Padukone making the collective male populace go 'Uffff, teri ada' on any of the innumerable music channels. If the friend next to you turns and says 'You didn't tell me you were bringing me to a horror movie', shrug and smile. For those who have read the synopsis and have a vague clue what it is about, it's not a thriller either. It's just confused. Like the protagonist himself.

I will not do a brief synopsis of the movie or anything because it's probably present in a million places. Farhan Akthar is Karthik, doing a role which you immediately think Irrfan Khan with his sleepy Vodafone ad voice would be much better at. Deepika Padukone is hot, and trying her best to justify her presence in the movie. There's a psychiatrist who takes 'stating the obvious' to levels never seen before. And there's a Japanese-made telephone which is quite eerie and is obviously the technological predecessor of later Japanese techno-horrors as seen in The Ring.

Karthik has issues in life (he's going to a psychiatrist, duh). The issues stem from childhood scarring, are made worse by a boss who doesn't have a single polite bone on his body, and the fact that the hottest girl in the office sees right through/over/above him. The last part he can have no complaints about I think, he's lucky there even is a hot girl in his office. But personal feelings aside, that's his life. And the psychiatrist is just no bloody help. Until... drumroll. Or rather, ring tone. It's a voice claiming to be Karthik and he rights everything in Karthik's (the non-phone one) life, within 30 first-half minutes. At this point, you're already thinking 'Ohh, Fight Club. Or Beautiful Mind'.

Obviously, he can't tell people about his phone friend without them calling him Cuckoo. Especially his girlfriend, who has apparently been through too many bad relationships and a cuckoo boyfriend is really the last thing she needs. Confusing, this lassie. She mocks him for being a 'safe guy who would never misbehave with a girl', then she says 'you won't be like all them other guys right?'. Make up your mind darling, do you want safe or sorry? A straight lift of a line from the sitcom Two and a Half Men about how girls:men::dogs:cars doesn't help clarify matters any. So anyway, the lassie says he better get help or else. And eerie phone Karthik simply doesn't like that. So everything he built in the 30-minute first half, he destroys in 30 seconds of the second half.

You'd think all the thoughts in your head about 'already seen this story, already heard this line, already know the ending'would stop at those. But the music director feels the need to make his presence felt as well, and a jarring background score to all of the Karthiks' encounter. Heavily 'inspired' by Clint Mansell, you wonder if that's the best mood you want to set for a poor guy having mental issues. Though again, 'Uff teri ada' is completely worth it all. As a visual experience.

Karthik calling Karthik takes two good 90-minute films and mixes them into a hodgepodge 120-minute one. It could either have been the story of a shy, introverted guy slowly overcoming his fears and all that with an imaginary friend type person. Imaginary friends are ok, they're mostly cute, they're always by the protagonist and they usually disappear when the job's done. Or it could have been the story of a tortured, scarred kid whose scars eventually affect him enough when he grows up to start taking apart his life. The one good thing probably was the conscious effort to leave no loose ends, as the 'summary' scene shows how Karthik actually knew everything that he wasn't supposed to know. Fair play there, well worked, at least they didn't make it descend into the realms of the supernatural. If only that effort had been put into a more organized screenplay.

Keeping with the movie's own theme, subconsciously you want to like KCK, appreciate it, applaud it. But consciously, it just comes across as one of those things for which you say 'Well tried. Maybe next time.'

Parallel Universe

2010-03-08T23:16:00.004+05:30

Credits: Prabhav 'N2' Kashyap, who has clearly put a lot of thought into this, and even more clearly, feels quite strongly about it.

After 5 years at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, and two years before it preparing for the JEE, one has to enter the realm of what if and explore how the world would have turned out differently if certain key decisions had been taken differently at key junctures in one's life. The exploration of this parallel universe is necessitated even more by the realization that the 7 years past have done nothing to improve the quality of the 70 years which will follow, nor of the 7 itself which have passed by. Imagine all the Jews turning to Moses and going 'Dude, what promised land?'. Then multiply it a thousand times, throw in the feeling of United doing this to me, add the feeling of the 100s of Millions in our poor country who went and followed hockey just because Priyanka Chopra told them to, and you're still not close to what I'm feeling right now.

Speaking of, and as an aside, anyone notice the distinct correlation between good hockey teams and good football teams in this world cup? They guys who get regularly thrashed are us, Pakistan, South Africa, Canada and New Zealand. Everyone else in this World Cup have had a football team which has reached at least a quarterfinals of the corresponding World Cup in some edition. Maybe not Australia, but those buggers play anything anyway. I mean, our poor boys simply do not have the concept of an off-the-ball run. Or a 'tactical change'. The whole team is built around one trick, and it's called Sandeep Singh. But, we beat Pakistan, and in this country that's all that counts. This is way more blog space to devote to hockey than is required anyway.

On the other hand, imagine if us IITians had foregone that route and gone and done something like Economics at a reputed humanities college. Stephen's was the example used by the proposer of the theory, and Stephens it shall be, that we go with. That would have immediately saved the pre-college 2 years of JEE preparation, and one would have been more in tune with such important things in life as the best movie of the year or the coziest Coffee Day to go to with a girlfriend. In fact, one would have had a girlfriend to make all this happen. Even if not, there is no way three years in Stephen's can pass by barren unless you're a douche of the nth order with as much natural charm as a flea in the back pocket of Quasimodo. And even if you were that character, by the sheer law of averages, you have at least visually encountered more members of the female species than your current life path which takes you from a guy-infested school to guy-infested JEE class to IIT (which needs no adjectives) to similarly-guy-infested engineering jobs where you meet people who already know all your classmates from each of the above three institutions. Cos we're like that, us engineering types.

Just to show this is not a sexually-driven rant, I shall further back up my theory with other empirical and statistical evidence. Such an economics course would have ended in 3 years, making one pass out at a good enough time in history where Lehmann has still not gone "What the" and the rest of the world has still not gone "What the f*******k". Two more years of cash-earning, work-experience-adding, still-maintaining-contacts-from-Stephen's life right there. And the rest of the chaps in your life will not be all talking the same language of client calls, chargeable hours, cost efficiencies and "onsite" visits. Then of course, the whole world would have gone belly up, but at least you had two years to work towards it. And got some along the way.

By this point in one's career, one's educational pedigree has mostly been ignored anyway, so it doesn't matter where you passed out from as a fresh, eager, young graduate, full of hope and excitement about the world ahead and waiting to make one's own mark in it. 2 years down, there remains nothing but a shell of all this, so how does it matter what existed within that shell two years before. We're at one place now, we would've been at the same place two years earlier, and probably with the whole world in general a bit more cheerful too. Spreading the joy and the likes.

MLIA. A lot more sensible acronym than over-hyped crap like MNIK, with a 45 year-old trying to play the sequel to Taare Zameen Par. MLIA, which I didn't know either, apparently stands for My Life Is Average. How true. Sudden strong moment of empathy with Kevin Spacey from American Beauty. It was like Achilles said, or rather asked. About history remembering him after the Trojan War. But I think it's more like how good friend Gilmour said - Would you exchange, a walk on part in the war, for the lead role in a cage.

For what we do in life, echoes in eternity.

F.Art

2010-02-20T16:16:00.003+05:30

Have I already put this one up before? Just thought the blog could do with a revival. So. Revive, oh blog!

Kevin was distraught. The culmination of all his years as a student of Fine Arts was this one piece. It combined the latest in contemporary art with the incredible world of science. It was a clash of colour and monochrome, of order and entropy, of geometry and art, of science and religion. It was a representation of the miniature world of incomprehensible particles found within an atom. And yet his professor had been completely dismissive about it. He called it ‘The Blow-Up’. His professor had called it a blow-off.

And so it happened that he was standing on the sidewalk next to his professor’s office, with his heart, soul, morale – everything except his canvas – torn to shreds. It was Saturday evening, and quite a few people had already spent the better part of the day in the bar. One such straggler walked up to Kevin. He was pretty unstable, and had yet another unfinished beer in his hand. He peered curiously, screwing his eyes up and bending forward – first at the painting, then at Kevin, and back at the painting. Kevin opened his mouth to tell him to buzz off, but the drunk beat him to it. Not to say anything though. In one convulsive twitch of his body and one retching motion, the man vomited his lunch right on to the center of The Blow-Up. After a couple of more moments doubled up, he wiped his mouth, straightened, smiled at Kevin and walked away.

Kevin stared at his canvass in horror. His mind went numb as he evaluated the artistic homicide that had just taken place. All of his quarks, mesons and neutrinos were now mixed with half-digested spaghetti and unidentifiable gravy. His thoughts were simply unable to process anything. It was a miracle that he thought he heard something at all, through the otherwise-deafening silence that filled his head. There was that voice again, going, “… that shows innovation”.

He spun around. It was his professor, on his way home. As Kevin stared back in reply, his professor continued, “Now it looks more natural, the colour scheme. Nature doesn’t operate in Technicolor you know. And the uneven texture – lovely touch.” He patted Kevin lightly on the back, “I always knew you had it in you. You just had to get it out, somehow.”

Well, I didn’t get it out, but someone else sure did, thought Kevin. “Thank You Sir”, he mumbled, still dazed by the conflicting emotions swirling through his mind, to the disappearing back of his professor.

As they say, Beauty lies in the eyes of the Beer Holder. Or rather, stomachs.

Kevin renamed his painting “The Throw-Up”.

The Umpire Strikes Back

2009-12-12T02:12:00.005+05:30

I think it's only fair that after my last post on this comatose, nearly dead blog, I should come back to the same topic for its revival. Oh yes, this is the un-end, my only friend, the un-end. That's the kind of song The Doors would've come up with if they had ODed on Caffeine, and not the other lovely, life-giving substances that they ODed on. Now that the mandatory pop-culture referencing is done, let's get down to why this blog has been dead for so long, and why this is the most appropriate moment in all of time and space when, as Jhumpa Lahiri would've described in her 'Indian' books aimed at a western audience, all the celestial bodies aligned perfectly for the astrologer to confirm that this is the best time for Ashima, I mean, Anand to restart his blog.

If you remember, and it's perfectly understandable if you don't, my last post here was about the pros and cons of this wonderful new city that I've just moved into, in comparison with the wonderful old city that I'd just left behind. Yes, Hyderabad was my inspiration, my new mistress, my new flush of love and all that. Alas, and also, Hyderabad is now a new state capital. Or at least almost is. Caught as we are in the throes of confusion, about who the 'Gults' will be now, and whether the non-Telengana part will still be called Andhra at all, we have all completely missed the bigger picture.

For the fact of the matter is, there are much deeper and profound factors behind all these agitations for a separate state, if only we look closely enough. So why did all the people involved in this do all that they did?

It was a completely noble cause right from the beginning. We all know how China will soon catch up with the US, it's economy will outpace it and all such things. Not to be left behind, our protestors wanted India also to catch up with the US, and get to 50 states as soon as we could. The effects are already to be seen. However, there seems to be a lack of consensus on the matter as there is an overlap between two new proposed territories themselves. To explain it in Pineapple Express terms, that will be the product of baby-fucking.
It was unfair of some groups in Maharashtra to rewrite the history textbooks alone to suit their purpose. That would leave the geography textbooks feeling very unwanted indeed. Hence, this new method, to increase the number of subdivisions under the 'States and Capitals' chapter and make the NCERT Geography book as unrecognizable as its historical counterpart.
It will give our good friend the traffic constable a lot more papers to ask for before getting to the 'can you put seven' part. 'Do you have papers for the time till it was Andhra? Then do you have papers from when it was not? Do you have NOC for the old number plate? When'll you get the new number plate? Who's our new Chief Minister? What's our Capital now? Can you put seven?'
It'll increase the IPL franchisee teams massively, and that's always good for the economy right? What's good for Modi, Preity and SRK has to be good for the rest of the 1.32 Billion as well. So now we'll get Gorkhaland Gunners (sorry Arsenal boys) and Telengana Transformers (it's the only natural extension from Chargers). Which will be owned by Megan Fox. Sigh.

As in any cause-effect analysis, once you've laid out the cause in such bare terms, it is only fair that you figure out the effects of the action as well, and they are as well-intentioned, if not more.

It's now a fundamental right to demand your own state after 7 days on a hunger strike (strict 5-day week, 9 to 6 striking hours only). However, the constitution rewriters are still trying to figure out how to reconcile this with the Right to Food Security Act.
States will now be like amoeba. Wherever you move, the 100-km radius around that part will be your state. This dynamic border concept is well suited to our fast-changing, ever-shrinking, global-village, other-hyphenated-words world. Also, it takes regionalism out of the picture. You can't be very regionalistic if your region keeps changing with every migrant labourer who just walked into your state. No, his state. No, your state.
All those people who want to have none of this nonsense can declare themselves to be Union Territories. They'll get tax-free alcohol and people from the neighbouring states will visit them to smuggle out their tax-free alcohol. However, our old friend, the constable will be alert to this fact and will get you at the dynamic border to bury you under his statehood questions. Till you slip him 2 of the bottles, or 30% of total number of bottles. Whichever is higher.
People like me will get their heads thoroughly muddled like this and spontaneously combust. Which will be taken as a self-immolation protest, and I will be granted my own, spanking new state. Muhahahahahaha...

Ok yeah, that's it. Welcome back!

Always On

2009-08-20T23:53:00.001+05:30

Yet our relentless toggle between what we are living and what we are communicating is now seemingly inescapable

Welcome to the Always-On age.

Namma Jekyll and Mr. Hyd

2009-08-08T21:37:00.004+05:30

More than a month into a new city, I believe I'm qualified enough to hold forth on the merits and demerits of one with respect to the other. For those of you who have not been religiously following my Facebook updates, congrats. There's nothing going on there. But just to clarify for the reader from Glasgow who arrived here through a Google Search for my cleverly popularly-titled blog, and is still reading this, the "new city" in reference is Hyderabad, India. The old city is namma Chennai. Right, on with it then.

Hyd

1. Weather - You knew it was coming, and you wouldn't grudge it. There is no concept of sweat in this city. Which leads to various other benefits such as women retaining their makeup for longer, men not resembling Ussain Bolt and his 9.69 second-effort after a 5-minute walk and most important of all, a distinct lack of frayed nerves. I think it's pretty evident that the use of Autokaaran vocabulary is directly proportional to the amount of sweat running down your brow, arms and various other... um... parts.

2. Autokaaran - As already mentioned, their vocabulary is distinctly curtailed here. That apart, I think this is the only city with the most highly regulated auto system, at least my part of the city. Place A to Place B is 5 to 10 bucks. You will share the auto with 5 other complete strangers. If there's a lady waving the auto down, you go and sit in front with the driver (my arse woman's equality). Autos have specific routes after which they don't operate (which is admittedly a pain in some wee hours when an auto steadfastedly turns you down irrespective of the money offered). Overall, you don't have to talk to the auto guy. No 'petrol velai saaar' or 'one-way saaaar' or '150. No 70. enna saaaar' bargains.

3. Places - This is one question which I had absolutely no clue to in Chennai - 'So where all do we go in Chennai?' Um... the beach? Hyd is one of those Delhi-type places where the Mughals built and left stuff behind. And then of course Chandrababu Naidu built and left stuff behind. So you can go to Charminar, or Hussain Sagar (and Eat Street right beside) or iMax-Central-GVK etc type things. All of which in Chennai terms would be Citi Centre or... or... the other beach.

Chennai

1. Power! - No, not the DMK-holds-Congress-hostage type. Though I think that is a factor in Chennai's pretty darn amazing electricity situation. You will appreciate Neyveli and Koodangulam and those thousands of windmills between Tuticorin and Thanjavur only when you face 3 hours of compulsory load-shedding every day. Especially on Saturdays. To heck with greenhouse emissions, let's burn the lignite I say!

2. Traffic - Yes. Chennai's among the better cities in managing its road traffic. Yes, our Mama has more control over what's going on on his road than the Hyderabad Mama. Yes, our boys stop at red lights. Here, you go on Green, you go on Orange, you slow down and then speed right back up on Red. The Mama doesn't even bother with the moving vehicles. His collection for the day comes from the odd vehicle which mistakenly stops at a red signal. Which is why no one stops in the first place. See the whole vicious cycle thing? The rains don't help the roads either. If there are roads in the first place. Road eh illa tax kaekkarael indhango...

3. Foooood - You can take your iMax and Central and McDonald's and Subways and KFCs and stick it all up your collective arses. Where the heck is my Saravana Bhavan and Sangeetha and Ananda Bhavan? Bloody nonsense, these places have branches in Muscat and Timbuktoo and all, and not in Hyd? Hyd people can't make Dosa to save their lives. Though, to give credit where it's due, they can make Sambhar to save their life and your life and mine and everyone's up until 2050.

So that's the way it stands. As those famous words go- you win some, you lose some.

GMail Fail

2009-07-24T20:50:00.005+05:30

Have I or have I not found my first Fail?

Unfair

2009-07-19T18:23:00.007+05:30

I think it's unfair that as we near peak oil, increased environmental awareness, and a general aversion to what are fondly called Supercars, this has to come out.

Not to mention my complete economic inability to do anything about it. Oh well, this too shall pass.

[Source: Wired]

Book Couples

2009-04-10T16:42:00.010+05:30

Books that would result from unlikely marriages of unlikely authors.

1. How Atlas stopped shrugging, gave up and got a life - Ayn Rand-Vishwanathan

Synopsis: A group of entrepreneurs get fed up with their wives sleeping around with soccer stars. They decide enough is enough and go off to a mountain retreat to learn Shaolin Soccer, along with other arts of getting a 'life'. In the process they decide to plagiarize from their peers and this becomes an accepted habit. Eventually they learn the truth that could shake the very world they're holding up... That John Galt is a soccer star too!

2. Lord of Small Rings - J.R.R.R. The last R stands for Roy

Synopsis: Two fraternal twins set out on the journey of their lives to give back a ring to their local jeweller's as the gold had become too tarnished. On the way they encounter backwaters, over-booked trains, huge armies of orcs and a generally annoying creature which promises to pawn the gold off for much more than its worth. 24 years later they reunite (yeah they got separated somewhere in the middle) and... well, something happens.

3. Fight Point Someone - Chetan Palahniuk

Synopsis: A B-school grad writes about his undergraduate life, which infuriates quite a lot of people. These people find that the only outlet to their anger is to start an underground club, where they fight a mannequin similar to the one in the picture. Eventually, all the people realize they're only fighting themselves, for without them, the mannequin doesn't exist. However, this comes a little too late, leaving the face on the mannequin completely disfigured, landing him in hospital. It also leads to a sequel, titled...

4. The Catch-22 Mistakes of My Life - Chetan Heller

Synopsis: After landing up in hospital, the writer goes through a phase where he rambles incoherently and writes books named similar to the above. Both being the same thing. However, the rest of the people in the hospital turn out to be uncontrollably funny. Seeing this, the writer gets a bright idea and plots his escape citing various excuses, including lunacy. The doctors agree and let him go, leading to the book's eponymous mistake. Also leading to another sequel...

5. Midnight's Children at the Call Center - Chetan Rushdie

Synopsis: You get the drift...

England United

2009-04-02T18:46:00.008+05:30

Last weekend was what the Barclays Premier League politely calls 'The International Break'. It's one of those things in the season which no one really cares about, but everyone pretends to understand its importance and the mood attains a grave sense of somberness. It is another matter that I couldn't really care if England beats Ukraine or Poland absolutely mothers San Marino and such. Indeed, it'll be grossly unpatriotic of me to sit up and cheer for our former colonists without compunction. Where is my nationalism, where is my sense of duty to my country, where is my sense of over-excitement over Rahman winning the Oscars...

Though I am now a much mellowed man from the days I used to do this, I still found this weekend to be particularly excruciating. I will credit much of the mellowing to the fact that United has won the League for the past 2 years, the Champs League last year (with Mr. Chelsea 'slipping' on the final spot kick, oh such ecstasy) and already won two trophies this year. Of course, the Club World Cup is more along the lines of those 'movie stars vs industrialists' type games that Indians play now and then. All that however, only leads to heightened expectations from the team that a commentator described perfectly in a game last month - "They're up against the Carling Cup champions, the Champions of England, the Champions of Europe and in fact, the Champions of the World! Tough task."

The reason this weekend was the worst, is because it's been almost a month now since I've seen United win. One month! And adding to the irony is the fact that this was the match against the same opposition, in the same venue, where the shock of the season happened 2 weeks ago. 2 goals down, 2 men down against a mid-table opposition in the same venue where the FA Cup encounter produced a training-ground type 4-0 demolition. Thank God for Sony Pix and its quite random telecasting of the FA Cup (Yes, the same Sony Pix of the Legally Blonde marathon fame. Talk about diversifying).

Teams lose, of course, to other good teams. The 1-4 loss to Liverpool, while gut-wrenching, deserved the feeling 'respect' at the end of it all. Torres is a madman, and Gerrard must be on steroids, there is no way he can add 5 yards of pace to his game over half a season. But still, it's Liverpool. Fair enough. But Fulham??? Their home ground is designed for the 60s, they have a barely functional unit called a team and I don't even know how many managers they've changed in the last couple of seasons. Really, it's just not done.

On top of it all, it's not even that the game coming up is a walk in the park against some Mylapore Mosquitos FC or something, but against Aston Villa. Though on current form, it could be the same.

Actually on current form it would be BSC Young Boys vs Mylapore Mosquitos FC.

And you know that thing where when things go bad, they keep going bad as much as possible? I will now prove that statement conclusively and lay all claims to the contrary to rest, once and for all! For what follows, is the list of goal-scorers over the afore-mentioned 'International Break', for their respective countries of course. And in Europe.

Zoltan Gera - Fulham. The 2 in the 2-0 at the 1960s stadium I mentioned before.
Richard Dunne - Manchester City. That's all. Nothing else.
Michael Ballack (2) - Chelsea. Well actually, Chelski.
John Terry - Chelsea. Who finally got some others in the team who are good.
Brainslav Ivanovic - Chelsea. From Lokomotiv Moscow. Maybe Roman just liked him.
Alexander Hleb - Barcelona. Apparently he's not on Arsenal's injured list anymore.
Eduardo Da Silva - Arsenal. And 'He's waaalllkiingg!!!'
Robin van Persie - Arsenal. And 'He's scoooriinngggg!!!'
Roman Pavlyuchenko - Tottenham. Well, at least he scored for the country.
Robbie Keane - Tottenham. No, Liverpool. No, Tottenham!
Xabi Alonso
Alberto Riera - What is this, Liverpool is Team of the Month or something?
Dirk Kuyt (2)

There's a consolation of course- Martin Skrtel of the above-mentioned Team of the Month putting the ball into his own net. Notice the conspicous absence of any name with a United next to it in the above list. And thusly, my statement stands hence, bloody, proved!

Starting from Zuk

2009-03-24T16:52:00.004+05:30

"I'm running towards a cliff, running really hard. I can see it. There's a blood river flowing beneath. So I'm running towards it and... Shit!"

"What, you fell in?"

"You tripped me man"

"I tripped you? Like, put my foot out and tripped you?"

"No... No, not exactly. You put your hand out across my neck, like a clothesline. Then I fell in and starting swimming and going with the flow..."

"If I put my hand out across your neck, how are you still swimming? Wouldn't you be unconscious or something?"

"No... your hand just cut my neck. So now it's bleeding. That's why it's a blood river, see? You've done this to a lot of other people before."

"Oh.... good funda."

"Heck, wolves man! There are wolves waiting on the shore, on the other shore. And now, sharks!"
* * * *

I get the feeling I'm beginning to get repetitive, you know, using the same thing with different people. I use the same coincidences with one person and then the other, and I always wonder when it will all catch up with me. Cos you know, I always feel like they're trying to test me, that between them they find out about the recycling. That's why I always think twice before replying, as it happened the other day, remember? That felt pretty scarily like a test.

* * * *
You know how he was to be cast even originally right? But then he came and the audition went so badly, so flatly, that he had no choice but to look for alternatives. But then he realized that this was a movie he simply had to do, so he came back for another audition, and did this. That's it, role was his. Then he wanted Madsen to do Vincent Vega. But Madsen was like, if we keep doing this same sort of movies with the same sort of roles, we'll get stereotyped. And we don't want that, not Tarantino to get stereotyped. So he asked him to suggest someone for the role, and he said "Travolta".

Update:

Credits: The Doors, David Lynch, Dev D and Dayman ;)

Millineer

2009-02-19T22:20:00.002+05:30

No, the title is not a very-clever nod to the two most popular ways by which alcohol is referred to in Tamil. Milli (which is more of a measure, but clearly, one does not drink milk in millis. Ask Dhoni). And neer. Which means water. Which means thanni. You get the idea.

For the more discerning amongst you, the reference to a recently-release, massively-overrated movie would have been inescapable. And funnily enough my post on Overrated Things is just the previous post on this blog (that is to say, I thought I had written reams and reams of unimaginably funny prose after that, that this post would have gone deep into the December archives. It is still in the December archives. It's the only one there. There isn't even a January archive). Coming back to the point, I only regret that I couldn't title that post Slumdog Millionaire. Would have been so much more appropriate.

I will not talk about the sudden English-knowledge gaining of the slumdogs. I will not talk about the Chaiwala answering Call Centre calls (now you see why there's all those complaints about foreign callers being rude to our poor hard-working call centre people? Would you like the tea boy to clarify what the 2.03% additional charge on your credit-card bill is?). I will not talk about a random love story which starts when the kids are 5 (Oh pleeeease!!). I will not talk about the total lack of premise of the host wanting to trip up the upstart (It's not even his bloody money!) or his downright rudeness. I will not talk about the sacrilege about a movie with Anil Kapoor being ranked above A Clockwork Orange (and so many others). On top of it all, I will not talk about the Danny Boyle level-drop (Yes, today is my say-everything-in-brackets day. And hyphens)

I will talk about the background score. Quite lifting and racy, it's the one part of the film which deserves all the noise surrounding it (pun totally unintended). I will talk about the screenplay, because it takes quite an effort to stitch together what is basically a non-existent story into some sort of coherence. Though the premise that is provided for why he knows some of the answers is really quite well-tried (also known as 'acha koshish' in Tamil). I will talk about the kids, and their awesome bonding, after whose exit, you really can close your eyes and just tap your feet to the music alone. I will talk about... gosh, I really am out of other things worth mentioning.

It's not like I have an inherent problem with movies signifying 'hope' and 'spirit' and all that. I like movies with spirit. Like, Devadas, so much spirit in that (reference to title, my, I'm on a roll). It's just so crass an attempt to reach out to the 1.1-Billion market that India is in these times of recession . Once this becomes the basic idea, there simply had to be so much artificiality to just make it happen - an English film about India. There's no reason the movie can't be set in any of the Latin American countries and be called Millonario del tugurioperro. Spanish is quite popular in the US as well. For that matter, if it's supposed to be a stretched-reality movie, for those who don't want to call it fantasy, might as well have made an animated version of it. and released it with a PG rating. At least that way we're spared Dev Patel and Anil Kapoor staring at each other confused about who the villain is and who the hero.

You can see how the book would be nice (haven't read it though). The whole movie is made that way, flipping through page after page. That's ok in a book, the perceived screenplay in your head is the only screenplay. A movie with so much of the 'real deal' words used... really?

I think I would've actually liked the movie if it weren't for all this hype.

As it turns out, I think the only Indian movie that Danny Boyle can feel proud of as of now is Dev D. What. A. Totally. Unapologetic. Movie. Now that, is showing something no one knows, in a totally new, slightly psychedelic, new light. Since this is a post about Millineer, there shall be no further mention of Dev D. But, you know, it's brave. Absolutely brave. Too bad there's only a 'Special Thanks to Danny Boyle' in that. The man who made Trainspotting would've been proud of it. The man who sold out to make Slumdog, maybe not.

Overrated things

2008-12-04T12:30:00.000+05:30

1. Life
2. Hope
3. Fairness
4. Derek Jeter
5. IIT-Madras
6. The World
7. Rear Window
8. Desire
9. Capability
10. Chetan Bhagat

This is a dynamic list. All additions within realms of reasonable accuracy shall be considered.

We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your interest. Have a nice day.

Impropriety

2008-11-01T15:54:00.000+05:30

The Beti* and the Babe
(Adapted from ye olde fairy tale, The Beauty and the Beast)

Once upon a time, since well before there were GTalk and Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, Flickr, Hi5, WAYN, LinkedIn (let’s call them Snow White and the Seven Fads), people got together in much more social ways than any of the current social networking sites promise to. It was pure and simple and quite efficient as it were. Since it necessitated that there be personal, face-to-face interactions, and that awareness of proximity and hence comfort be developed over a specific period of time, it ensured that all people involved in the social gatherings which eventually led to relationships of some sort being developed, knew beforehand what the score was. To cut a long story short, if both Adam and Eve hadn’t been hot, we would not be here.

But, with the advent of Snow White and the Seven Fads, it is now no longer paramount that the above conditions be met. This is markedly noticeable in the kind of interaction between opposite sexes, especially among the age group of 16-24, the period when all of the human species undergoes what is commonly known as Coupling. This background having been provided, we are now able to introduce the protagonists of our tale- the Beti* and even more importantly, the Babe.

The Beti, by very nature of his being, shouldn’t be able to occupy too much space by means of a description. And yet, in the classic manner of scientific paradoxes, where emptiness usually gets the most attention (Black Holes, Large Hadron Colliders, pretty girls’ heads**), so too shall we devote considerable time and effort into describing the Beti. Basically, every sentence begins with a Basically. But, basically, the Beti is that boy-next-door-but-you-wish-were-million-doors-away type you meet (or just encounter) who makes you realize why the world is so screwed up. Ideally, he wouldn’t be there, wasting the resources that would feed other poor families. But he very much is there, with his short shirt, faded jeans, decidedly tawdry sunglasses and pink sneakers. Sometimes the sneakers are brown, but that’s usually because it’s been raining heavily for the past week and the Beti has to ride through puddles at 60kmph, on his silencer-removed Pulsar. Or Gladiator or Karizma or Apache.

The Beti is someone you’d normally associate with the “Hiiii h r u?????” scraps on one of the seven fads mentioned above. These, it turns out, are not random shots thrown at the world but actually enquiries of well-being. Most of the times, the Betis have prodigiously long contact lists, developed carefully from school, college, classes at Alliance Francais (due apologies to those who actually went there to learn French) and general friends-of-friends and all such other six degrees of separation meetings. While most others with other things to pursue in life, wouldn’t be able to keep track of all the 473 friends gained from such experiences, the Beti, to his credit, does. (This is all the credit I’m going to give him, so there!). Eventually, all other conditions remaining favourable, one of the 473 friends (preferably one from the opposite sex) becomes interested enough in the Beti that they consent to find time to share a cup of a suitable beverage, depending on the average ages involved. This one interested being, is what has been referred to in the title, as The Babe.

The Babe is... well... a babe. All else is irrelevant.

And thus it is, while sharing this suitable beverage in a suitably public spot in the glare of so many other on-lookers, that the title of the fable becomes self-evident. As all passersby notice the distinct lack of a match of any kind between the two people sitting together, as the disharmony of the whole arrangement jars in one’s ear even in the quietest of places, there is only one constant though running through all their heads- “How did a Beti like him get something like that!”**

Well you know what they say, the World, isn’t fair.

*Beti – Short for Beti Ch*** (appropriate Hindi word that rhymes with clothe)
**Women’s Groups needn’t bother suing me. This girl, she took my heart and she took my money. So in a sense, you’ve already won.

Life

2008-10-17T22:33:00.000+05:30

Anticipation. Balls. Crocin. Down. Esoteric. Fever. Ganga. Headache. iGoogle. Jabber. Klingon. Late. Mukka. Naaka. Oomph. Pretension. Quiz. Randomness. Strikeout. Trouble. Undie. Vamos. Washout. Xone. Yorker. Zyzzyva.

Youngboy

2008-10-01T14:36:00.000+05:30

(Note: Bonus Points for cracking the funda of the title ;) )

As he looked around the bar, he felt a glow of satisfaction was over him. This moment alone, was worth all of the hardships, the nights of frustration and the scores and scores of wasted test‐tubes and DNA samples. This moment, where social gatherings were once again populated by the young and the restless. Just like it had always been, till around 200 years ago, when suddenly the population pyramid began to completely invert itself. He thought about the weird chain of events that his life had been.

Birth control and increased life expectancy had come together with wholly unexpected consequences, and now there were just not enough young people in the world, and too many old ones. And the world was worried. The response was swift, and quite unnatural. The world’s governments got together and started a research station where they brought together ‘representative specimens’ of all the ‘diverse’ people from the world, to use all the politically correct terms. He had been one such chosen specimen, taken from his home when he had been 2. Or so the records he had been shown claimed, he had no memory of anything of course. Millennia of human evolution still hadn’t figured out a way to make the brain remember things from its first 2 years of existence. The important‐looking people at the research station had then proceeded to conduct a battery of tests on them, in an effort to separate the elusive ‘youth’ gene. The idea therefore was simple. Make all the old people younger.

All the nights of frustration, the scores of wasted test‐tubes and DNA samples later, the important-looking people proclaimed importantly, that they had it. People could now retain their youth forever, eternally, indefinitely. The pill would not mess with their aging process itself, but their vitality and appearance would be restored to that of a 25‐year old. Everyone agreed that this was the age that could be best described as the ‘prime of the youth’. And he had finally been released from the research station, along with the rest of the ‘representative specimens’. They were thanked profusely for their role in saving the world, in their selfless submission to all sorts of invasive procedures and characterization techniques. For having gone through the program to the end, with courage, even as they watched half the people they had grown up with in the station die around them from various effects of radiation, gene mutation and psychoanalyses. They were given a new start to life, set up in the biggest cities from their respective parts of the world, large house, high‐paying job, the works. And then, just as they were about to leave their home of the past 25 years, the most important-looking person had come up to them gravely and said ‘And remember, this research station never existed’.

Sure, it never existed, he thought to himself. He really had no complaints about the one year of his life after that. They really had taken care of him as they had promised. He didn’t especially feel for lost childhoods and missing the joy of growing up and all such. He lived for the moment, and this current moment was looking very promising indeed, with the girl smiling at him from across the bar. He finished his drink and started towards her, preparing the smile of his that just always worked.

As they were putting their dresses back on in his room, he had an uneasy feeling in his stomach about the past hour. It was not that the girl was familiar, he got that feeling with almost every girl, and he put it down to his growing up in a secluded environment. It was something else, something more involved than her, it was more about them. It was as if their intimacy was strained, was held up by something else that had happened before. And yet, nothing had happened before, he was sure of it. If there was one thing he was good at, it was remembering the faces of the ladies who had been in his room. And she most definitely hadn’t.

“Hey”, he called out to her, just as she was preparing to leave, “I didn’t quite catch your name.”

“Anna”, she smiled back, “Anna Chrystoweilen, and yours?”

He felt like he had been kicked in the gut. His head swam, as she faded in and out of his vision alternately. His stomach went for a toss, and he clutched at it involuntarily. He held on to the side of the bed to steady himself. He looked up at her; she was still smiling, looking enquiringly at him, with a hint of concern on her face. Maybe she’d noticed the marked change in him, the colour draining from his face. He hurriedly tried to regain composure, or as much of it as he could. He managed a weak smile and whispered “Philip”.

“That’s a nice name”, she said as she walked towards the door. She stopped at the door and looked back, a wistful look on her face, and for a moment the wonder pill or the youth pill or whatever it was they were calling it, lost all its effect, and she looked all of the 50 years she was. “That was the name of my son before...”, she shook her head, closing the door behind her.

He collapsed on to the floor, retching, a mixture of tears and saliva flowing down his face. No air would go in, as hard as he tried, and his heart was hammering away like it was putting in one last mighty effort before giving away. He punched the floor in front of him till his knuckles bled, and one of them showed the white of the bones. Blinding flashes of memory seared his brain, from his time at the station. He remembered the record, the same record where he’d seen he’d been admitted when he’d been two years old‐

Admitted: 20 December, 2235; Age: 2 Years; Name: Philip Chrystoweilen

Fooled by Randomness

2008-09-09T18:10:00.000+05:30

While the plagiarism of the title from this could have been avoided, it's the discussion about this book that lead to this post in the first place, and so it's only fair that there's a reference to it. The book itself is a take on how chance plays a role in almost all aspects around us, or to put in Douglas Adamsian terms how chance has a big part in The Life, Universe and Everything. And that's quite true, if you think about it.

Life, by its very structure, can never be in equilibrium. By Life, I mean,the whole bloody large piece of jigsaw puzzle that the roughly 6.3 billion people in this world are attempting to solve(from here on, Life, with a capital L shall refer to this macro-state, while life shall refer to the thing that an IITian doesn't have). In purely Engineering terms, when there's equilibrium achieved, all the components are in their most 'satisfied' state and are not going to (or even want to) move to any other position. Now, in Life, if there was a force that pushed everyone towards this ideal point, and it was doing its job perfectly then at some point of time t in the Universe's existence, Life would have equilibrated. This raises the question, what next. What happens at all times t+, if at t, everyone has achieved what they wanted to achieve. This is where Chance comes in. Or to stick to engineering, Chaos. Or Randomness.

Since Life itself is made up of each of the single lives, each of these lives has the potential to disrupt entirely, the overall design that is Life. Even if each person's life is tending towards its own micro-ideality, the ideality may not be what that person set out to achieve in the first place. This might be a bit of a ramble, but imagine you could break down each of your achievements into its smallest logical unit. For every pragmatist out there who believes in 'My life is what I make of it 'or 'There's no such thing as Lady Luck, I've never been good with ladies anyway', it's fairly simple to show that there was at least one point in their path of life where whatever happened was not a planned act of the person in question. Anywhere there is a question of choice, there's a bit of chance involved, as no amount of logical rationalizing can ever pick a 'better' choice, at least between two near-similar options. And every life always has its moments of picking between choices. And every life then follows the path that such a choice leads to. And thus every life, at its smallest opening step, is adulterated by chance.

Which then leads to the question of whether, once this initial disturbance from equilibrium has been set in motion, there is only one place it can lead to, and whether if the other choice had been made at that point, there is another path which will lead somewhere else, a sort of a parallel universe. Like in the whole concept of movies like The Butterfly Effect and Sliding Doors and, closer to home, 12B. Three months with an Equity Research firm has also only strengthened my belief that overall, it's just one big gamble. There can be reams and reams of reports from the classiest analysts in the business, and pages of code written by Math Ph.Ds from the Princetons and Dartmouths of the world, but eventually, it's the call of the man on the floor on whether to put in or pull out the billions of Dollars. And that's, basically, a chance. A chance backed up by thirty pages of reports and innumerable Partial Differential Equation simulations, but a chance nevertheless. And if the decision is to pull out, and made by 5 or 6 such people together, each taking a chance on the other being right in pulling out, we end up with something like this.

Eventually, somebody has to get lucky, of course. In an overall 10:1 ratio of misses:hits, there have to be enough lucky people in the world to convince the other 9 that if you try hard enough, you can too. Something like Colbert's claim, if you may. And so the world goes around, with everyone in the 9 trying to become the 1, in spite of the obviously futile exercise that the 1 in 10 is a fixed number, and that Chance is a zero-sum game. But oh well, something has to make the world go around, and love simply doesn't work anymore. So, cool.

Update: And then, this happens.

In Dependance

2008-08-30T23:00:00.000+05:30

The roads of Chennai witnessed a a new phenomenon a couple of weeks ago. Children of ages ranging from 5 to 10 swarmed the major signals of the city, which is quite common. But for a change they were not offering to wipe the dust off your windshield, or sell you clothes that could, or pointing at the 2-year old, starved baby on their hips and then extending their arm out in the universal gesture for help. Now they were holding out items which everyone felt compelled to, and were even proud of buying and displaying, and they parted with their money for the same with a broad grin. A grin of the same intensity with which they would've scowled at the same shabby-haired, ragged 6 year-olds if they had simply asked for alms.

For this time they were buying Indian flags. Pin-up varieties, stand-up varieties that you could place on your dashboard, stick-on varieties you could paste on your doors. For we are all Indians and are very proud of proclaiming that we are, especially on Independence Day.

So, there is a point to Independence Day after all. It makes the fight for survival of the 100-odd shabby-haired, ragged 6 year-olds around the city easier. It's not much, but the flags would've got them through the week. And something else would get them through the next week. And then something else. And so on and so forth, getting them through enough weeks, at least till Republic Day.

Flying Lap

2008-07-31T20:09:00.000+05:30

The Circuit of Kottivakkamheim is a 4.2 km street circuit, and one of the oldest on the Chennai Traffic Grand Prix calendar. Actually, it was not even a circuit originally. The history goes that there were first all the houses and buildings and the 15 temples all along the route. With the odd Onyx (or Neel Metal Falanca, whoever gave the lower tender) dustbin thrown in along the way. And then someone realized that it would indeed be a good idea to have some sort of opening in between all of the above mentioned buildings. You know, sort of so people could get from Point A to Point B. And viola, the opening became a regular, Grand Prix-fit road, and thusly Kottivakkamheim was born. Of course, as births go, this one would have probably been called a Cesarean.

A flying lap of Kottivakkamheim starts with the First Main Road straight, before breaking down into 2nd gear, 30 kmph into the right and then the left leading into the Second Avenue. This sweeping, 3rd gear right turn is also the widest part on the circuit, and sets you up very nicely for the Signal, where you break hard down to zero kmph. This novel part of the circuit tests not how fast you can go, but how patient you can be. For the true test of a Jedi, is not in how fast he can be, but how he can choose when to be fast. Anyway...

From the Signal, you take off into the MG Road straight, up through the gears till you hit 4th at 70 kmph, and then flat out up the hill before breaking to a near stop at the Vannandhurai Bus Stop chicane. Though originally designed as a right turn, an inspired act of median-placing ensures that this turn is as challenging as it's more illustrious namesake at Spa-Franorchamps. You climb up a gear into 30kmph as you negotiate the tricky gravel (and sand and bricks and mortar and old papers and vegetable peels and discarded slippers) traps on either side of the circuit to ease into the Anna Street Ascari chicane.

The Anna Street Ascari, named after the 7-time Chennai auto-driving champion, Annatha Ascari, is unique in that it's simultaneously a left turn, a sweeping left-hander and then a right turn, all rolled into one. Holding on to third, at 40kmph before breaking into the blind right which forms the end of the chicane requires driver control of the highest degree. For the back-marker in front of you, that is. Because if he's not going to cooperate, no amount of standing on the horn will make you go any faster than 20 kmph through this tight part of the circuit.

Safely negotiating the chicane leads into the longest unbroken sequence on the Grand Prix calendar, full 2.6 kms down the Kalakshetra Parabolika. Going up through the gears into 4th, this part of the circuit is not for the faint-hearted. With enough pits (as in, the depression kind, not the refuelling kind) strewn along the path, an overtaking maneuver is pulled off only with inch-perfect slipstreaming and acceleration. On a clear piece of track, this narrow but fairly straight piece of circuit can be taken flat out at 70 kmph, before one slows down for the final chicane at the Marudeeswarar Temple complex. This second gear, 25 kmph chicane (if the Maami does not choose this as the opportune moment to cross the circuit to go towards home of the Lord) leads into the East Mada Hangar straight. Another part of the circuit where the car in front of you determines your speed rather than your own driving skills. Especially when the car in front is not a car at all but a Corporation Garbage lorry which leaves behind an oil(y) spill behind it. So, this always-yellow flag part of the circuit is a strict no-overtake zone, as you trundle along at 35 kmph in a part that would usually be a straight horsepower shootout.

Out at the end of the straight, you break into La Rascalasse, a tight, sandy right-hander which has floored quite a few two-wheelers in its time and is often referred to as the most expensive spare-parts dump on the circuit. This first gear, 20 kmph turn leads into the home straight as you go up through the gears to top speed, and past the start-finish line.

Or to be precise, into the office. Where one has to come to a complete standstill, if one is to not bang into a wrought-iron gate.

Circuit of Kottivakkamheim
Lap Record: 12:34.53 Anand Natarajan, Novafax (2008)

Ta da!

2008-07-23T18:16:00.000+05:30

Much more readable, isn't this?

Irrespective of whether there's anything to read in the first place.

Soiled Shirt

2008-06-26T18:40:00.000+05:30

The little boy wouldn't have been a day over 8. He had a round face, with equally round eyes and hair that fell all around the round stopping just short of the eyes. He was uniformly dirty, a common situation when you're from one of those million families all over India where the one pot of water a day is better used for drinking than other unimportant tasks like bathing. His T-shirt had once been a light cream in colour, but now it was closer to brown. The brown was in patches though, unlike the uniformity of the dirt on his body. Possibly an effect of the previous day's rain which had washed down the stains, leaving areas of different shades of brown over the shirt. He had stepped out of his house, if it could be called that, in search of his mother. His little round eyes spotted her in the shop across the street, and like all kids his age who spot their mother after a search, started running towards her without a care in the world.

The Toyota Innova on that street clearly did not belong there. It was one of the automobile industry's greatest coups to convince Indians that there was such a thing as a city-friendly SUV. And SUV is not city-friendly. It is most certainly not side-lane, cross-street or gully-friendly. However, these are the most common connecting sections that are found in India, where first the houses are built and the remaining area is called the road. As a result of all these reasons, the Innova on this little street was finding the transit very difficult indeed. Hence, when the driver saw a sudden stretch of nothingness open up in front of him, he gunned the engine. And if there's one thing an SUV can do, it is accelerate. The car gathered speed, the driver intent on making up the most ground in the least time. Totally oblivious to the little boy running towards his mother.

The boy heard the roar of the engine too late. There was nothing he could do except turn away and cover his face instinctively with his hands, the commonest reaction when a human is face with any kind of threat. The car also had no option of slowing down, and even if it did, it didn't look likely the driver would take it. In a moment of blurring motion, the car dropped its left tires, both front and rear into the puddle left by the previous night's rains, covering the little boy in a mixture of water and mud, and sped on.

The boy looked up after the car passed, and gingerly ran his hands over his face, collecting all the mud and grime left there by the Innova. After satisfying himself that his face was clean, he rubbed both his hands straight down the middle of his shirt, to remove from his hand what he had removed from his face. Thus completing the transfer of the mud from his face to somewhere it would be less noticeable, the boy merrily ran on towards his mother and jumped into her arm.

After all, it was only one more patch of brown in an already soiled shirt.

Adieu

2008-04-09T19:48:00.000+05:30

Life, they say, is a learning experience. Learning itself though is a life-changing experience. After having been through 21 years of it, this would seem about the right time to write a denoument for that chapter of my life. A point to stop reading and start doing. With a brief summary of how it's all been of course, the journey from a bumbling, salivating toddler to an assured, still-salivating (but at totally different things) man.

Of all the years of the 21, it's probably the 4 in college that have the steepest learning curve. For one, in college, you're pretty much on your own. You're past the totally arbitrarily-defined age where the society deems you an adult and are hence supposed to know what to do when a 'situation' arises. With this comes a freedom, one that you never had before and one that urges you to question, explore, understand and master things at a pace which you never could have before. For before now, the potter's hand that is the society and the family and the relatives was still closely around the clay that was you, restricting you from flying in all arbitrary directions so that you have one basic shape defined. That job done, the hands move away, and now the pot is ready to take any shape it wishes to.

The adult world brings with it,its share of emotions that weren't present before either. And thus form the feelings of 'me' and 'I' and other such things which are bracketed conveniently under the single category called ego. Ego is not such a bad thing, as long as it stays at self-respect. But it almost always does not. An inherent desire to assert one's views in a hall of equals is where it all begins, and there is no way that all opinions are going to be concurrent on any issue. On a minor scale, it is funny, and mostly people end up laughing. Sometimes it snowballs, and people become, well... others. And when such things happen, it's a scary, but timely reminder of how this is just the tip of the iceberg in the world that lies ahead. And at such times, you wish you never did grow up.

It's not all bad though. Experience, I believe, is truly the greatest teacher ever. You can read and listen and observe and note down a variety of things from any of the innumerable sources available to the techno-savvy person today, and yet, none of them would do anything to you as experiencing it first-hand would. Because if you don't try, you don't really know. And that is why the curve of four years of college has the slope that it has. It is a world which leads to innumerable other worlds, most of which you didn't even know existed. And you find that people of these worlds are not aliens either, they're just you, a couple of years ago, a couple of years hence, those you wish you can become, and of course, those you wish you'll never be.

The most important thing is what you take away from your experience and it is now that you take away only the good. You're still fearless, the world has still no scarred you so much that you are afraid to commit the smallest error in life, and you've just got into thinking big. Thinking big, that amazing feeling you get when your fundamental stance towards life changes from 'Why' to 'Why not'. Enlightenment is epiphanic. Experience just prepares you for it. And that moment on, you know you're ready to take on the world, and whatever it may throw at you.

There's so much more that affects you during the journey that is college life. New friends and acquaintances, trying out things you thought you could never do, going places, playing games, eating and sleeping together (in a strictly gay sense)... things you can be sure can never be experienced again. But then, that's what they say about the only thing constant being change and all that. Thus it is, that while the blood is young, the body is eager and the mind is willing to go out there and take over the world, one part of the heart knows, deep within itself, that these will be 4 years you'll never get back.

And that's why there's that lump in your throat when you realize that this is where it ends.

The Chronicles of Saarangia: The lines, the (sand)wich and the Wardrobe malfunction

2008-02-07T22:17:00.000+05:30

Same time two years ago, this came out.Clearly a case of juvenile excitement and childish yearnings (not that I'm all Zen now.) But two years down the line, cynicism has entrenched itself firmly in every part of the system, the rose-tinted glasses have become grey and Saarang is no longer a free-for-all Swayamvara. Well actually, you still hope the fairy-tale sequence of 'bumping into hot girl-spilling your coffee-apologizing-getting talking-doing things with her-doing her' within the 5 days of Saarang happens. But mostly, you're just concerned about getting through the day without collapsing right in front of the stalls just from the force of the sound waves of their speakers. And of course, if you do collapse, a concerned, helpful damsel, again necessarily good-looking, will immediately come to you aid, and then... You know. Hope lives.

This account encompasses a time period of 120 hours in which I got exactly 19 hours of sleep. Hence, there may be a fair bit of extrapolation in parts, to make up for parts of my memory which have got Eternally Sunshined. A few incidents, such as the above mentioned ideal cases actually happening, may even be hallucinatory. You are therefore advised to proceed with a pinch of salt. Or cocaine, whatever works for you.

The allusion in the title is of course to the famous series by C.S.Lewis. Ironically, this was the book that dealt with Gluttony, of the seven sins - something that I can hardly be accused of during Saarang. My staple diet was a cycle between 3 types of Veg. Sandwiches at a stall imaginatively named 'Sandwiched' Apart from being the least messy and quickest to eat, it was also the most compatible with my digestive system, which, for some vague reason, would work at only 1/5th its usual capacity. This is an interesting piece of study for all those medics out there - Effectiveness of the digestive system (or lack of it) as a function of sleep lost. So anyway, none of the Biryanis or Noodles or burgers or even good old Venpongal would go down (the oesophagus) without a fight. And since I'm a peace-loving person, I mostly brought them out the same way I put them in, at the slightest hint of a fight. And then surrendered to the Sandwich-Effect diet.

So, I participated in 8 events, missed the finals of one as it was clashing with another, went to the finals of another as a replacement for another person who had a clash (what goes around, comes. And all that) and placed in the other 6. In the course of which, I would've probably made up enough lines with innuendos and double and treble and quadruple meanings that Shakespeare would be turning in his grave thinking 'I should've done Stand-Up'. The thing about lines is you have to time then so they come just at the climax. As with any other line, this one is left to the imagination of all you pervy people to interpret in any which way you want, but you get the point. Take your daily Orkut Fortune, add 'in bed' at the end, and it's pretty much your daily dose of One-liners right there. Like this one- 'A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds'. Some are even prophetic, like after-the-fact accomplices- 'Happy events will take place in your home shortly'. What I'm basically trying to say is, funny lines and Dada's cover drives are the same. It's all in the timing.

Now that we're done with the lines and the sandwich, you would naturally expect me to expand on the wardrobe malfunction part of the title. But this is where, like all those ads that claim to be offering 50% off and then put a line in fine print 'on select products only', I claim that it's mostly only about the wardrobe. Mine, to be more specific. And the mess that it was in over the 5 days of Saarang. So, wardrobe malfunction, see? The only thing that could be conclusively determined from looking into my wardrobe after all of Saarang was done was that sweat can also drain the dye off clothing, and spread it nicely on the rest of the stuff in the pile. So now there are 5 uniformly pink vests and one very dull-coloured shirt which used to be red. Apart from that, I only remember thinking that the wardrobes of all the members of the fairer sex during Saarang were functioning very nicely indeed, and nodding appreciatively.

So, now you know, what really goes on behind all those stories, pictures and numbers about the largest student-organized cultural festival in South India. Blood, tears, sweat and toil. And sandwiches, one-liners, dark circles under the eyes, stained shirts. AND, one great big feeling of satisfaction.

Quotable Quacks

2008-02-02T22:32:00.000+05:30

I know it's been a while and all that. So, by popular demand (even the title is not original!), a small look into my verbal diarrhoea @ Saarang '08. Just so some of you don't feel lucky that you were spared this...

JAM
- Camels are humped. Horses are ridden.
- Too many wives spoil the froth.
- If at first you don't succeed, try second base.
- My mother likes eighteen year-old girls... as daughter-in-law (this is the one that got misquoted all over the papers, I know what I said!)

Extempore
- Perhaps the grass is greener on your side ('Kurt Cobain' to 'Fred Flintstone'. Discussing grass, of course)
- When you say Moods, most women are thinking- PMS
- Silicon is NOT 20th century's greatest invention. This is because it was invented in the 19th century.

Not to forget, Ranjiv's now-immortal quip at Extempore 'There has to be cummation for summation'

And just to prove there is humour in everyday life as well, couple of days ago, this was overheard from a chap who'd just got a lift from another chap till his hostel-
'Macha, thanks for riding me da.'

Thank You ladies and Gentlemen, that will be all for now, I promise I'll be back with a booker-winning post soon.

Adios!

Building Character

2007-12-09T21:57:00.000+05:30

It's been well over a month since I posted anything, and I lay the blame squarely upon my own shoulders. I believe in taking responsibility for one's actions (and inaction) and this is the time for me to stand up and be counted. Or read, as is the case with a blog.

A major reason for my not posting anything in a while is because, well, I haven't got anything going on in my life worth posting about. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise that even for this post, I go back more than 2 months for my inspiration. It has been on my mind for a while to write something about this, and yet, I've not felt like it all this time. So here goes.

As all tales begin, this one too begins in a far far land where the sky was blue, the rivers were clear and the grass was green and available in plenty within walking distance for the subjects of the kingdom. And I realize that that's about how far I can carry the whole analogy thing, so suffice to say that I'm referring to NIT-Trichy where we (G3W) had gone down for their annual cultural fest, Festember. We managed to make quite a wad between us totally, but then, it isn't always about the money is it? No, sometimes it's about what the title says.

The event in question was Scrabble, and along with my illustrious cricketer-first, scrabbler-next partner Naresh, I daresay we gave ourself quite a chance of placing in the event. The prelims were written, and as is usual it was the standard mixture of Scrabble boards, a bit of anagrams and the like. Around this point of time, we were doing 9-5 working hours, so most prelims were a blur, with the next event already coming up to think about. But again, prelims qualifying was never supposed to be a problem. Character-challenge Moment One.

As the papers were being totaled to find out who the 6 finalists would be, the score we had put up seemed to be sliding steadily and easily backwards. 5 teams ahead already and quite a bunch of papers left. We watched as each one fell way short, or just short of our total and kept remembering to breathe in the interim. It came down to one last paper, and as their total kept getting bigger, our chances of qualifying got slimmer. But you know, I wouldn't put this post up if we didn't have something to do with the finals as well. And so, it gives me great pleasure to reveal that this last paper fell short of ours by 1 point. 149 to our 150. Game On.

You would think that that was the inspiration-moment that you see in most movies - like in Gilli (Athadu for my Telugu friends) when Trisha misses her flight to America to come and watch Vijay's Kabadi match. Sadly, that wasn't to be, as our prelims paper didn't quite generate the same feelings in us as Trisha, nor is Scrabble Kabadi. The first round in the finals was Clabbers, which, if you are clever you might notice, is an anagram of Scrabble. And hence, all anagrams of any word were allowed in this round. To put it simply, you could play gtocziy on the board, since it is a perfectly valid anagram of Zygotic. This whole messing up concept was looking pretty fine till the last two moves. Actually, they became the last two moves plainly because they were 'Bingos' which is where you use up all the tiles in your rack, and get a 50-point bonus for doing so. Ergo, the opposition finishes off 14 tiles in two moves, gets a 100 points outta nowhere, and it's a 120-odd points defeat in the first game. This is bad in any circumstance, but it is definitely not good in a three-match round-robin. Character-challenge Moment Two.

And so, we go into the second match, to play the other team at the bottom. This is normal Scrabble, and all is fine until, 'Bingo' again. For them, of course. I even remember the word, bloody Chromite, I didn't know Chromite was even a compound, let alone a word! After making a mental note to brush up on my Chemistry, we calculated our total deficit, including the first match, and saw ourselves staring at -148 points. This is where the straight faces and the hammering hearts come out. Also, Character-challenge Moment Three.

Now, there are two ways to get yourself out of a hole. One is to keep digging, and find yourself going deeper inside, or you can stop digging, take a deep breath, and then try to pull the other person also into the hole. Which is precisely what we did. First, some prudent use of the Js and the Xs got us ahead in the match, and then playing the vaguest two-letter words that both of us knew definitely existed, in the hope of getting challenged. We made quite a bit of free 5-pointers in them challenges, not to mention keeping track of their time down to the precise micro-second, so that they ran out of it quite a while before the tiles were done. Excess time carried a penalty too, and all things considered, we won the game, and got ourselves a good 4o-odd points positives in the bargain. Here's where the three-match round robin concept got useful. Only 2 teams were on two wins, and they were going to play each other. So, only one person ends up on 3 wins. That left the winner of our next match, ironically with the same opposition we had played Clabbers with, guaranteed a third place, with the possibility of a second if one of the top 2 got mauled by the other. Thankfully, one of the top 2, was Nush and Sandeep, the other IIT team. It isn't Rocket Science, but if they beat their opponents handsomely, and we beat ours as handsomely, that second place was ours.

It's not like BPL's Soccer Sunday, where, when the Big Four are playing each other, everyone knows what's going on in the other match. Here, you concentrate on your game, and don't even hope that things are going fine in the other match. The game proceeded quite satisfactorily, not a huge margin, but we kept our noses ahead. It didn't look like we were heading for a big win, whereas we definitely needed one, to wipe out our overall deficit of -90. Slowly though, the previous game's strategy of deep breath-think clear-pull other person in began to work. There's nothing quite as beautiful as closing the board out with 'ug' and 'ch' and 'li' and leaving the opposition nothing to work with. Which worked quite effectively.We did not have a Bingo at any point in the game, or for that matter, the tournament. Yet, the closed-board game was bringing in the 20s and 30s quite well, and that was fine by us. As the tiles ran out, our lead kept getting ever so bigger. Eventually, it was done. Bingo-less, without any fancy words on triples or double, we finished with a 120 point positive from the game, a total of +30 overall. But was it enough?

We needn't have bothered. Nush and Sandeep had decimated the other team by around 150 points. All we needed to do was win, and we would've got second. As it turned out, we did much more than that, thank you very much.

It may not be the Natwest Finals Yuvraj-Kaif chase. It may not be United's 5-3 second-half demolition of Spurs from 0-3 down. But it was a comeback nevertheless, and comebacks are always sweet. For what it does is, it builds character. Tenacity, hope, self-belief and such. As I said before, it's not always about the money.

However, 700 bucks a head does go quite a long way in ensuring that the Character is Built.

Anticipation

2007-10-23T22:37:00.000+05:30

Indrajit was beginning to feel a bit fidgety. Sure, there was still a good two hours to go for his 10th-birthday party to start, but there was absolutely no sign of any preparation for the same around the house. No doubt his parents had everything arranged and Dad would swing into action as soon as he returned from work in an hour, but this total lack of activity was disconcerting. Everything was not well, and Indrajit thought he probably knew why.

It was just a minor incident, and it was not even entirely his fault. A week ago he had been playing as usual in the front yard. His usual 'game' consisted of throwing a ball at the wall, and then batting it when it came back on the rebound. He was a disciplined batsman, restricting himself to playing in the 'V' since there was the family car always parked in the square leg position. Hence, he also alway threw the ball in such a manner that the rebound reached him at perfect driving length. On this day, and this fateful 'delivery', the ball had slipped out of his hand during the throw and hit the wall slower than usual. As the ball came back, he watched it pitch well in front, and bounce towards his chest... and his moment of madness. The ball grew in size as it came towards him, and an image of Yuvraj dismissively pulling a ball flashed through his mind. Whack, the horizontal ball dispatched the rubber ball perfectly square. Right into the front windscreen of the car.

That probably could've been avoided, he thought even as he laid part of the blame on Yuvraj for giving him such a beautiful shot to emulate. Perhaps his parents had canceled his party for that? No, he had clearly heard them talk about 'tomorrow's party' to each other last night. Moreover, they hadn't even be very angry when they had seen the windscreen broken. Sure, they had said something like You will understand what it feels like when you lose something similar, but he was pretty sure he wasn't getting a car anytime soon. He smiled a bit to himself at this clever bit of reasoning. As he turned away smiling, his eyes passed over the latch of the door, where all his presents were always kept till the cake was cut. And he froze in mid-turn. The bike!

The only reason Indrajit had been looking forward to his 10th birthday more than any other was because of The Bike. That shiny, red thing with the high seat and curved handlebars that he had fallen in love with at first sight. That thing which his parents had promised him for his 10th birthday when he had begged them for it a month ago. That thing which should be behind that latched door right now. That thing which would be something similar to the car. That thing which, hence, he could lose.

His mouth went dry. They couldn't do this to him. It was such a minor infraction, surely not worth taking away the bike. But it also made perfect sense. He would've noticed at least a small sign that a big bicycle was being moved around in the house. No wrapping paper, no tell-tale tyre marks of cycles being rolled around. And the subdued preparations for the party, after all, no parent likes to deny their child's fervent wish. And yet, what must be done, must be done. Must it?

The time for the party never seemed to come. The two hours was the worst period of time ever in Indrajit's till-now-uneventful life. His mind told him that it had been done, the cycle had been denied to him, and yet his heart failed to accept it. He was just reading into that minor incident too much, hadn't his parents been calm enough about it? Or had they let him off lightly because they were going to do something much worse? He wished he could just burst into that little room with the latched door and end the confusion once and for all. But one of his parents were either always hovering around the room or hovering around him, getting him ready for the party. He absentmindedly slipped into his new clothes, all the while staring at the latch, the door. It was all good for Superman to have X-ray vision, but the people who really needed it were 10-year old boys on the throes of an early-life crisis. He shook his head disgustedly at what he though was an unfair distribution of superpowers.

The guests started trickling in, and Indrajit noticed during moments when he actually looked that the decorations had in fact been organized as well as the last two years, if not better. People crowded around to wish him, hug him, shake hands with him, pinch his cheeks... and his mind registered none of it. His heart felt like it was being squeezed, like he couldn't breathe through the crush of the burdensome wait. He smiled weakly towards his Mom and Dad as he cut the cake and gave them each a piece after the Birthday Song had been sung. That's it, done, let's get to the door, his inner voice screamed, but Indrajit was too well brought-up to let any such thoughts out.

"Shall we?" his Dad asked, holding out his hand for Indrajit to grab. He nodded determinedly, and allowed himself to be led towards the door. His heart was hammering away wildly now, he was surprised that everyone in the room couldn't actually hear it. He tried to read something from his father's expression, but there was no expression there to read anything from. The door loomed in front of him, and Indrajit was sure his heart rate had hit 150. The latch opened and the door flew open.

Nothing, darkness. Darkness that is, in the front part of the room. But at the back, where the light from the shaded window streamed through just enough, he caught a glint of red. He took a tentative step forward, all the while following the outline of the glint of red. His mental faculties confirmed to him that it was indeed what his heart hoped it was and he ran forward with a yelp of surprise. He knelt beside The Bike, running his hand over the perfectly sized medals, moving to the tyres, the rear mud-guards and stood up to reach the seat. As he touched the seat, all the hammering and squeezing his heart had been subjected to finally gave way, and Indrajit put his head down on the seat and started sobbing uncontrollably. He let all the tension of the past two hours release itself through his tears and finally got up and turned to his slightly concerned parents. Then with a broad smile pasted across his teary-eyed face, he flew into the arms of his parents, who had now gone from being concerned to bemused, and whispered into their ears,
Yes, I understand, what it feels like.

It's that time of the year again...

2007-10-11T18:37:00.000+05:30

Well, it's back. Bigger, better and bluer than ever before.

The Saarang Blog. The Officially unofficial blog of Saarang 2008. Everything you ever wanted to know about Saarang. And also some things you wished you'd never known.

All you people who make the mistake of regularly wandering into this blog, well, now there's another place you can wander into.

Life is a journey, and those who don't read, haven't traveled at all.

A wee bit o' celebration

2007-10-05T22:11:00.000+05:30

It has nothing to do with the game itself, and yet it's one of the most fascinating, and at times controversial moments in football. Quite a few players have their own, unique post-goal celebration, while others just give in to the mood of the moment, and let lose. Especially tight matches which bear goals in the 90th minute are mostly likely to produce a shirt-off celebration along with/followed by running all around the pitch a couple of times. Now, of course, taking your shirt off leads to a straight yellow card, and that's enough for most players to be restrained from doing a Dada-on-Lord's-terrace. Pity, really, because I always thought that it is only in the moment of greatest ecstasy after scoring a goal that you actually reveal your inner self. Literally.

Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, otherwise known as Kaka has probably the most recognizable celebrations on the football field. As the ball ripples the net, Kaka tears off to raise his arms and head towards heaven in an obvious gesture of gratitude to God. But for what? To answer this question, two important facts need to be stated here.
1. Kaka was a virgin till he got married, which, for a footballer at his level, is near sacrilege.

2. When he eventually did get married, he got himself this...

From here we work on presumptions, but based on the above two reasons, especially the very strong second one, the following theory can be stated as being nearly accurate. As most of you might have figured, Kaka is obviously not a virgin anymore, but just to make things interesting, let us suppose he has some sort of arrangement with his wife. Like if he scores in the game, then that night... you get the message. So, without sullying Kaka's character too much, I think it's a safe conclusion that whenever he scores (on the football pitch), he thanks God for his score (off the football pitch). His is a standing example of how there is a woman behind every successful man (or under. Or above. Whatever works for him man).

Along the same lines would be the celebrations of England's answer to Brazil's Kaka, Frank Lampard. I think it's a midfielder thing, raising the arm towards heaven, because strikers almost always point towards the midfielder who provided them with the final pass. While Lampard's is not so much of an obvious sign of gratitude to the skies, he does precede the raising of his hand towards the sky with a kiss on his left hand. Without using too much rocket science, it becomes clear that that is the hand that holds the engagement ring, and the person who put it there is...
Frankie L is not so much a good boy as Kaka, because he's already had a baby girl with his lady before marriage, but he clearly values the ring on his hand, so we presume his intentions are honourable.

Another distinct, and unique celebration will have to be Bolton Wanderers and France striker Nicholas Anelka's. After each of his usually stunning goals, Anelka holds his hands in front of his chest, with the thumbs interlocked and the rest of the fingers outstretched, forming a sort of a butterfly. This is probably the most confounding celebration to decipher, and the striker himself has said that it's a private joke between him and his French friends. That leaves us with only one option- that India's exalted low-cost carrier, Air Deccan had, at some point, been involved in Anelka's life, what with their logo being something similar, except that the thumbs are not interlocked. A probable story is that sometime, while traveling incognito, Anelka missed a flight from Mumbai to France, just because his connecting flight from Calcutta to Mumbai on Air Deccan got, as usual, delayed. From then on, Anelka's celebration, directed at Air Deccan and not his French friends as he claims, probably means to say 'If you could connect your two hands, you'd probably succeed in making people catch their connecting flights'

The controversial celebration of Robbie Fowler going to the touchline and acting as if he sniffed Cocaine shall not be dissected in great detail here as it is a one-off and not a customary thing. And thank God for Robbie that it was only a one-off, the league didn't take kindly to his endorsement of the non-drinking variety of Coke.

As sheer cheek goes, one last celebration has to be mentioned. Portugese sensation Nani, who joined Manchester United this season has been expressly banned by Sir Alex Ferguson from showing off his gymnastic skills on the football pitch. Therefore, in all of United's games in Asia, and other practice matches, the forwards flip-backward flip-handless backward flip was kept dutifully inside the locker by Nani. But then the league started, and United got off to a bad start, with a goal drought hitting last season's top scorers. In such a situation, staring at another 0-0 in the game against Tottenham, Nani came up with a blistering 25-yard strike to give United the win. After the goal, Nani pointedly asks his teammates to hold off, and goes on to do his elaborate gymnastic routine, ending with the handless back flip. The perceptive camera-man zoomed straightaway towards Sir Alex, to see his reaction. He remained all smiles, celebrating the goal. But then, cameras can't enter the locker room.

P.S: Kaka is a devout Christian. In 2000, after an accident in the pool, he was threatened by paralysis, and hence an end to his career. He recovered fully from that, an act he still attributes to God. The gratitude to the skies after every goal is mostly with regard to this. But then, who says you can't be grateful for two different things, eh?

Economics and the Great Indian Dream

2007-09-13T21:59:00.000+05:30

It was an unbelievably muggy evening in the city, something which has become more common of late, maybe there is some truth to this whole global warming affair after all. I was walking out of this mega-retail shop, the thing which stacks everything from pins to Porches. The same kind which has already wiped out your tricycle-vegetable-vendor man who comes out calling every morning and which is threatening to wipe out that very symbol of local community living - the road corner pottikadai. Digressions apart, as I walked out of the shop towards my vehicle, an old man shuffled up to me. He had his hands full of various types of Agarbathi packets, and from his forearm hung a sack-bag, which had more of the same packets. He looked terribly worn, and his left eye was clearly not serving him any purpose anymore, a long-ignored cataract having taken its toll on the eye. He walked up to me, and held out his packet.
"Sir, please buy one packet of Agarbathi sir. I came straight from Kodambakkam in the morning, haven't even had lunch. Please buy one packet sir, there's been no sales at all yet."

I hurriedly shook my head in the negative and got on to my scooter. I couldn't even being myself to look at that face again - the sallow skin with the beard gone white, the out-of-use eye, the frail body and the bag full of agarbathis dangling from the emaciated forearm. As I drove away I thought about my instinctive 'no' to the old man. There was no valid reason for me to do so, and I'm sure I could have spared ten rupees for one packet. It would've probably got his first meal of the day- at 6 in the evening. And yet I had not given him 1/20th of what I had spent in the shop just a minute ago. I nearly ploughed into the back of a truck on my way back, thinking about the whole thing.

This is not an isolated case. The boy-younger-than-me who'll be cleaning up tables at the local eatery, the platform vendor of handkerchiefs whose last sale was probably weeks ago, the man with polio whose affected leg dangles uselessly about 6 inches of the ground as he hobbles around at signals, with his outstretched arm... all images which are seared in a mind which also reads everyday about 9.5% growth and the rising middle class and the emerging superpower and all else. Where did it all go wrong?

In my simplified version of things, there are two levels that every man aims for - subsistence and luxury, in that order. In the new 'young and dynamic' India, while the transition from subsistence to luxury happens rapidly, efforts to raise people to basic levels of subsistence seems to have got left behind. And it's not as if every person who had his subsistence assured is scaling the first barrier either. There's still a substantial majority for whom it's a struggle to stay above the poverty line, but they just manage to. Those who don't, well, The Forgotten. It's not the rich-poor divide that I'm referring to. It's more like the 'can act rich'-'can just survive'-'why should I live?' divide that seems to be the divide in the India of today.

People earn more, but do more people earn more? Sure, there's a lot of things which have come up targeting this new high-income families- facilities that rival any world-class establishment, quality of services (note, this is usually mainly entertainment, or shopping) that we wouldn't have dreamed of even five years ago, so many other things. And with these places getting as many patrons as they do, it's easy for us to live under the self-deluded impression of us being a nearly-developed nation. But, as said before, the quality of your local bus service has not reached world standards. Southern Railway is still not Eurorail. And I'm not even thinking about comparing roads, lighting and other infrastructure.

I'm probably meandering but there just seem to be so many knock-on effects of the increased spending and luxury-craving lifestyle that a very few concentrated pockets of our country is witnessing today. Since when did we start buying Popcorn by the bucket?! Or dropping a 4-year old to her school which is barely 2 kilometers in a 3.5-liter, turbocharged SUV? And then bringing the monster back home with only the driver in it, till it's time to go pick up the kid, who'll probably fit in-between two people on a Scooty Pep, again. Or blindly flush around 120 bucks an hour (or whatever the bowling rates in your city is) to go and knock some big sticks with one big ball regularly on weekends? I know the great Indian dream is to eventually reach the great American dream, but that is simply not sustainable in our country. In fact, word is coming out that it's not sustainable even in America, but they of course just need to go into an oil-rich country and bomb the s*** out of them and they're good for a few more years for oil.

I agree people earn the money and they spend it as they please. I don't even think it's fair of me to say that people should maybe show a bit more prudence before they splash their wads around the next time, but I'll say it nevertheless. Demand-driven inflation will first hit the 'just surviving' section first, and soon we'll see some of them drop off below the line. Maybe your leaving the car and taking the two-wheeler or, if it's by any chance possible, public transport to work for one day will not bring the inflation from 4% to 2%. But it might bring it to 3.9999999999995%. And I think we can take that, for starters.

As Mahatma Gandhi said- Live simply, that others might simply live.

Fernando

2007-08-23T14:07:00.000+05:30

"I believe we know each other?"

She whirled around at this sound behind her, and found herself facing a man about her age, in a long black overcoat and a briefcase in hand. He looked vaguely familiar, but she could not place him immediately. And she told him so.

"We studied together in high school, remember? I think it was ten years ago...", he checked his mobile, as if looking for the date, "probably eleven by now" he smiled.

A look of recognition dawned on her face. "Why yes! I remember you now. The obnoxious Class Captain character, right?"

"Well, yes, if I'm deserving of such a high opinion of my character, sure"

"Oh of course you are. Or at least were. I don't know how you are now, though it'd be pretty tough to become any more obnoxious, I think", she smiled.

"Right, so out of a chance meeting at Madrid Airport, of all places, I get the knowledge first-hand that the prettiest girl in my class thought me an obnoxious bastard. Bright reunion indeed."

She laughed, "I'm sorry. I exaggerated a bit, though it was the first thing that came to mind when I recognized you. Anyway, how ave you been? I presume you are on a business trip, judging from your attire and lack of a traveling partner?"

"Oh yes. Just stopping over for a day or two here, and then I'm continuing on to Buenos Aires. And you? No wait... you're here for the Conclave on Photo-journalism, right?", he inquired.

She was taken aback. After a few seconds, in which time she closed her mouth which had fallen open, she managed to stammer, "Why... Yes, that's what I'm here for. How... how did you know?"

He shook his head, "I didn't know. I guessed. You were always interested in photography in high school, I remembered. And I knew there was this conclave in Frankfurt around this time. So... educated guess."

"Impressive. That you remembered I was interested in photography, and that you know about the events in a city where you're just stopping over" she said with a hint of a smile.

"I try to keep myself updated", he shrugged and once again reached for his mobile and fiddled with it for a while. "So where're you going to stay, I'm booked into this hotel called The Carriage..."

She sighed, "I'm not going to be surprised anymore, this is just taking coincidence to a whole new level. I'm booked into the same hotel as well, even the conclave is scheduled to be held there."

"Wow, really? Small world indeed. So... we'll share a cab to the hotel then?" he asked. She nodded. As they walked towards the exit gates, he looked at her. She had not changed a bit over the past ten years - the same serene face, the quick wit, that smile which could make any guy's heart miss a beat... Drawing a deep breath, he turned to her.

"You don't have any plans for dinner I hope? I mean, the conclave begins only tomorrow..." he trailed off as she turned sharply to face him.

"Ten years after we last met, you see me. And ask me out" He kept silent, waiting for her to launch into a lengthy tirade. "Oh well, I'd like company for dinner anyway. Especially known company", she smiled.

Without too audible a sigh, he nodded, "I'll pick you up from your room, around 8"

"Yep, I'll try and look half-decent", she said with a wink.

As they walked towards the cabs, he reached for his mobile once again. It read '1 Message Received". He opened it and read,
'Fernando: Will that be all boss? Or would you also like to know what she's talking about at the conclave tomorrow? Or perhaps where she'll be going for dinner tonight, and what she'll be wearing for it... ;)'

He pressed the Reply button and typed out,

'No thanks, Fernando. I'll find those out myself tonight..."

Last Action Hero

2007-07-24T13:22:00.000+05:30

The last hope. Or maybe not.

6 Things that tell you you're growing older...

2007-06-30T16:24:00.000+05:30

1. 'Teen prodigies' in the world of sports are a clean 3 years younger than you.
2. WWE matches you watched as a kid now appear in their 'This week in History' segment.
3. The Hospital you were born in is not a hospital anymore, and the Doctor who delivered you is... er... Not there.
4. You do not open throttle fully as soon as you see an empty stretch of road, but hold a sedate 40k in the interest of fuel economy.
5. Auto people graduate from calling you 'thambi' to 'saar'.
6. Kids playing on the street tell you 'Uncle, can you please give the ball'.

Updates are welcome.

(With inputs from The Deputy Manager (Manufacturing), Ashok Leyland Ltd.)

Motorcycle Diaries: Part II

2007-06-19T21:04:00.000+05:30

The story so far...
A group of guys get dressed up and hire bikes. They plan to roam around town, meet a lot of girls, preferably hot, French ones, fall in love with them, get married and open a new chapter in Indo-French relations. Everything happens except for the 'meeting a lot of girls' part and its consequent actions. Hence, they are still riding around town...

The Silver Beach had been recommended to us by a bunch of enthusiastic localites determined to promote their region as the favoured tourist destnation in India, next only to the Taj Mahal. It was actually in the adjoining town, a near thirty kilometer ride along a highway with small villages and large industries sprinkled along the path. Navigation was not too great a problem. There was one road, which went left and right, and curved this way and that and didn't split or intersect or indulge in any other disorienting act.

Just as we started out on this trip in the early evening, the weather made a complete volte-face. Dark clouds gathered overhead and completely blotted out the sun. The sky was dark enough to prompt thoughts of a large mother-ship breaking out of the clouds a la Independence Day. With all the foersight of the builders of the Titanic, we forgot to take any protective eye or head-gear. Those with spectacles had a tough time dealing with the sands whipped up by the wind, which was really building up now. Me, with my 15/20, 20/20 in my eyes and lack of speactacles thereof, felt like Brendan Fraser in The Mummy. The gale-force winds apart, everytime a huge vehicle like a bus, or one of those eight-wheel lorries carrying one of them chemicals (Yes, I'm a Chemical Engineer, but I don't want to burden you with technicalities) went by, the slip-stream was a literal slap in the face. At times, getting through these walls of resistance felt like breaking the sonic barrier (though I have no idea what that feels like).

The clouds were now definitely building up towards something big. The villages became fewer in number, and quintessential highway stretches began to appear- two lanes, hige trees on either side, incredible wind in your hair, mind subconsciously playing 'Endrendrum Punnagai...'. While I was not in pursuit of any speed records, we decided it would be a good idea to get to the safety of civilization before the storm broke. So we just lightly tipped the accelerator, you know, just to be sure. We didn't hit anything more than 90, really. And our efforts were rewarded, as we reached the town safely. Just as the skies opened up.

The incredible irony of us racing towards a beach to beat a storm, was not last on us. Riders on the Storm or not, I didn't quite relish the idea of a wet 'n wild visit to the beach. Hence, abandoning our vehicles under the nearest trees, we rushed into quite an unusual source of shelter which we found in a parking lot next to the beach. 'Old, rusted, gears-broken, head-light-removed autos with their roof intact' must rank second only to 'narrow, space-only-for-two, dark alley with hot girl already in it' on the list of 'Places to shelter from the rain'.

As the rain petered out, we moved out of our auto-matic shelters and headed towards the beach. The sand was not silver, though it was very clean for a public beach. I will not be cynical and claim it was only because this government-sponsored festival was going on there, and as is the case in India, the place was all spruced up just for the occassion. The water was silvery, but that could've been because of the rains- the sky was silvery as well. After a prolonged discussion that lasted all of two minutes, we decided it was called Silver Beach because Golden Beach was already taken by VGP. This seemed very logical and all were happy.

The summer festival had attracted immense crowds, and there were loudspeakers placed at optimum positions dissemenating a speech that some leader was making. The security was pretty tight as well. There were so many cops around that we formed a square of bikes around this one bike whose key had fallen off in the melee caused by the rains, and left them there.. If there had not been so much security, we would've been afraid to leave the bike unguarded at all. Tamil Nadu's finest filled us with much confidence. Seriously.

After around half an hour of splashing around in the waters, running on the beach and doing everything else that all of us had done on countless other beaches, we came back to our strategically-parked bike unit. Which was still there, thankfully. The clouds had disappeared and so had the sun. Starting out in darkness, we retraced the straight path which we had folowed with so much difficulty on our onward journey. The thing about driving at night on an unlit highway with the headlights from the opposing vehicles glaring in your eyes is that you're mostly blind. You can see approximately two meters in front of you, and you know from Newton's laws that you're not going to be able to stop within two meters from the speed you are travelling. Once again, hope lives. Apart from a few speed-breakers which got missed, and hence became take-off ramps, the ride was mostly uneventful.

All the riding left people ravenously hungry, and we found salvation in the staple diet of Indian travelers all over the world- Dosa, Sambhar and Tea. All good things have to come to an end though, and it was time to return the bikes back where they belonged. After bidding a tearful farewell to the extra fifty bucks for the lost key, we trudged back to the bus station to go back to out little, cut-off-from-the-world village. But not before having confirmed that any of our 4 other bike keys worked just as well on the bike for which we had lost the key. A little knowledge, dangerous thing...

Motorcycle Diaries: Part I

2007-06-02T22:59:00.000+05:30

Life is so rewarding. Think about all those people who go to bed alone every night, with nothing more than a small pillow and a prayer by their side. And then think of me, waking up everyday with two other guys for company. Three, if it was a lucky day, like today. Two of who I didn't even know, and all of them topless. No man is an island...

It was okay really. I am used to finding unexpected occurences when I wake up. Like seeing the clock twenty minutes past the start of the quiz. Or 7 P.M when I had aimed for A.M. So us, the foursome, joined the twosome from the next room and got down to the process of tidying ourselves up for the countless girls we were not going to meet all day. But still, we hope. For isn't it hope that sustains so many things? George.W.Bush, Indian cricket team, Romance for IIT guys...

The mostly uneventful bus journey into the city was made slightly worth mentioning by the fact that we couldn't get off the bus. The assumption in these buses is that people only get on and never get off, till the last stop. And so they keep packing in people so much that they make a pack of sardines seem like a night inside Paris Hilton (yes, the hotel.) So, panic situation caused us to disembark a good kilometer before our actual stop. And it's not a very pleasant walk through a busy street in the morning sun. In my defence, I thought the square-shaped shop with 'BAR' written in big, bold lettering was our cue to get down. Unfortunately, here, there's one of them every hundred meters. No, fifty.

The morning workout succesfully completed, we arrived at the place where they gave out Shadowfax...er, rented bikes. If you're a guy, please continue reading this paragraph. Ladies, can skip this paragraph. A motor-bike is this machine that combines man's two greatest loves. Speed and Speed. Some of you might argue that it's acrually speed and gals, but that's why I asked you ladies to go to the next paragraph. It needs someone who has been on an auto-geared two-wheeler all his life to deeply appreciate the wonder of the gear ratio in fourth. And of the click-click of the transmission changing. And the total nonchalanece with which the engine handles the ever-mounting revs. And the sense of absolute power just sitting on one of these things.

So, we hired bikes and we were all happy. Score! With all the feel-good generated from this accomplishment, we kicked into action, literally. Riding back the same way we had come in the bu, we went in search of this 'global village, where people live in peace and harmony, connecting with their inner self, and are above all religion, race or country'. Well, the Taliban might still shoot you down if you went to Afghanistan, but otherwise, you were a global citizen. Overall, it was this serene kind of place. It was. The five-minute presentation extolled all the above-said virtues of the place, and then it was all about walking through the woods. For peace and inner harmony and all that. I'm sure there are exactly similar patches of woods in my own campus which I haven't discovered yet. If anything, the place did prove that trees cool their surroundings, especially if the 'trees' is one huge, big, mega-banyan as large as Paris Hilton's... suites (It is always the hotel!)

Having been saved partialy from the merciless sun in this 'cool' place (ONLY weather-wise), we proceeded to bike round and round the circuitous path laid out to the highway. And thence back to the city. The minor problems of petrol running out in one vehicle and engine dying out in another were... just that, minor problems. Nothing that a few drops of petrol and a bit of kicking and cursing couldn't solve.

The priority now was to confine ourselves to a nice air-conditioned restaurant for the better part of the afternoon. For all the riders' bravado and spirit of adventure and all, we still weren't willing to risk sun-burn, skin cancer and the like. The restaurant was found easily enough, and they had a surprisingly good Sphagetti on offer as well, which went straight on my order list, given my propensity for international cuisine. The hotel management was also helpful in our endeavour to kill time, prompting thoughts of whether they had taken our order for lunch or for dinner. A couple of unburnt rotis, two helping of sweet saunf each, and a desperate pooling of money for the bill preceded our next leg of the journey. To this place which got created first, and around which they decided to build the rest of the town.

The beach, with its rocky outcroppings rather than fine sand, is the hub of the town. The government building, police headquarters, and one other similarly importan administrative building are on this road. Any tsunami with an ounce of self-respect could put the entire government machinery out of action for weeks. But I guess they've allowed for such exigensies. Our main spot of interest was this Italin ice-cream shop, which served one hell of a Chocodip. They were consumed in anticipation of the long ride ahead and ten minutes later, there was a queue for the men's room. Again, in anticipation of the long ride ahead. But also as a consequence of the Chocodips. By this time, the two faulty vehicles which had given trouble on the way back from peace-land had also been exchanged for two other beauties - a white stallion with... right, must stop with the horse analogies. Anyway, that was the equation. 5 bikes, 9 guys and God-knows-how-long a ride to wherever-Silver-Beach-was...

Good Morning, Vietnam?

2007-05-20T20:10:00.000+05:30

Silence. Broken occasionally by the whizzing past of cars on the highway with their more-than-required horsepower under their hoods. The surf crashing against the beach, approximately half a kilometer away, was not loud enough to break the silence. The quaint, little village laid out on either side of the highway had not yet woken up to the chirping of the birds. Even the wind seemed to recognise the mood of the moment, holding itself back to the faintest of murmurs as it brushed past. Silence. Perfect.

He walked across the two-lane highway on to the rutted path that led to the beach. After leaping over the miniature valley that had been created perpendicular to the path by some strange accident of nature, he headed up towards the sea. The undulating path was quite the miniature obstacle course by itself. Here it sloped up, there it sloped down, suddenly the path was strewn with holes as if plans to erect a hundred-pillar hall had been made, and then dropped. The plans, not the pillars. And since without the pillars, it wouldn't be a hundred-pillar hall, they hadn't built the hall either, leaving an open expanse filled with two feet by two feet holes. And then there was the grass. Neat, green sheets growing in total defiance of the unresponsive sand that constituted the soil of that place. Any guy looking to court a lady who's playing hard-to-get need look no further than this grass for being the epitome of perseverance, he thought. Set on a small hillock, climbing up this green carpet eventually got him high, on grass. From here, the surf was visible, and also the hard, barren land, which had managed to thwart the progress of the grass at the top of the hillock. So, he could get high on grass, but when he came down, he had to hit hard earth.

The beach in the morning was one of the most invigorating places to be. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The smell of the sea, the salt-laden air, the... wait, he knew that other smell. He smelt it everyday, that too in the morning. And then it struck him. Not the origin of the smell, but a dead leaf blown in from the sea, stuck him smack in the face and made him open his eyes. Which was just as well, for lined up in a neat row in front of him, were fishermen who were deeply involved in their morning duties, right on the edge of the water. It was like they were practicing the natural life, giving back to the land that sustained them. Well of course, what they were giving back was decidedly worse than what the land had given them, but atleast they were trying. Trying hard too, by the look on some of their faces which were set in grim determination. This stomach ain't big enough for the two of us.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust and decided to come back some other time. He headed towards the shops to stock up for the week. Unsurprisingly, it was all dark, and though the first shops were just opening up, no one had any lights going. The electricity in the place was much like Saurav Ganguly's batting style. It was predominantly off, and when it was on, it got shorted, and went out. As he neared the shops, the lights flickered on, making him regret for a moment his negative appraisal of Saurav's... no, the electric supply. But he needn't have bothered. Just as he neared and electricity pole, it provided a burst of electrons-going-mad kind of noise and then went off in a brilliant display of fireworks that would've sure brought a tear to Guy Fawkes' eye, in his grave. Or whatever is left of his eye, he was burnt wasn't he? Either way, the wires too went the Guy Fawkes' way, burnt right through. And then, as God said, there was light. From the sun.

He looked up at the sun. This is about the only time of the day you'll be looked upon favourably, he thought. Make hay while... you shine. He trudged back across the road with his bags from the shops. Now for some good sleep to make up for all this early morning waking-up circus...

Mori

2007-04-10T23:58:00.000+05:30

The bank was more crowded than usual. That didn’t help at all. He looked at the clock on the wall. 10:45. He joined the queue which looked the shortest, and started tapping his fingers on his thighs, as was his habit when he was in a hurry. The line didn’t seem to move at all, while the clock just ticked away merrily. Suddenly he heard a scream from the teller counter two places away from his. A small-made woman in jeans and a ragged T-shirt was waving a box in front of the teller. She swung it around at anyone who tried to get closer to her, and kept yelling something at the teller. He could make out the words ‘bomb’ and ‘cash’ over the assorted yelling of others around him. He broke into a cold sweat. This is how I’m going to die. The stand-off continued for a while, with the woman still yelling at the teller to take out the cash, and the teller paralyzed with fear. Finally the teller seemed to regain some sort of composure and started stuffing the cash into a bag. The shabbily-clad woman grabbed it, and placed the box in front of the teller. He watched as the woman slowly backed out of the bank, and then his eyes traveled to the wall-clock again. 11:35. His heart sank.

She

They returned from the trip to the port as scheduled. It had actually been quite an informative trip, and she was filled with the feeling of having done something good for the day. However, after she left the children in class and walked towards the office, she noticed some sort of commotion in the area. A lot of people were crowding around the Principal’s office. As she enquired around, she gathered that some parent had attacked the principal. Attacked?? And that no one was being allowed to school till the police got to the place. No, she thought, that that cannot be. She looked down at her wrist-watch. 10:50 already. The police were not expected for some time now. They were gathering all the staff in the office, so that the police could talk to them together and hence save time. Save time, how ironical. They all waited in the office for the police to arrive. When they finally arrived, they made the usual statement about how they would not take much of their time. She looked down at her watch and her heart skipped a beat. 11:45.

He

At the lab, it took all his will to keep his mind from wandering to the events earlier in the morning and concentrating on finishing the paper. This was it, eight years of single-minded dedication, towards a problem that was 8 decades old. When his close friend from college had suggested taking this up for their PhD thesis, he had never thought they would actually solve the problem. The most he had hoped for was to just try and understand the problem at all. And yet, here it was in front of them, the solution. Like so many others, its genius lay in its simplicity. He surveyed their final paper with a look of affection, and then turned to his partner and gave him a huge grin.

They agreed they would present their paper later in the evening. He ran out of the lab, it was 10:30 already. He figured he could drop in at the bank, draw some money, and surprise her with one huge bouquet. She loved surprises.

She

The children were being very well-behaved at the port. Today being a Saturday, they had decided to cancel classes for Standard VII, and take them on a sort of educational tour to the port instead. To see how the big ships and the containers worked. Children are always fascinated by big things, she thought. Just like he is by big numbers. She smiled to herself. The smart Navy man who was showing them around was explaining something about how they were planning to use trained dolphins and sea lions to help with port security. This was not officially announced yet, but they were soon going to. All this barely registered in her mind. All she was thinking off was dropping the kids back at school. And after that…

They

She sent the pen flying across the room in an arc, but it missed its intended target by quite a distance. She didn’t calculate the projectile velocity right, he thought. Wait, that’s not the problem right now. She’s really angry this time. He watched for signs that would show she had blown enough steam. So far she was showing none. She was still fuming at him for having completely forgotten about their dinner plan the previous night. And having come home at around 2 in the night and gone straight to sleep. And for having done that for the third night in a row.

He suddenly realized from behind the couch that the projectile attacks on him had stopped. He peeked over the couch to see her sitting on the table, head in her hands. He heaved a sigh of relief. From here, he could handle it. He went over to the table, pulled a chair next to her and said softly, “You know how my work is. I just get caught up in it so much that I don’t even notice the passage of time.” She looked up angrily, and he held his hands up defensively, “I know. I know you work too, and I know this is no excuse. But we’re nearly done with our problem now. Yesterday’s incident will be the last of its kind, I promise. All we need to do today is to compile the result. And after that, I’ll be the best boyfriend a girl ever had” he finished with a smile. He knew she could never hold out against his smile.

She nearly did, staring angrily at him for a full minute. And then, still staring straight into his eyes, she said “If that is all that you have to do today, you should be done by an hour or so, right? Around 10 o’clock?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

"Good, then listen. My school work shouldn’t take 2 hours of my time today either. So, we meet for an early lunch, at the place we were supposed to have dinner yesterday. Yes?”

Now he was on a sticky wicket. Sure, he had only one hour of work to do today. But then, he could never tell. He hesitated.

“I can’t go on doing all the waiting”, she continued “If you cannot do this for me today, then… I guess we should call it off. This whole ‘us’ thing, today.”

That one took him by surprise. “What? Whoa, let’s not go to such extremes here. Of course I can make it, by… 11o’clock? This time I’ll get it right, trust me.” He brought out the smile again. This time it had a bit more of the impact he had hoped for.

“Ok then. But remember, 11 A.M, sharp. If not…”

Men's Rules

2007-03-20T22:23:00.000+05:30

I know all of this is cliched, and been said many times before, and maybe it's not even funny anymore. But, in the interest of every man who is, was and ever will be committed, here it goes, for all the ladies out there...

Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

Birthdays, Valentines, and Anniversaries are not considered by us to be opportunities to see if we can find the perfect present . . . . again!

Sometimes we are not thinking about you. Live with it.

Sunday = sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

Don't cut your hair. Ever. Long hair is always more attractive than short hair. One of the big reasons guys fear getting married is that married women always cut their hair, and by then you're stuck with her.

Ask for what you want. Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!

We don't remember dates. . . .Period!!

Most guys own three pairs of shoes - tops. What makes you think we'd be any good at choosing which pair, out of thirty, would look good with your dress?

Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

We do not like shopping. We REALLY don't. We're not pretending or something just because we supposedly don't like shopping. Shopping sucks, that's all.

Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.

Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.

If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.

If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us. We've been tricked before!!

If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

Let us ogle. We are going to look anyway; it's genetic.

You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

Christopher Columbus did not need directions, and neither do we.

The relationship is never going to be like it was the first two months we were going out. Get over it. And quit whining to your girlfriends.

ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

We are not mind readers and we never will be. Our lack of mind-reading ability is not proof of how little we care about you.

If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing is wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as my football team, the shotgun formation, or monster trucks.

BEER is as exciting for us as handbags are for you.

Thank you for reading this; Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight, but did you know, it's like camping.

And Now it's Haikus!

2007-03-17T01:55:00.000+05:30

Chemistry classes are just the inspiration, I tell you!

Pictures on the board,
To me, they are stuff drawn by
Egyptians when bored.

One, two, three, four, five
Numbers swimming through the head
Don't drink and derive.

Kids who become men
Feeding mouths from Dawn to Dusk
Still, they look so Zen.

More movies I see
Unique stories maybe fill
A tub, not a sea.

'Sup' means supper, fool.
Not fancy-speak for 'What's up'
Shakespeare's so not cool.

Sweating under sun
Follow masses up and down
Just for salvation.

'Pass the ball', he cried
'Which one?' he asked mockingly
One person, two sides.

Get eight hours of sleep
Yet red-eyed at break of dawn
What to do, I weep.

Staring from under
I've always known I loved you
Do you, I wonder.

Wicket to wicket
Madly running up and down
It's just not cricket!

Where things never grow
Nor decay; without bias
Death levels us so.

The last drop of tear
Leaves the eye, as we wonder
Where we go from here.

Throw stones in a pond,
The waves you get are Rippley,
Believe it or not!

Can it crawl slower?
While in room, it flies so fast
Class never gets over.

The Crush of Love

2007-03-10T11:34:00.000+05:30

Seeing as it is the season for writing poems, I thought I should too, having not written a single poem in all of my previous 53 posts. Besides, if love can't inspire poetry, what can, eh?

Having known her all my life,
She never gave cause for strife.
Fate destined she be mine own
Seeds of love, in my heart sown.

Tonic she was for all my cares,
As we talked of Bulls and Bears.
End of night or start of day,
Somehow she just had her way.

She's the one that's caused my dreams,
While with her, time flies, it seems.
And we go far, far and wide
All the time, she by my side.

Now that we are together
All that I did to get her,
Vanish like dew from leaves' face
When faced by the solar rays.

Like Lennon said - Imagine,
I do too, had she not been.
Aimless nomad been I might
If not with her every night,

As I fall in her embrace
Childish smile across my face,
Being with her, calm and deep,
How I love my Beauty sleep.

Thank You.

Chuck it

2007-02-26T00:43:00.000+05:30

After reading about something twice, you start to wonder how it would really like to be, as it is described in it. Sometimes it is difficult to find the reason behind the seeming madness described, and it is very easy to dismiss all of it as mindless rantings of a sick mind. Or a very, very depressed one. And then again, some times, the reasons stare at you stark naked and your mind immediately flashes passages where the exact same thing was described. Epiphany.

Evening. A famous sweet shop, in a very prominent location in the city. The place is filled to bursting, and then some. There are guys, I can’t say men, because they are wandering about in shorts and sunglasses, and looking absolutely lost. ‘US returned’. Tag them thus, and indulge them for what they really are. Strangers in their own land. But it’s not like nature let them loose in the grime and sweat of Chennai without any help. Oh no, she wouldn’t do that. She created the Wife.

The female of the species, to give credit where it’s due, knows the modus operandi of any kind of shop almost by instinct. So, Sunday evening, everyone’s tired of having cooked stuff at home, and it’s time for the holiday for the kitchen.

Maybe we’ll go out for dinner tonight, to a nice quiet restaurant.
Yes Dear.
And if we leave a bit early, maybe we could pick up something at the Sweets’. For the rest of the week, something for the momentary hunger.
Yes Dear.

It was a generation of men brought up by women.

Or, for women.

So let’s have half a kg of this, and another half of that, and a half of what-not.
Yes Dear… Wait, the last one… half a kg of…
What-not.
Right, What-not.

Trained thus in the workings of the inner worlds of sweet-making and its delivery, the guy is no ready to tackle the final frontier standing between him and cholesterol heaven. The serpentine queue. So the guy, shorts and all, waddles up to the counter, places the order, seems extremely amused by the whole token system, flashes the MasterCard or Visa or whatever and collects the goodies. And of course chivalry demands that the lady just stand and watch all this. The above procedure takes nearly thirty minutes. Not the three lines as described here. Serpentine queues don’t just disappear in three sentences of process description. Resulting in quite a sweaty ‘US return’ at the end of the whole thing. Summers in Texas aren’t so hot.

And then, it’s a drive to the restaurant. Nice, decent place, which offers good food and a quiet atmosphere. Along with the small problem of a hundred other families who figured the same way about the place. So, drop the lady off, and go in search of the parking spot. Up and down the road, with growing frustration. Hands clenching the steering harder, legs cramping up because of the incessant switching between clutch and brake. That, and all other obstacles such as cross-parked bikes and annoying auto guys later, the car finally slots home, rather awkwardly, but it’s parked. Then it’s off smiling towards the lady, who, again, to give credit where it’s due, has secured a nice, quiet table when seemingly none was available.

Because, it’s her holiday, and she has worked all week.

Of course, it’s his holiday too. And there was a Cup Final that evening. Maybe someone will message him the result.

That old saying, about how you always kill the one you love, well look, it works both ways.

Half-Time

2007-02-20T15:39:00.000+05:30

It's not always that I sit down and write, and attempt to make sense. It's not that I never write anything that has a point, it's just that I find it easier not to make a point. But this time, I'm going to make an exception.

There's a very intriguing list. This one. I've always been fascinated by lists, ticking things off them, starting from the top, starting from the bottom, starting from the middle and working both ways, all kinds. And this list is no different. And now that I've seen 125 movies out of the 250 on the list, I can act quite knowledgeable about the subject of movies and movie-making. And also watching.

There is no way that I'm gonna dissect each of the 125 frame by frame, pointing out moments of brilliance and not-so-brilliance and all such. I don't even remember some of those movies too well. There's no way you're going to read it even if I do. So, only a select few movies. And maybe the one that I think should top the list.

Most of the top 50 movies are there because, well, they belong there. The LOTR series and Godfather series for their sheer technical brilliance and acting respectively. The early Star Wars movies for being the trend-setters they were. Citizen Kane, for the first movie to use a non-continuous screenplay. Shawshank, Usual Suspect, Se7en, Eternal Sunshine and other such movies for being the kind of movies that you watch, and come out shaking your head in wonderment. With all these wonderful movies up there, I never understood what Rear Window was doing at 13th. It's not nearly a murder mystery. Neither is it a full-fledged, heart strings-tugging love story. It's about a guy who broke his leg and had nothing better than to snoop into the neighbour's house through his window. Heck, it's indecent, if nothing else. All through the movie I waited and watched, and waited for something to happen. And then just like that, poof, the movie was over. What the...

It's not like I have anything against Hitchcock. Psycho was everything that the hype about it promised, Vertigo and North by Northwest had screenplays that motored along very nicely indeed. Rebecca too had a strong story to back it. Strangers on a Train is, in my opinion, the best Hitchcock movie I've seen. The whole concept on which the movie is based is quite novel, apart from the fact that it IS actually based on a novel, of course. And again, I never felt the time fly by as I was watching the movie. That takes quite some doing, I get bored easy most of the times. Which is what happened with Rear Window. And yet it's the highest rated Hitchcock movie. Clearly, my tastes are not refined enough.

Akira Kurosawa is the man who showed the world that the Japanese too can make movies, and then went ahead and showed the world how to make them. Shooting into the limelight with Rashomon, he went on to make other Samurai-based movies such as Yojimbo, Seven Samurai and Ran, the last one based almost entirely on Shakespeare's King Lear. Japanese movies are a different world by themselves, with the characters running around barefoot clutching their swords to their hips, the mostly expressionless protagonists with their Samurai stunts and of course, Sake. Quite different from the dour-faced, pinstripe-suited characters of the Hollywood movies, which alone is enough to make them worth watching.

In fact, most foreign films come as a refreshing change for someone who has watched Hollywood churn out near-similar fare year after year after year, citing the reasons of 'formula of success' and other such nonsense. Amelie was an incredibly nice feel-good movie, Life is Beautiful was well, beautiful, if only for the fact that it was a war movie and yet the war itself only formed a somber background to the individual's life that it affected, which was the focus of the movie. And then again, The Downfall managed to do both, concentrate on the war as well as the individual simultaneously. It helped of course that the individual in question was Hitler. But still. Hispanic movies have an obsession with drawing different story-threads and then joining them at one point. Credit to them though, that they do it seamlessly, with each story being great in their own right, eventually coming together to create the movie which is greater than the sum of its parts. Like what happens in Power Rangers. Or the New Zealand Cricket Team. Or City of Gods and Amores Perros, in the context of this post.

Stanley Kubrick is probably the man who has most movies in the Top 250. Not without reason too, on evidence of Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange and even Full Metal Jacket. It's just generally accepted that he's the man, notwithstanding the fact that I slightly slept through the second half of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just like it's accepted that Quentin Tarantino is the man. Based mostly on Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bills. Not that Reservoir Dogs is any less a Tarantino special, and even Sin City which he guest-directed with its graphic-novel feel throughout. Another movie that provided a welcome break from the usual.

All this apart, there are only two movies which I know by-heart, line by line, frame-by-frame. Apart from Minnale, I mean. Fight Club, for its sheer denial of everything that humans have ever worked for, century after century. It's not that the mere rebellious nature of the movie draws the hot-blooded teenager towards it, it's just got so much to say- things that were always around and that pass by us everyday and yet, we never realized, stuck as we are in our mind-set of following the flock. You have to see the movie enough times till you can say the lines along with it. Then, will you realize the impact of each of them, like the one in the description section of this blog. And then, once you've watched the movie, you go and read the book. And realize why the movie had to be a great one. The book just cannot be made into a bad movie.

And yet, for all that, if Fight Club can manage only second spot in my ratings, there must be something else which defines movie-making. Maybe it's not a technical wonder, maybe it's not got an edge-of-the-seat thriller story or a gut-wrenching emotional drama. Maybe it's not a movie which you can be inspired by, or maybe it is. But it's probably the lack of all these which make that movie what it is. The story is naked, told with a brutal simplicity and moving at break-neck speed. The book was a melange of different stories, the movie tries to pick out only one which has a workable chronology to it, and succeeds perfectly. The lines, its always the lines, are again, so simple that you wonder how they've never struck you before. There is enough of an emotional roller-coaster through the length of the movie to call it well-made. It's not without reason it's on top of my list. It's not without reason it is the heading of this blog.

After all, we're not stupid. At least, we're not that stupid - Mark Renton.

This. Is the crack.

2007-02-17T02:07:00.000+05:30

Perfect :)

So Long, and Thanks for all the 'Oh Fish!'

2007-02-06T11:07:00.000+05:30

I was reading my blogger archives yesterday. I don't know how/why I got there, but very appropriately I had landed on the post I had written right after last Saarang. Apart from the usual banter about Saarang and nothing coming out of it, I've been pretty funny in parts, if I've not reached the absolute nadir of sadness in saying so myself. And now, one year down the line, that post has made me realize something. Slightly scary maybe, but a revelation which had to come, and better sooner than later. I am not the person who wrote that post.

Sure, the world is changing and it inexorably causes everyone in it to do so as well. There is this rise of Mega(goog)lomania, that omnipresent brainchild of Brin&Page that is now an integral part of every corner of web space that you'll ever visit. There is the plummeting cost of Cell phones and service providers that the average cell phone density in an area might be more than the human density itself. There is the fact that one reality show with a small bit of controversy can make front page news for a whole week while ISRO's recoverable satellite thing (Well, there were not enough details! I know Jade Goody's biography by-heart though) gets one corner of the third page. There is the fact that George Bush is sending more troops to Iraq. No wait, not that.

So with all these changes imposing themselves on the average human being, it is only natural that the person also change. But in my case the change has been much greater than what could be put down as normal updating. It's a paradigm shift, or rather paradijim shift, as a famous singer who came to judge LM group finals at Saarang put it. Without doubt, this past one year has done, taught, created, destroyed and shown more for me than the 19 preceding ones. And I am glad for it.

This was supposed to be a post on what happened at Saarang '07. For me in particular, and the world in general. But I found to my dismay that I simply couldn't put my finger on what to write about, leave alone the question of how. That is something new, I haven't had too much difficulty thinking of a topic to write about. At least I'd have a vague idea of what my point was, though I admit, most times I don't have one. This post is merely an amoeba in my head, a germ of an idea (pun unintended). Shapeless, pointless, and waiting to go wherever its pseudopoda take it. In this case, my fingers on this over-abused keyboards. And it's going nowhere.

So, Saarang 2007 was good, I guess. Though my personal opinion might be heavily biased, due to a lot of reasons. It was cut down to four days from the usual five, thanks to he-who-must-not-be-named. And then all the usual brouhaha happened, events, professional shows, workshops blah. I'm tired of writing about Saarang. And about the melange of events and the kaleidoscope of feelings and the ultimate concoction of cultures which eventually makes Saarang, Saarang. Cliched so much that I want to puke. I also wanted to puke after I went sleepless on one night this Saarang too. But my stomach held its own and I pulled through the next day comfortably. Comfortably Numbly in fact.

Leave all that. The one year between Saarang 2006 and Saarang 2007, what has it left me with? Agony. Elation. Ecstacy. Joy. Depression. Frustration. Anger. Satisfaction. Jealousy. Hope. Fear. Calmness. Surprise. Shock. Craving. Boredom. Bliss. All of the above, surely. And then a bit more, which none of these can encompass.

There are somethings which words can't explain. For everything else, there's Wikipedia.

50 Posts. I'm the man.

Beep!

2007-01-12T00:33:00.000+05:30

This is just to announce to the world in general, and to no one in particular, that I'm still alive. And I will make the announcement even though I know that no one really cares. All in all, we're just another Brick in the Wall. And all that.

I also felt a rish of adrenaline today. After a looooong time. I mean, I was wondering if I was dead inside . You know, nothing happened that could make me feel anything at all in my hollow tin chest (I know, plagiarism, so sue me!) And today I screamed, full-throated and with all the effort that Janet Leigh put into the shower scene in Psycho (I'm not going to put some unnecessary IMDB link on Psycho, you can type it into the bloody search window if you want). So basically I screamed, and put high-fives and jumped around and was on a general adrenalin-high. Adrenalin's good.

Post became longer than I envisioned. That's good too.

Life or something like shit

2006-12-21T12:39:00.000+05:30

I came into IIT expecting a lot. And I got more than a lot, more like acres. This place is like HUGE. There is no parking lot, but there’s a lot. The amount of trees in this place is unimaginable. Apart from the Gymnosperm and Angiosperm kinds, there are the trees with numbers on them, such as Tree No. 38, tree no. 138 and tree no. x with 130 < x < 140. I came in expecting professors with brainwaves coming out of their ears, and other professors measuring these using brainwave-o-meters. I came in expecting students to find unbelievable solutions such as turn on the switch to indecipherable problems such as why the computer wouldn’t start. I came in expecting to find brainiacs in ill-fitting shirts and with messed up hair because they had stayed up all night. Not thinking up solutions to Schrödinger’s equations, but watching the latest sitcom from NBC. I came in expecting all this. And I found them.

One of the things that I most admired in my seniors was their ability to sleep in class without the professor being able to discern the same. This was a very important skill to have as it ensured that the body got its required amount of sleep, which had been lost at night on the above-mentioned sitcom. Oh, apart from that, they also had something or the other to do with this thing called the Lit-Soc. The Lit-Soc is this thing, which happens in my college, which doesn’t amount to the tiniest bit of hair on a rodent’s posterior, except for one big cup at the end of it all. Which you can get in any elec course without much effort anyway. Without any effort, actually.

And so, since I’m an Indian, and no Indian has ever had an original idea, I decided to do something else, to make my wonderfully incomplete life even more incomplete. I read classics which I couldn’t make head or tail of just because they were classics. I watched Black and White movies which even their directors would’ve forgotten having made. I played football as a two-footed winger whenever I had the opportunity, and finally got two and half minutes at right-back in the only match we played. I went to quizzes and stared blankly at the paper - the Mass Transfer/Equilibrium Operations kind of quizzes. I was desperate to be recognized as he-who-does-something-else by the band of we-all-do-something-else people. I ran from here to there and back here again. Sometimes, I just ran.

And then I found the Hat.

The Hat. It’s very difficult to describe completely what the hat is about, and I can never do justice to it. But I can try. I’ve seen cricketers kiss their helmets when they score a century, and I’ve always wondered what made them kiss that smelly, plastic object when their lips would’ve done much better in contact with another pair of lips, attached to a fragrant, organic being of the opposite sex. I’ve wondered what made them feel so strongly about something. The hat helped me understand.

The hat is the epitome of the simplicity of genius. Its power lies in its non-existence, its secret lies in its openness. It’s the ultimate paradox. To wear the hat is to experience a feeling like never before. With the hat on, you get the feeling of having done something to stir the innermost rumblings of any heart. You’ve made them feel insignificant, unwanted, ignored for that small period of time. You’ve made them stop talking, and so By Douglas Adams’ hypothesis, their brain starts to slowly grind into motion. You’ve done something that would make them remember you forever.

You’ve made them think. For once.

The hat can be worn to anyone. Professors, seniors, juniors, friends, irritating cell-phone company callers, annoying Xerox machine characters… anyone. The beauty of the hat is in the universality of its use. And it’s not that the usage of the hat is limited to people. The hat can be worn to things too, such as Computational Techniques quizzes, or assignments, or classes. Or End sems. Whatever. The point is, once you’ve worn the hat, you’re liberated. From the mundane, from the boring, from the routine, from the inconsequential.

It is difficult to totally describe what the Hat can do. And the hat says that this is enough about itself for now, and it shall be so. For the hat is never wrong. It doesn't matter what kind you have on. It could be a sombrero, a felt-hat, a bowler or a top-hat. All that matters is that it's there, or actually not there. For as said before, it's the non-existence of the hat which really makes its presence felt. Like sometimes when you feel that silence is very loud.

This could go on and on, but that would be disrespecting the hat, and all that it stands for. It’s got nothing do with memories being butterflies and you shouldn’t stick em to papers and all that. It’s just that you don’t talk about the hat. That’s all.

Amen.

P.S: I put this post up, and by some weird machination of Google's Edit function, it got deleted. But I wore the hat and reproduced it. From memory. Thus the hat also doubles as a thinking cap. See?

November Rain

2006-12-12T15:15:00.000+05:30

The title has nothing at all do with the following story. It's merely the song playing on my computer right now.

Once upon a time, there was a rich but stingy old man who slept in his barn because he just really really liked his horses. He was very fond of them and he didn’t want any harm to come to them. He had a lot of enemies and he wanted to make sure all his horses had their heads on their sleek shoulders, and not on his bed, as he had seen in the movie The Godfather. Besides, if he was to sleep with some animal, he rather preferred that it was his horses than, say, his fish. If he was sleeping with the fishes, it would mean that he was no longer part of the realm of the living and had left his mortal body behind to ascend to heaven, or descend to hell, whichever. Basically, it would mean he was dead. This again from The Godfather. Besides, it was not that he was sleeping in the smelly barn with all this hay around without reason. A hitchhiker had come by a few hours ago, and had offered to give him 267.75 bucks for letting him sleep in his house tonight. This was an offer he couldn’t refuse, and he’s let him have the house. And if you haven’t figured by now, the old man was obsessed with The Godfather.

It wasn’t that the old man was in desperate need of money. He had half the GDP of Somalia locked up in numbered accounts in Switzerland. He had purchased land which, put together, amounted to just over 1/3^rd the total area of Tuvalu (YES, it is a country). But of course, all that was never enough. And even though these 267.75 bucks would not contribute even one-billionth towards furthering either of those two pieces of statistics, it would at least help him buy a calculator. With which, he could calculate those two pieces of statistics better. He patted himself for having cleverly let the hitchhiker have his bedroom for the night to sleep.

The hitchhiker was not at all asleep in the bedroom. In fact, he wasn’t in the bedroom at all. In fact, he wasn’t a hitchhiker at all. He was actually part of the special commando unit of his country, the Fraternal Army of the Republic of Tamenia, which couldn’t be abbreviated for obvious reasons. They had been sent over to the neighbouring republic of Crazykhistan, to disarm a nuclear bomb that the country had inexplicably created. The hitchhiker-soldier shook his head again in amazement at this fact. There was no way anyone in Crazykhistan would’ve been able to put together a nuclear weapon. The person with the highest IQ in the country was one who had identified a cat as a dog. Everyone else had identified as a cat. With such intellectual property, it was beyond anyone how they had managed to work out the working of nuclear fission. And yet, the intelligence department had positive information about the existence of the bomb, and they had deemed it necessary to disarm it as fast as possible. And that’s where the F.A.R.T came in.

Their unit had crossed over into Crazykhistan last night, and had arrived at the location sited by the intelligence as the most likely hiding place of the weapon. They had just decided to do a quick in-and-out, under the cover of darkness, when floodlights blazed all around them. They found themselves in an open field, where the most terrifying weapon for miles around was a sharp piece of blade which could tickle a man to death if used properly. Other than that of course, there were the hundred and fifty one rifles trained at the seven of them by the Crazykhistan army. It was an ambush! Before anyone could react, they had all simultaneously gone for the flashlights, and then it had been every man for himself. With bullets whizzing by within 0.0003 meters from his head, he had stumbled on blindly, keeping low and using up 8 of his 9 lives on the way. He still didn’t know how, but he had crossed the border at some point and after two more of hours of stumbling, had arrived at this house. He had convinced the owner to let him stay over for the night, telling him that he could have his 9.23418 mm Beretta for 267.75 bucks, when it was actually worth 272.25 bucks (Ha, he’d pulled a fast one there!) And now he wondered if any of the other six had survived…

The old man was finding it really uncomfortable in the barn. He knew there was a spot at the left rear end, where there was new, soft hay. He went over there and threw himself on the hay, and immediately regretted the action. His back hit something hard and he got up clutching his back. He cleared the hay to find a hard object underneath. What in the world… was not the first thought that crossed his mind. The first thought that crossed his mind was How much will this be worth? However, the What in the world… came soon after, followed by How? Where? Wha…? in varying degrees of incomprehensibility, all waiting at the signal, to cross his mind. Once all these thoughts were done crossing the increasingly congested road that his mind was becoming, he decided to call the hitchhiker to see if he could help him remove the object.

The hitchhiker-soldier-survivor came to the barn smirking inwardly. The old man’s probably seen a cockroach or something and wants me to drive it away. He entered the barn and saw something gleaming in the corner that the old man pointed to. For a moment a crazy thought entered his head, but he dismissed it immediately. He walked over to the corner and cleared away more of the hay. As the long, cylindrical object revealed itself, the crazy thought came back into his head, knocked loudly and said ‘I told you so’. There, lying in all its glory, with its timer reading 00:00:17, was the nuclear weapon. Immediately everything fell into place for the hitchhiker-soldier.

There had been a bomb, and the army of Crazykhistan had meant for it to be found. And then, once they were sure it had been exposed enough for the intelligence of Tamenia to become aware of its existence, they had it moved and set up an ambush in its place. They had wiped out nearly the entire commando unit of the Fraternal Army of the Republic of Tamenia in one blow. And, when the unit had thus been occupied, they had secretly slipped the bomb itself into Tamenia and armed it to explode. The complex plot convinced the hitchhiker-soldier-sailor that Crazykhistan had somehow developed a machine to put together the IQ of the entire population, to create a super-brain.

Or, someone hadn’t taken that IQ test.

This entire thought process cost the hitchhiker 16 seconds to think. When he looked down at the timer again, it read 00:00:01.

The old man was getting ready to shout ‘Happy New Year!’

The hitchhiker was thinking Oh Shit…

White Noise

2006-11-13T22:30:00.000+05:30

Hari got up to the sunlight streaming right into his eyes. He hated it when that happened, and wished he could shift his bed away from the window where it currently was. But his single room apartment afforded only so much space and there was nowhere else he could put the bed. Besides, light wasn't really a problem, that was not what had woken him up. His mind dully registered the rhythmic thud thud of the concrete mixer which came in through the window. That was it, that was what had woken him up. Light of any kind he could sleep through, but expose him to a noise slightly above a whisper on the Decibel level, and his foray into dreamland would be unceremoniously cut off and he'd find himself with his feet firmly on the ground, which was what he was attempting to do now.

He swung his legs over the bed and plonked them down, but instead of meeting terra firma, he found his legs in a semi-solid state of matter with pieces of solid spread intermittently through the matrix. His brain tried to reconstruct the events of the past night, trying to search for clues which might explain the gunk under his legs. Let's see... friends come over, match too boring, go out for a quickie... quickie expands into rounds, rounds into bottles, stagger back between friends' shoulders, flop on bed... no wait, ah YES! Before the flop on bed part, his stomach had rebelled against the excessive alcohol treatment it had been subjected to and had decidedly rejected the contents of the bottles that he'd been interacting with a few hour before that, and so by the process of regurgitation, had splayed his floor with the same. In short, he had puked, and now his foot was in it.

He got up and immediately regretted the action. The world spun in one direction, and his head in the other, as he staggered around to find something to get a hold off, other than himself. Thankfully, the world realigned itself to his sense of balance and he went into the bathroom to clean... most of himself. That concrete-mixer was really getting to him. Who in the world wanted a new driveway for the neighbour's cars anyway? And then the thought struck him that the neighbours did, and he felt very depressed by the simple logic of it all.

He needed coffee. Sugar-less coffee. Just cafe con leche as his Spanish girlfriend would've put it. Which reminded him. They were supposed to meet today... or was it tomorrow. Yep, definitely today. Things hadn't been going that well between them lately. She was finding his perennial lack of time, or seeming lack of concern for her quite irritating. Even when they were together, she complained that he looked so lost all the time, dreamy, sleepy... she didn't know how to put it. And the last time, when he had yawned right in her face when she was in the middle of an animated exposition about her work day, she had been really put off. She had gotten up and walked off in a huff, and it had taken more than one conciliatory phone call to agree to the meeting today. He had wanted to be the perfect boyfriend today, listen to everything she said, nod in agreement with a smile, inject the odd funny comment... the works. But now he had gone and got drunk and his head was throbbing.

He still had an hour till he was scheduled to meet her. He decided to take the coffee and walk to her office, maybe the air will help clear up his head. He had a cold shower, nearly died of hypothermia as a result, towelled himself dry, put on the cleanest clothes he could find, stepped around the mess on the floor and stepped out of the apartment.

She worked in an NGO, which took care of the orphans abandoned on Mumbai's roads... or atleast as much of them as they could. Why she had to come all the way from Catalunya to actively involve herself in this, was beyond him. He wasn't complaining though, they had nicely hit it off when they had met at the party for the Spanish ambassador, when he had thankfully been sober, and it had been good ever since. That is, till that last time... or the last few weeks in fact. And now she was angry. And today was the make-up day. And he was hung over.

The hour long walk through the fresh, polluted Bombay air did his head no good at all. Now not only was his head throbbing, but his feet were complaining and he was hungry, since his stomach had efficiently emptied itself out last night, and he had fogotten this thing called breakfast. Still, he was in front of the NGO's office, and he took a deep breath and stepped inside. He knew her office was on the third floor, she had told him that during one of the stories that he had been listening to. He reached her office and without knocking, opened the door, shouting 'Surprise' as he did.

She was not there. The office was empty. Probably stepped out for a bit, he thought. He stepped into the office. It was brilliantly lit, and very clean too, giving the office a look of purity, like some minor angel's office in heaven. He shut the door behind him and something struck him as being very odd. He waited a few minutes, and then realization dawned upon him. The room was completely silent! Either by a quirk of architectural brilliance, or accoustic magic, the room had become completely sound-proof. Not a single noise permeated through the white walls or the now-closed door. He walked around the room and settled into a couch, which looked wide enough to fit two people into it. He decided to wait for her, and settled a bit more comfortably into the couch. He found that if he pulled his legs up into a foetal position, he could really get a very nice orientation of his body parts. He did so, and his eyes decided that the best orientation for them, was with the eyelids down, and so they screwed shut. The white walls, the bright lights, the near-heavenly cleanliness, nothing mattered for Hari. All that mattered was the complete aural isolation that the room provided, and his brain acknowledged the fact by immediately switching off. Hari was out like a light, all puns intended.

Maria stepped into her office and let out a short gasp of surprise. There was a form sitting, rather, curled up on her couch. Then she recognised the unruly brown hair and smiled to herself. That can only be one person. She tiptoed into the room, hoping to catch him by surprise. As she leant over to place her hands over his eyes, she saw that that would not be needed, they were closed anyway. She went around the couch and knelt beside him. He was sleeping peacefully, not a care in the world. She knelt closer, and found what she was looking for, or rather, smelling for. One coffee was nowhere near enough to supress the smell of the bottle, or more, of yesterday night's drinks. She looked at him for a long time, just kneeling there and staring. Then she lightly ruffled the unruly brown hair, got up and tiptoed away.

As she went out, she switched off the lights too.

Snapshot

2006-10-18T10:54:00.000+05:30

Quiz week is one of those times when laws of relativity, gravity, sphericity, electricity and all become defunct. Time exists only in terms of pages of book left to read or number of problems left to solve. Performance optimization occurs by judicious use of time alloted to sleeping, eating, and other necessary human activities for poring through the book. Dead Man Walking would be the description closest to being correct at these times. And yet, in this primarily black and white state of existence, there was a brief splash of colour, yesterday.

This was while eating dinner. Across the table from me were two other gentlemen who clearly did not have to worry about Mass Transfer and other such trivialities of life. So they launched into this animated discussion about a lesson they had in 9th Standard in their English textbook.

You remember that story called The Deer in The Forest, or something?

You mean Bambi?

No no, this was just, a deer in the forest. There would be this deer, with it's baby deer, what do you call it...

Fawn.

Yes, fawn. So there is this deer and the fawn living in a forest. One day there is a huge forest fire and there is mayhem all round. The deer and its fawn, in panic, run straight into a tiger. As the tiger watched hungrily, the fawn starts trembling, its legs refusing to move. The deer knows that there is no way its baby can outrun the tiger, so it steps in between the tiger and its baby...

In real life that'll never happen, the deer will just run away.

What? Why?

What, obviously it can outrun the tiger, and besides the tiger will be satisfied with the fawn. This way the deer can atleast survive and maybe give birth to another fawn. If it stays there, the tiger will kill it first, and then go after the fawn and kill it too anyway.

The man had a point, I thought.

Eh no, what're you saying? You know when a Cobra lays eggs, and a mongoose comes to eat the eggs, the cobra will go out and fight the mongoose and die, rather than let the mongoose take the eggs. If that's the case for unhatched eggs, surely a deer would do the same for a living, breathing fawn.

Yes, but the cobra and mongoose are at least well-matched. Between the deer and the tiger, it's a no contest, and hence, no point.

The man was making point after point.

No da, the deer will defend the kid only first. Ok, that's what the story says, let's stick to it. So the way that scene is described, it's one of the few lines etched in my memory.
"With a trembling heart, she stood in front of her baby, as she watched the jaws of death of the tiger, ready to tear into her flesh at any moment."

I smiled. I had finished my dinner. I was full.

Saarang 2007

2006-10-12T12:28:00.000+05:30

Finally, I get to do shameless publicity on my blog!

The Saarang 2007 blog is up and running... and you can visit it HERE.

Yes yes, Saarang is till a long way off and all, but you know, we believe in starting early (also read as 'we didn't have anything else to do')

Ergo, enjoy.

Shakespeare's Greatest Gaffe

2006-09-25T15:24:00.000+05:30

To be or not to be.

That's not even a question!

Road-side Cricket

2006-09-05T09:26:00.000+05:30

I'm tired of everyone in this universe cursing Chennai's auto drivers every time they have a bad day. A taffic hold-up on the road, a display of rash driving, blatant extortion in the name of meter-less fare... even if they're all true, you can't keep blaming these guys! This is the problem with our country, we don't know how to look at the bright side of things. I mean, step back, detach yourself from your mortal body, and look at it from an unbiased observer's point of view, and you'll see that our Auto drivers make such bloody good cricketers! I shall prove the above statement to you, and then you can give me my Nobel...

Fast Bowlers: This is so obvious that they won't consider such theses for a Nobel. Our Auto Drivers (ADs) have the kind of reckless pace and sheer ruthlessness of a Shohaib or Brett Lee. What's more, they strike fear in the heart of every other commuter on the road, including the one sitting in their own auto. Isn't that what you want a fast bowler to do, strike fear in the hearts of the opposition? Sure, they may be expensive some times, costing a life here or there, but basically they're the kind of option you want to open your bowling with. Fast, focussed and furious.

Batsmen: Ever noticed an auto weave through rush hour traffic? The uncanny ability to pick the smallest of gaps in the field, I mean road, is matched at best by only Sachin. You set a 9-0 field and bowl 3 meters outside off, and you can still be sure our ADs can pick a gap through this. It was Chappell who said Sachin had "peripheral awareness". Clearly, he's not seen enough of our ADs. Leave alone Peripheral Awareness, they also have Policeman awareness, unsuspecting-cutomer-waiting-to-be-taken-for-a-ride awareness and most important of all, signal non-awareness!

Fielders: The most important ability on the field is agility, the ability to twist and turn and generally be on your toes. And as always, our ADs are easily upto the challenge. The U-Turns that they manage to take defies all laws of Physics, Chemistry and Nano-molecular Plant Microbiology. The concept of a turning radius does not exist for the auto, it justs pivots about its back wheels. No dead end is too small for them to turn back from, and so no boundary is too tough to save. With this amount of flexibility and turnability and twistability, you put Kaif up against our AD on the field, and it's a no contest, really.

Spinners: The art of Spin Bowling is not about turning the ball, it's about the one ball which does not turn, or even better, turns the other way. It's called the Googly, and oh boy, our ADs are the last word in perfection of this art. They put the left indicator, stick out the hand on the right and then go straight, throwing a double googly to the bewildered cop at the intersection. We know that the Chennai Cops aren't an easy lot to confuse, but if our boys can manage that with such incredible insouciance, England and all... I'm looking at 64 all out.

Umpires: Not only the players, we can draw people for the ICC's Elite Panel of Umpires too from the ADs. There will be no Hair-raising controversies about ball-tampering, because the auto meters are tampered (putting it mildly) too, and they won't preach what they don't practice. Besides, their fares amount to daylight robbery irrespective of whoever gets into their three-tier, I mean, three-tire coach. Hence, you can be assured of their fairness when they are giving LBWs or close catches. Atleast all decisions will be uniformly wrong.

Commentators: I know I only said players, but most players go into the commentary box stright from the dressing room as soon as they get out anyway, so why should our ADs be any different? And that they have as colourful a language as any number of Tony Greigs and Ravi Shastris put together cannot be denied. It's not that they are lacking in content either. When an AD is in the mood, he can make more sense about the nation's economic situation than P.Chidambaram. And when he's infuriated, he can cause more of a stink than the (in)famous Cooum river. Imagine our eloquent ADs instant reaction if Dravid calls for a suicidal second run when the throw is already coming in... "Dei Kasmaalam, Vootanda Solltu Vanntiya?"...

Ergo.

My Nobel, please?

Rebirth

2006-08-30T22:39:00.000+05:30

The Wood Apple, otherwise known as Vilambazham in Tamil is a fruit that is round to oval, 2 to 5 in (5-12.5 cm) wide, with a hard, woody, grayish-white, scurfy rind about 1/4 in (6 mm) thick.

To put things into perspective, this thing disguised as a fruit is as hard as a hockey ball. But wait, no one knows how hard the ball of our national game is. Proud to be Indian. Anyway, it's as hard as... um... a hockey ball people, come on! Point I'm trying to make is, it can hurt quite a bit, if it hits you at a decent speed. Now, assume this thing fell from a tree from a stationary position. (yes, it got detached from it's branch, or whatever)

Height of tree(h) = 12 feet
Initial velocity (u) = 0 feet/second
Acceleration due to gravity(g) = 32 feet/sec^2

Hence, by the fomula v^2 = u^2 + 2gh, we get, final velocity of the falling fruit as approximately 28 feet/sec. At that speed, a hockey ball hitting your head, can leave a good sized lump. And wipe away a few memory cells here and there. You know, you'll know your name starts with A and ends with D but the letters in between would've been erased. A wood apple hitting you right at the top of your head, at that same speed, in a cycle parking lot, with no one else around, could make you unconscious. In which state you would stay for a while cos no one's around. And therefore eventually, you MIGHT have put your mortality to test.

The Wood Apple missed me by 2 inches. I brought it along with me. Newton's apple taught him gravity. The Wood Apple taught me the gravity of life.

Feeling line, I know :)

T for TNR

2006-08-15T12:23:00.000+05:30

This Tortured soul, Tumbled into this Totalitarian world by the Twists of fate, taken for a ride both as Teacher and Torturer by the Treasonous Tryst of my parents Throwing me into a world of Tension and Trouble. The Toxins Traveling Through my veins are but a Testament to the Testimony that my Tender parts are Tingling with the Terrible Thoughtlessness, felt usually during a Traumatic Ten-hour operation.

To elaborate upon the Travails and Tribulations which afflict me would Try the Tolerance of any Timid Tribal among These Teeming millions. The only Thought of action possible is met with Terapidation and Toothlessness by the Throngs of This Ten-Thousand strong community.

But this Temerity with which I describe Trivialities of my Troubled life caught between the Throes of Tired Teetotalers and Totally Trashed Tipsters must surely take away the Tiny Tokens of Thinking matter you have been Trusted with by The Maker. Therefore, let me Take away This Totally needless Tapestries surrounding my Timely arrival to save you from your Timeless Troubles, and just say That ‘Tis my honour to meet Thee, and you may call me, T.

Yeeeeah, so...

2006-08-09T18:33:00.000+05:30

I'm alive. The blog is not. Or rather, was not. Is now.

Ok... so... I must write now. Right now. Right? Wait, I should probably write a poem. I've never written one. Well, nothing that's not a rip-off of Metallica songs anyway. No originality of thought, that's my problem. I've never thought of originality as such a precious commodity. But then, only when you lose something you feel its absence, I guess. So, I've lost my originality, what've I got?

I will not describe my poor, uninteresting life for all to comment about. I won't. I haven't read any book or watched any movie or heard any song in the recent past that has sufficiently impressed or disgusted me to describe it for all you poor, uninteresting people to share your views about. Football season hasn't started yet, and I'm sick of everyone talking about that game all through the World Cup anyway. Oh wait, I've already made that clear.

That's sad, really. All I want to is to Keep the Dream alive, I mean, keep the Blog alive. But it doesn't seem to me like a sun will shine on me again, A Well will Ring inside my head, and all will be brand new. Wait, I will go back into myself, delve deep into the unexplored corners of my soul and rediscover myself and be born again and emerge a new man and... and... do all those kinds of stuff.

It's been raining.

Show's Over

2006-07-11T21:32:00.000+05:30

Alright people. World Cup 2006 is over, The Forza has been with the Azzurri, they defended stoutly, let in only one goal scored by an opponent and that too from a Penalty. They came out of a scandal exactly like in Spain '82 when Paolo Rossi, accused of match-fixing went on to top score. France defied gravity to reach the finals, made a match of it, then Zidane made a meal of it. Whether he lost his head by using his head, whether he was provoked or revoked or coked, we'll never know. Fact is, that didn't lose France the World Cup. Or maybe it did.

What I'm saying is, time for all you normal people to get back to your original lives! All you who couldn't tell Joe Cole from Ashley or Andy or Rio Ferdinand from Les or Antoine and all those whose only connection to Chelsea was as Bill Clinton's daughter, go back to leading your football-empty lives. Aggressive marketing by all the sponsors and jobless 24-hour News channels have ensured that the Pakatthu Veetu Mami knows that Zidane is the name of a footballer and not the latest Chevrolet model. Same reasons responsible for hotly debated matches on buses and local trains by people who, on a normal day, would've been debating... actually, nothing. So all of you who found out only last month that 4-4-2 was a reference to a formation and not the Toll Free number for free marriage counselling, please, return to normalcy.

Look, I'm not making accusations of illiteracy without foundation. And I'm not trashing everyone who's been talking football with me either. I've had some very engrossing conversations with a few. And I'm not claiming to be a know-it-all too. I didn't know anyone in the German back four before the World Cup. Nor that Ze Roberto would start for Brazil, though that was probably because Edmilson put himself out through injury. But I do know enough, not to do these...

1. Two is company, three is a crowd, four is football mania. So there's four of us, sitting around, watching Spain-Ukraine. Yes, the match where everyone hailed Spain as world champions, which, as always, didn't happen. So anyway, the match is on, and suddenly this one, let's call him Neo, speaks up, "Did you see England yesterday? Beckham alone was wearing some armband!"
Wait. Backup. I did NOT just hear that. Someone actually ridiculed Beckham saying that he ALONE was wearing an armband. Of COURSE he alone was wearing an armband, a team has only one captain and only he gets to wear the armnband! See my boy, the Captain's armband is a thing of pride, only one person in a team gets to wear it. It was not one of Beckham's Victorian mistakes, like his Sarong at a party. This time he was adhering perfectly to his dress code, surprisingly. So please go read Football Attire again.

2. Opening game, Germany-Costa Rica. I still maintain, that was one of the most open games of the World Cup, maybe because it was the opening game!!!! (those of you who want to kill me for that, I'm available at anandn86@yahoo.co.in. Please contact only if you're female, between 17-19, and single.) Anyway, that digression apart, I was watching it in the peaceful solitude of my home, when Wanchope scores from a through ball, where the German Rightback had played him onside. Over enthu friend, let's call him Morpheus, messages- "That was offside!!!!!!!!" I'm like "What bull, the Rightback clearly played him on." No message for some time. Commentator looks at replays and confirms what I said. Message from Morpheus, "Strong boy, that's what the commentator said too! Rightback played him on, whatever that means!"
Deja Vu. Wait. Back up again. You can pass judgement on what offside is, but you do not know what playing someone on is??? Ok, I thought offside was the most complicated rule of the jogo bonito, but clearly, people also need to be taught that when you're not offside, you're onside! And playing someone on, is when a defender has failed to hold the line of the backfour, and has strayed deeper than the others, thereby allowing an attacker to remain onside when the pass was made. Is ok? I can watch my Football in peace now?

See, all I'm saying is, I appreciate all of your enthusiasm and euphoria and energy towards a game which is currently being played in India at a level of the English Fourth Division. It is a start, that so many people learn about the game, and follow it with so much passion, and support Italy and Brazil and France and England because India couldn't make it, and declare their undying lover for Zizou inspite of all he's done (currently, he must be concerned about his orientation... too many people love him). But let's not get too ahead of ourselves, shall we? We still know the Sachin Sandstorm innings and the '96 Quarterfinals against Pakistan and the Natwest chase much better than Beckhams' halfline goal against Wimbledon and Zidane's overhead kick against Leverkusen and United's comeback at the '99 Champs League finals to complete an unprecedented treble... Therefore... Show's Over folks, let's get you all home and get you some sleep before West Indies-2007 :)

The Cutlet of Ham.

2006-06-25T18:42:00.000+05:30

It is tough enough to stage one play perfectly, without any glitches. Evam's The Cut of Hamlet, tried to stage two, and if there were any glitches, the audience were none the wiser, for they didn't know if that too was part of the script or not. That, as a friend put it, was a very good safety net.

So yes, the two plays were called 'The Cut' and 'Hamlet' respectively. Well, the second one was Hamlet, so for a justification of title, the first must have been The Cut. The Cut was about a play, within a play, within a play, within a play (wait, one, two, three, four... yeah, that's about right.). And then there was the play itself. You know, The Cut! The characters were all actors, as in the actors were playing... actors. Get it? It's about the appreciation of the delicious irony of the method of picturisation of the existential crisis of actors who get caught in a web of their own doing and which they are now trying deperately to undo. Also known as Autograph, a method of script-writing first pioneered by a till-then-unknown-but-after-that-well-known director called Cheran. The cast was very good at playing themselves, and as we all know, it's very difficult to act like you are NOT acting. Seriously, it's tough. Add to that, the problem of being afflicted with an identity crisis about which 'you' you are, and you've got a very tough role to portray, and as far as my knowledge of acting goes, it was all done very well indeed. But while this was all very innovative and all, this play within a play within a play, at one point of time, your brain had to start racing to keep up with the storyline, if there was any. It was a bit like watching Memento in slow motion, except that the shots weren't going in reverse chronological order. Or maybe they were. I don't really know...

Hamlet was, pretty obviously, a spoof of Hamlet. With only three people portraying various roles, you could see that there had been loads of work done by those three. Mix some original lines from Hamlet and some own compositions, add background music from Star Wars, do fight sequences a la The Matrix, and you've got the perfect script for a spoof, really. But it's one thing getting the script right, yet another thing to make it as funny as possible through the acting, and that wasn't a let down. One of the Hamlet monologues delivered in a single breath in a monotone by one of the actors showed an effort any audience would praise and a memory any 12th Standard kid would kill for. Getting the audience involved is like a given in most plays by now, but a much more theatrically-sound friend next to me kept predicting how they would get the audience into it. So clearly, lack of imagination there, but Hey, we all like to stick to tried and tested things that have worked before. Yeah, the play got a few laughs with some good lines, a lot of laughs actually, but there were lines which you knew were coming too. But then, they didn't try to Copy and Paste the original Hamlet script but went on and tried to be original instead, so I guess that's imagination enough for one play.

And now we'll do it faster...
Hamlet, a spoof of the original. Only three people, who showed great effort. Usual mix of classic lines, famous music and famous movies. Very good Monologue, murder by 12th standard kid. Got the audience involved with an old trick, but then, we know what they say about Old Dogs and New tricks. Mission of making people laugh, accomplished, but also made them groan at times. At least there was no Copy, Paste of original script. Hats off for that.

And now we'll do it even faster...
Hamlet, a standard spoof, with usual ingredients. Wonderful effort by the three actors. Murder of Old Dogs. Laughing and groaning is a part of life. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V avoided. Well done.

And now, we'll do it backwards...
Done well. Avoided Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C. Life of part a is groaning and laughing. Dogs Old of Murder. Actors three the by effort wonderful. ingredients usual with, spoof standard a, Hamlet.

Anyone find this remotely irritating????

Day of the Jackal.

2006-06-07T21:57:00.001+05:30

1. Metallica retake their rightful place as my favourite band. Listen to the Metallica Playlist for hour and a half. Get high.

2. TNEB finally computerises its database. When you pay bill, they will give you printed out receipt. All very nice.

3. Passbook update. I get measly interest of 154 bucks on 10,00 odd over 6 months. But then, Mutual Fund Investments are sunject to Market risks. No time to read Offer Document carefully before investing. Besides, if I go to them with like 10,000 bucks, they'll probably suggest, very politely, a very unsavoury place where I can shove it.

4. Kinetic Honda has small wheel-base. Onyx sweeps off the sand from center of roads to the sides. Two facts. Thing not to do because of these facts- Take a turn along the edge of the road, holding the brakes all the while too. Thing that happens if you do The Thing That Should Not Be (Metallica all day, showing.)- Seven big bloody scratches, all on left side. Three toes, the knee, the thigh, the palm and the elbow. Kinetic's fork bends, take it to the Mechanic. Mechanic guy looks at you, standing like Tyler Durden after first day of Fight Club, decides he better patch you up before you get Tetanus or something. Get extremely high over remaining bloodstained for so long and getting it patched up at a Mechanic's.

5. Still can play guitar, palm is not used in that process. Feel extremely gratified, and proceed to strum it aimlessly for one and half hours. Index finger nearly cut, just misses being eighth injury for the day.

Must get self a diary.... then I can go Dear Diary,...

Deep Breaths

2006-05-29T22:31:00.000+05:30

I'm a calm man. I'm a man who suppresses emotions and does not splay them all over the canvas of my life for all to see vividly. I'm a man who walks alone. People have a hard time reading me, knowing me. I don't blame them, I don't know me. What I want, what I care for, what I love, what I would give my life for. The works. As a result, people never know what I'm feeling, at a given point. It doesn't show on my face, my words, my action. And I end up thinking to myself, how callous can people get, can't they see I'm frustrated? But the fact is, they can't. And I have no one else to blame but me.

Life during the holidays has been a blank sheet. Nothing's happened. And so I've been able to do what one is supposed to do with one's holidays. Enjoy them. Of course, I miss not having cofee at 2 A.M... and not sleeping that night because of that very coffee, but Hey, you win some, you lose some. Loll in front of the Laptop all day without feeling any guilt about the next day's classes. (Mis)use the internet to the fullest, chatting on (so far, a maximum of) 6 windows at a time. Watch T.V, even if it shows the same Maradona solo goal against England 23 times a day. You know, generally indulge in the indulgent, consumerist lifestyle that we have got used to indulging in. The things you own, end up owning you, Fight Club style

And today, I got frustrated. I got frustrated, and I got angry, and I smiled. I smiled and made a joke and since that was normal behaviour, no one asked me if anything was up. And that made me sad. Really sad. Angry too, but that I already was. So it was mostly sadness. That welled up inside me and washed over me like a wall of water 6 feet tall, leaving me behind, cold and drenched. But it was my fault. If I was angry, I should've shown it. At the world. The world is not waiting to do you any favours. You gotta ask for it if you want any.

What in the name of God am I typing? Wait, some other time, if I feel like it... I'll elaborate on this.

My blog is alive though. Great news for my millions of non-existent fans, that.

Silence Please.

2006-05-18T13:03:00.001+05:30

Ah could, likesay many people who woulda watched yestirday's fitba match, write aboot the perr, perr standard ay refereeing which nearly destroyed wha promised tae be one heck ay a gaim. But it is tae the credit ay the players that thay took all those shitein decisions oan the chin, and just played their fitba like thay wir supposed tae. It did manage to turn oot to be a classic, wi the man disadvantage just provin too much tae handle fir Arsenal as the clock ran doon. When Eto'o equalised in the 76th minit, it wis Gaim Oan... and when Belletti scored in the 81st, it wis Gaim Ovah. Barca wir Champions ay Europe.

As ah said, ah could write more aboot this. But ah'm not gaun tae. Instead, ah'm gaun to write aboot somethin which ah hiv noticed ovah the past... well, the past so many days whin ah huv not had college and therefore huv time to notice things. And ah'm gaun to borrow a line from Fight Club, 'cos that's essentially wha ah've noticed. It's only whin thay think you're dyin, do people actually listen tae ye. Otherwise, thay're just waitin fae thair turn tae speak.

Ah've lost all belief in the fact tha it takes two tae make a conversation. As far as ah ken see, the two perr sods just keep talkin aboot what they think is worth talkin aboot, fuck aw if it is ay no significance to wha the other person's sayin.Ye ken wha ah'm talkin aboot?
"So, he nivir eats junk food when he goes oan tae the beach or somewhere".
"Yeah, mah grades will come oot in a week or so."
"Is it? So we try tae tell im it's awright, he ken eat that stuff once in a while, but he nivir does."
"He he. Ye know, it's aways the even sem which pulls yer CG daun... Hope that I ken break the even sem jinx."
"Yeah, hope ye do. So, whin are yer grades comin?"

Ah'm no kiddin when ah say this is usually how maist conversations will go. And that tae me is just a perr waste of time, ay both the sods. Why no just say it in the face that yer no interested and git oan wi yer life? But that cannae be done either, cos then, ye woulnae huv anyone tae listen tae your stories. So they jist keep up the charade, two people actin interested in the other's perr, soddin life, while inwardly thinking Fuck All.

Which is why, ah decided to follow the Silence is Gaulden rule. Only whin ye want tae say something, you feel irritated and restless aboot the other person gaun oan n oan n no lettin ye git a word in. Instead, if ye nivir have anythin tae say, then there's no heartburn, ken what ah say? Ye wade intae the conversation with the supreme knowledge tha ye will no be able tae say anythin of any significance. So ye jist sit back into the recesses of yer mind, switch oaf yer thought process fir a while, and nod along or make appropriate Hmms and OKs as situation demands. This also helps in ending the conversation briefly, as there is only one story runnin and no two parallel ones. Once thay're done, ye nod and smile, shake paws if ye wantae, n go yer seperate ways.

Enjoy the Sound oaf Silence.

Poll ka Dot.

2006-05-08T11:43:00.000+05:30

It was 6:45 A.M and I was up and ready to go and exercise my franchise to choose who my representative in the State Legislature will be. Voting was officially supposed to begin at 7:00 A.M and I was there at 7:05, so all those who shake your heads in dismay and go Tch, tch, this younger generation, no reponsibility, try saying that now! (Ok, that said, I must admit I was the only one in the age group of 18-25 over there... there was a girl in an Orange Tee and Three-fourths and all, but you know how it is with girls, you can never tell their age!)

All you kids who haven't voted because of age reasons or out of sheer apathy personifying the sterotyped "younger generation", this is how the process will be...

You have a number on your voter-slip, a nice three-digit one which gives which division you are in. There will be 4-5 divisions in one polling booth and you stand in the queue which is for your division. Once there, you will hear raised voices coming from inside the room for the adjacent division. If you're inquisitive or attentive enough, news will eventually filter throught that an indignant citizen has take exception to the fact that the booth opened only at 7:15 when it has been said all over the papers that it's at 7 o'clock, don't you people read the papers??? At this point, you're thinking Uncle, if he stopped and read the papers, he will have got here even later, you would rather have that? But prudence, and the fact that you're approximatley half as old as the next youngest person in that given radius of 100 meters, stops you from making such scandalous statements.

In your queue, you just mentally verify that you're standing in the correct division and inardvertently let the 182 (the divsion no.) slip out of your mouth. The omni-present ever-helpful Mami in front immediately whirls around and launches into a detailed explanation of matching the no. on your slip to the no. on the board in front of the polling booth. She confirms that you have indeed selected the right queue, God bless you. Mercifully Pink Floyd's High Hopes is running through your head and it blanks out all such external noise. Seeing that you're being very uncivil, your Mom will step in to handle the situation and enquires politely as to whether her children could not make it to vote.
"They're over there", the Mami says with a you-know-the-place wink.
"Oh, in The States, is it?", Civil behaviour being maintained by Mom.
"Yes, imagine how many people will be like that. That's a lot of votes going waste"
... Ringing of the Division Bell has begun. You're thanking Floyd... and your Mom.
"So what do you study?". Pause on Pink Floyd. Time to assimilate question. (Not really. Surely you did not expect her to ask if you thought Henry would leave Arsenal and move to Barcelona next season even after a fariytale Highbury farewell yesterday.)
"Engineering. Just completed Second Year." Please, can you go back to your Floyd now?
"Which college?"
"IIT-Madras" and you wait for it. It's about the only joy you get from studying where you study. You say IIT-M and you wait for the reflexive raise of both eyebrows right up to the hairline, a moment of shock, then an approving nod and a smile and then one prolonged period of silence to contemplate how to continue the conversation, now that you've stopped being human and become an IITian. Most people make it up to Which Branch? and then they stop. The Mami stuck perfectly to the script.

As you near the room with the EVM, there'll be this huge poster with all the candidate's names and symbols and stuff that a person with a 5/20 vision could read. And then there'll be another poster, albeit smaller, about how to operate the EVM. Yeah, you push the Button... you don't know how they managed to make it a 6-step process. Ok, so the last step is that in case any of the above 5 fail, you go and rat about it to some officious looking guy over there. And he'll not be able to do anything much about it. Whatever.

Now you would've proudly entered the booth, handed in your voter slip to the guy with the list and shown your Driving License for Identity proof (Yes, they allowed it, yay!). Once the guy finds your name in the list, he'll call it out so loud, you'd think they'd just found India's Most Wanted and expect at any moment to be surrounded by Black Cats or Blue Cows or some other such colourful animal. But nothing of that sort happens, it's just said out loud to ensure that all the agents of the candidates know who all have voted... they have the same list too.

The Poll ka Dot. It is supposed to be a dot, right? Your index finger on the table, wiped clean off any grime you migh have picked up on the 20-meter walk from home to polling booth, and you're expecting a dot to be placed at the intersection of skin and nail. But no, depending on the generosity of the applier, you will get a thick strip of nearly half the width of the finger, running all the way from the first joint to the tip of the finger. You're going Dude, this is a voting booth, not a Mehendi ceremony. But once again prudence, and more importantly, the size of that guy play a decisive role in your appreciating the value of silence.

After that it's nothing, really. Sign next to your name on another list, as you have done a countless times in the examination halls of your college, go into that cardboard-protected booth with the EVM and push the button. There'll be a beep sound, at which all the election people will start clamouring Aan, that's all, that's all for everyone. And no no, you cannot say, I KNOW that's all, I read that outside. Prudence.

And you come out of the room and look around, and the girl in the Orange Tee and the Three-fourths just comes out of the room for 181. Briefly your eyes meet, and you contemplate whether to let a hint of smile show. You're still holding eye-contact, and you're still thinking... but hey, that's another story!

2006-04-25T22:31:00.000+05:30

The truth is that I'm a bad person. But, that's gonna change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.

PH 670- Einsteinium

2006-04-19T14:49:00.000+05:30

The seconds crawl along inexorably. You wouldn't have thought one second is such a huge interval of time. It is funny when you try to quantify time... by time. You're staring fixedly at your watch, and you're thinking, It's taking hours for that seconds-hand to move. And then you smile, realising the impossiblity of the thought that just crossed your mind. Of course, that doesn't stop you from boring through the watch with your eyes, willing those second, minute and hour hands to move at ultra-sonic speed. But after a while, you stop bothering about the minute-hand, being resigned to its inexplicable immobility, its stubborn defiance to move over from the current minute to the next. It gives the minutest(pun unintended) flicker of motion when the seconds-hand trundles around the dial to complete one full circle, in about as much time as it would take you to go to the moon and back... twice. And this tortorous crawl around the circle continues, the minute-hand obliging with a barely perciptible motion after approximately an eon. These eons drag by, painfully, brutally, until 50 eons complete their life-time... and the class ends. Nirvana.

There's no one around, you are just walking across the ground, and the ball is in your way. The goal is inviting, mocking even, as it gapes open, challenging you to put that sphere of 8-inch diameter inside it. You kick it, making perfect contact between ball and foot (you just KNOW when a perfect strike happens). And the ball speeds towards the huge, open area between the goal-posts... and hits the post! As always... ALWAYS. The ball rolls over to someone else, who promptly puts it it, just to show how it's done. Nothing's been said, but the challenge has been thrown. You can't wait to put on the shoes, the socks, the dirty T-shirt. Six others have got wind of the proposed battle and have, with miliary precision, been didvided into two sides and are standing in perfect formation. As you run out of the room, you steal a quick glance at the clock, and for some reason, the time registers in your mind... barely, but it registers. Out on the field, the first kick is taken, and it's Game On. At the end of it all, when you trudge back to the room, wiping your sweat off, you glance at the clock again. Three hours??? THREE hours??? Three hours which had flown past at Mach 4. You shake your head as you remove the socks...

Relativity Explained.

For the Love of God

2006-04-14T21:42:00.000+05:30

I don't know why I have this addiction to titling blog posts after song titles. Maybe because it saves me the effort of thinking up a title and because I can build up something that will justify the title anyway. Because unlike most bloggers, I don't blog with a point in mind... mostly. Sometimes I do, but for that, something must have left a REALLY deep impression on me, which doesn't happen often. Otherwise I just take things as they come, going with the flow, hoping things will work out for the best. I mean, the method works for me in real life, surely it would work for the blog!

I had the humbling realisation today that I do nothing in life. I've been having quite a few humbling realisations about my life over the past week... or two. Like the one I had two weeks ago. That I couldn't talk seriously. I was in a Debate, an inter-hostel one and we were given this high-intellect, serious-thinking topic to talk about. All the while I'm thinking, How many jokes can we get in here. The round was based on The Big Fight, where there are three people shouting themselves hoarse and going nowhere in the end. So I decided to reduce the participation to two, and kept my mouth shut. Unfortunately, we were seated such that I was in the middle. So there were these two guys having an extremely heated discussion about something I had no opinion about, and there was me, in the middle, waiting for the appropriate moment to deliver my wisecrack. As Chandler would have said, I felt like- Rock. Hard place. Me. Needless to say, I placed 5th... out of 6 (there was another round of 3 people). And realised that I could provide only comic relief... not the main show.

And now I've realised, I do nothing in life. Like if I have 6 hours of free time in the evening, and my laptop is not with me, there's nothing I can do. There is no football till later in the night, so that's out. I am in the middle of "The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari" but I am not feeling too philosophical right now, so I'm afraid I'll miss the full import of what the book hopes to deliver to me and hence hurt Robin Sharma's sentiments in the process. (ok ,THAT'S one thing I can do... write long sentences). There is April's Reader's Digest... not in the mood. There is MA 204- Statistics... DUH!!!!!!!! And then, there were none.

I mean, if I could play the Guitar or something, I would take my six-string, go up to the terrace and strum away, all the while looking up and thinking what Chris Martin was thinking when he wrote Yellow- Look at the stars, Look how they shine for you... Or if I had Music on my computer at home, I would turn up Pink Floyd and just feel Comfortably Numb. Or if I had any bit of interest in electronics and gadgets and stuff, I'd take apart something in the house and put it back together again (My cousin did it... a LOT!). Or atleast read about some such thing on howstuffworks. Or go clean the car and the Kinetic. The Kinetic has a front-tyre puncture! Ok, good time to remember that, 10:37 P.M. Ok, so that's something to do for tomorrow, but today's gone. Or rearrange the bookshelf (yeeeah, with about 234 books... like THAT will take a lot of time).

Ok, I have Broadband at home and a 100-MBPS LAN in the hostel. Someone tell me what to do with so much free internet! I feel extremely guilty about wasting all these god-given resources n what I usually do... Bumperball!!! HEY, I've never played Bumperball at home! Ok then... catch ya later, people...

Mostly Thoughtless

2006-04-01T15:39:00.000+05:30

The dry grass crackled underfoot as he walked down the driveway of his mansion. It was set farther up than the rest of the houses in that hill-station. Understandably too. He owned half the hill. The tea estates stretching away till as far as his eye could see were all his, as were all those tiny dots which would move around picking out the leaves and dropping them nonchalantly into the bags on their back once the sun came out. All his. He felt extremely satisfied at this, that he had achieved something. Not pride. Or joy. Or greatness. Just satisfaction. I've done my job. Like a painter would feel, stepping back to survey his masterpiece.

He had wanted the driveway swept yesterday. It was getting very difficult to find good help these days. They were all becoming lazy. Or maybe it was because it was 4 A.M on a winter morning in the hills, and that he was the only lunatic to get up at such an hour and venture into the biting cold. They'll probably do it later. They'd better. He hadn't achieved what he had by allowing room for complacency.

He had a single shawl around him. The cold demanded two layers of sweaters and a shawl over that, but he had only a single shawl. He was a native. He didn't have to be afraid of the cold. The cold was his friend. He had been brought up with it, brought down by it, thrilled by it, chilled by it... and now, he hoped, killed by it.

He walked down from his house to the old burial ground. It was about 2 kms away. That was where she was buried. They had had no children in the first ten years of their marriage. No one knew why. And then God blessed them with a pretty, little baby girl... and took the mother away. It was as if he was destined to have only one woman in his life at a time. He had left the baby at the mansion and then come down to these grounds to bury her. And after everyone had left, he had cried. He had cried like he had never cried before, he had cried like he would die because he was not breathing in at all, he had cried like his face would get eroded by the tears streaming down. And then he stopped crying. Forever.

He stood by where she was buried. The cold was beginning to make its presence felt. His hands had gone numb, he could feel his body starting to tremble to keep itself warm. And yet, he stood there, unmoving. It is done, dear. I've driven myself like there was no tomorrow. Our child has everything she'll ever need. She has her nanny, she has the best tutor for miles around, she has wonderful friends and their parents who love her as their own. She turns 18 today and is officially capable of taking care of herself. Don't you think it's time I joined you?

The cold peirced through his body, sending his spine shivering into convulsions. His breath tightened as the cold pressed his chest in. He thought of letting the shawl go... quicken the process. A gust of wind blew across his face... and he smelt something. He knew that smell, he knew it from 28 years ago. He could still smell it on her neck, her favourite talcum powder, the only cosmetic she used. The wind blew again, and he instinctively drew his shawl closer. He immediately felt warmer, warmer than what a mere shawl could offer against that wind. The warmth spread through his body. He was brething freely, normally. He cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something. Then he turned and started walking back to his Mansion, drawing the shawl closer to him all the time.

As the first dry leaf crackled on the driveway, he saw a tall, slim figure react to the sound at the other end of the driveway. He watched her as she sprinted down the drive, making enough noise to wake up an army. She flew into his arms as he barely managed to get out "Happy Birthday, Dear", before she squeezed his breath out of him with a tight embrace. Really, she must realize she's grown now, I can't hold her weight so easily. She let him go and looked inquiringly at him. Where had he been? He looked into her eyes and nodded. They stayed silent for a while, then she took his hand and led him back into the house.

The dry leaves crackled underfoot as they walked back into the house. He remembered the last gust of wind that had blown at the burial ground, the one that had caused him to draw his shawl closer. He remembered her smell, and remembered her voice, as if she had been right there, telling him. She can have everything, but she needs a father. He squeezed his daughter's arm and drew her closer as they climbed up the steps into the Mansion.

The Immortal

2006-03-27T23:56:00.000+05:30

I'm The Immortal. I have just passed my 31st hour without sleep since 5:00 P.M on 26-3-2006 and am yet to feel sleepy. My mind has transcended mere mortal shackles of slumber and rest, and has passed into an elevated state of uncaring existence, going beyond the portals of the cranium which kept it contained in its constricted surround and merging into the ultimate scheme of things, the greater good of it all, and becoming one with the universe itself...

Given above is the Text of speech running through an insomniac's mind as he made his way form the place of his dinner to the place of his residence at 12:08 A.M, 28-3-2006

bnfiefhi oldsfhb nsadvvrerkoeorererjkerqef eoijfasfklkjls dfhsfdjklasdkojvebkiw dofenflekjflekqoiqnfq ihokfnlkfnq knw dqkwnj dknw nwdjqpwijqwkfn

Text of speech written by the insomniac as he crashed on top of his Laptop's keyboard.

Sad.

2006-03-10T10:33:00.000+05:30

It's a very sad thing. (Yes, this is going to be one of my socially responsible posts, with deeply meaningful messages for the youth of this country, so those of you who just want to read nonsense, go here...) Coming back to the point, there is a very disturbing trend, call it a fad if you will, spreading alarmingly among the pre-college teens of our country, and it stokes up a mixture of astonishment and consternation that something could be so addicting.

No, it's not drugs. Or cigarettes or booze. Those will come only in college. No, it's this simple "social network service", launched on January 22, 2004, developed by a Google employee as an independent project. This Google employee is a Turkish software engineer. And he has a strange name. No, not Keyser Soze of The Usual Suspects fame. But someone who's had just as much an impact on so many people's lives staying just as anonymous. Yes, his name is Orkut Büyükkökten.

(Disclaimer: ESPNStar wishes to advice that the athletes in the following program have had professional training and none of the actions seen should be imitated at home)

(Actual Disclaimer: This post is not a call-to-arms against Orkut. I myself have spent many a lazy night going through scrapbooks, reading in delight the "Hey, I see that the third letter in our second names is the same... wanna be friends?" or the "Hola, buenos dias! Como esta este manana..." or the Scrap conversations like, "You online?". "Yes". "Cool". "Yes". "What doing?". "Nothing". "Wanna be friends?". End of conversation.)

So anyway, this Keyser, I mean, Orkut, has invaded the lives of people at levels that you would not have thought possible. School kids, in the age group 15 and above, are on Orkut, writing detailed "About Me" or whatever that column is called and scrapping each other like crazy. In all honesty, I will accept that I did not know About Me till I was 19. (SURELY you didn't expect that I'd admit I STILL don't!) So how in the world can those 15 year-olds know??? And this scrap-crap. It's some kind of a race, as kids see it. Hey, I got to 300 scraps before YOU did. Wow, what an achievement, and at such a tender age too! The kids are just growing smarter by the day...

It's been barely two years since the inception of Orkut. And I suddenly feel like I'm from a different generation when compared to the Orkut-savvy school-goers of today. I mean, 2004, I hadn't passed out of school either. And yet, I did not even know the concept of Orkut, or that you could do a "How was Physics?" or "When is Maths?" scrap in the middle of the friggin Board Exams! COME ON, people, you're gonna meet your classmates for the next exam anyway, or at the end of it all for the Big Lunch or Dinner or whatever. Surely your curiosity is not SO insatiable that you really HAVE to know how the Physics paper was for the person that you met barely an hour ago in the exam hall...

A valid question in this context would be How do parents let their kids stay Online so long anyway??? Agreed that it does not take Rocket Physics to put a "Maths was easy" scrap, but ten to twenty scraps a day would surely require the investment of a considerable amount of time... that too online. Don't parents notice at all? Or is it the classic both-parents-working-leaving-no-time-for-child case? In that case, well, someone needs to talk to THEM!

I'm not against the whole concept of the "taking a break between studies" thing. I know that Boards is a pretty big thing, in fact, the FIRST big thing in a person's life, if I may. I know that it needs people to be calm, relaxed, not go overboard about the seriousness of the whole thing. I know staring at 150 pages of NCERT's rambling about Azo-Dyes and Chemistry in Everyday Life can be terribly monotonous. I know all this because I watched Titanic in Tamil, the day before the first exam, Physics. I daresay I did satisfactorily in the Boards nevertheless.

What I DO feel srongly about, is the WAY these "breaks" are being spent. I don't remember what I did (yeah the Titanic, of course) during the multitude of breaks that I gave myself between studies. I have a very short attention time, barely an hour. After that, my eyes will unfocus and I'll just blankly stare at the book. And so I would... yes, I would go out with my tennis-ball and bowl it at my house's gate. Or I would switch on the TV and watch the Swat Kats take on the Metalli Kats. Or I would pull out an old Tinkle Digest from my bookshelf and curl up with a Lay's Magic Masala. But the point is, these are all necessarily just half-an-hour activities. The bowling will tire you out, Swat Kats will get over in 30 minutes and if you read a Tinkle for more than 20 minutes, BOY, you must be slow. So once the break is done, you're back with your Chemistry. Orkut, on the other hand, does NOT tire you out, does NOT get over in 30 minutes and does NOT have a "Tinkle tells you Why" section...

I know it's their lives and they can do anything they want with it. I know that they are all informed, educated, nearly-adults who know what they are doing and going to do. I know they will all (HOPEFULLY) clear the Boards with flying colours.

But it's just a sad thing to see a 10th Class kid, scrapping a 12th Class kid, "Hey, My Math just got over. Was easy. When is yours?", instead of going up to his Mom, all smiles, and saying "Mom, I did my Math very well" and the Mom beaming with pride, with a hint of a tear at the edge of her eye, that her child is so clever...

Pah!

2006-03-03T11:21:00.000+05:30

MY LIFE

My name is William Jefferyson Clineton. I was the President of the United Sovereignities of Andulasia, USA for short. I became President easily enough. The total voting population of my country is a gargantuan 51 people, of which 27 are my relatives, or my wife's relatives... or 'her' relatives. So anyway, mine was a clear mandate, I won 49-31 on the vote count. The election officers were slightly perplexed. There had been totally 103 votes polled, so the missing 29 had to be accounted for. Then they figured that those people had probably been electrocuted when they pressed their finger into the electrical socket of the Extremely Vile Machine (EVM) rather than into the button beside my name... So yes, as you can see from the Math, it is pretty clear how I became President. However, this story is about how I UN-became President...

"Shall we tell the President?" is the name of a book by Jeffrey Archer. It featured Edward Kennedy in the President's role in the original version, but was replaced by Florentyna Kane in later versions. THAT however, is not why I brought that sentence up... I'm saying this because that was the line I overheard when I was passing by my Chief Security Officer's room in my Presidential Mansion, The Off-White House. Nevertheless, I carried on to my own room, the ellipsoidal-heptangular-tetra cuspidal hypocycloid... also called the Oval Office for convenience, feeling sure that my Officer would come and tell me whatever was bothering him. And sure enough...

He came in and took the seat facing across from me. I gave him a cup of coffee to soothe his high-strung nerves. He finished the coffee, but still seemed extremely shifty and uncomfortable, even more so, if it was possible. "Mr. President", he began, still staring straight down as if he'd just figured out how shoes fit perfectly around the feet thanks to those wonderful things called Laces. I was really beginning to lose my patience now.

"Mr. Edward, it's all right, you can go ahead and say it", I coaxed him. No one used his full name, Edward Shit. Which was quite unfortunate really, because it was HE who had to sign all the official memos to the armies- the ones which cut down on their holidays, increased their training periods and placed a limit on the amount to be bet on Barrack-fights between Captains and Privates... Invariably, the reaction to such memos was "Aw, this is SO Shit E. man!"... and so was the signature...

"Mr. President", he began again, and looked up and saw that I was really getting ready to blow. So he hesitantly stretched his hand and asked, "Can I have another cup of coffee?"

I was taken aback by this request. It felt as if someone had just driven a piledriver through my mid-section. For all his life, Edward had never asked for a second helping of ANTYHING. Even in the parched sands of Irania, where we had fought together during The Bay War (no one called it the Gulf War anymore), Edward had been offered only a thimble-full of water at the end of a long day, an amount that would have barely quenched the thirst of an ant after a marathon. But Edward had stoutly refused another thimble-full, and had marched on the next day sprightly as ever...

I handed him his second cup of Coffee. He downed it in a single gulp, drew a deep breath and began, "Mr. President..."

"Oh for God's Sake, call me Bill!" I snapped.

"Bill, we have a crisis. The Central Reserve Army of Promenia (CRAP) is revloting against their dictator, Am-Ul Dhoodh. Promenia is the second largest exporter of oil to our country, and right now they're trading a barrel of oil for a barrel of sand... apparently, they want a beach in their county, but all they have is oil and no coastline... so anyway, it's a profitable trade for us, and if Am-Ul is toppled..." his voice trailed off, leaving unspoken the terrible calamities that could befall my country as a result of such a disastrous act.

"What are our options?" I asked in my most everyone-asks-this-question-in-this-tone tone.

"One very good one, actually. The leader of CRAP, Amino Acidov, is willing to continue the same oil-sand exchange with us if we do not speak against his revoulution in public and if we pass him some weapons on the side... like we always do"

"Excellent then, what's the catch in this?" I asked incredulously.

"He wants you to come over to Promenia, alone, and sign an agreement to such an effect with him and his associates. He's crazy, I told him so. The nerve to expect that we'd let you go..."

"Nonsense, Edward! I've been in the army too, you remember? Of course I know how to handle myself in hostile territory. Now, no more arguements. Chalk up the rendezvous details and arrange for my transport" I ended the conversation with a finality befitting a President.

So there I was, the President of the USA, all alone in a dark alley in the capital of Promenia. I wasn't sure how Amino would show up, fully-armed and heavily guarded or defenceless like me. Either way, he was on home gorund, so he had the advantage. At the end of the alley, I could see the headlights of a car shining right at me. As they dimmed, I saw that it was a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, complete with tinted glasses, bullet-proof body armour, puncuture-resistant tyres and a 6-litre, turbo-charged V8 engine... or so I thought. As it drew closer, I saw it was a battered 1920s Ford, with the bumper hanging loose and the front windshield missing.

And a woman driving.

The car pulled up closer and stopped. The woman, in full military dress (it was amazing how severely cut men's clothes looked so great on women), walked up to me and said, "Hi... I'm Amino."

"Wha...???" was all I could manage to get out of my larynx as my brain raced as fast as it could to catch up with proceedings... and my eyes tried very hard not to stray below her face.

"Yes, I know," she smiled, "Promoenian names can be gender-confusing. We believe in an equal society, you know." She smiled again, "The agreement is in the car, you can sign it there."

She was getting straight to business. Which was fine by me. I squeezed into the passenger's seat, read through the agreement, noted that the words 'oil' and 'sand' were exactly where they should have been with more than a degree of satisfaction and signed it. She leant closer to check my signature, and I could feel her perfume lifting me. She took the agreement from my hand, and in the process, her hair brushed against my face. She put away the agreement and turned back to me. The rest, as they say, was Chemistry.

I had never had that experience in a car before. She smiled at me as she slid out through the driver's door to tie up her hair. She was still smiling when I heard the unmistakeable clicking off of the safety latches of sub-machine guns. I turned forward and saw four gunmen, with their Uzi submachines pointed right at me through the boken windshield. Immediately the reason behind the boken windshield became clear to me. She was still smiling when I stared at her numbly, with my eyes asking Why? She was still smiling when the gunmen gently squeezed the trigger of the four Uzis...

So you see, God, I have done nothing wrong, personally. It was all circumstances, as always they are. So if you could please get me out of this horrible place that people around me are calling 'Hell', I'd be very grateful. God! You don't know how hot it is in here!

This was a Creative Writing piece. I got disqualified for the 'shit' and 'crap'

Pah!

What the Fudge??!

2006-03-01T21:39:00.000+05:30

Yep, I can't say it. The four-letter word. Because this is Blogspot. And that would be a profanity. And then it would be wrong. What is the point? Why should you always be in control, in your senses? How will you know what it is to be free if you've never tried it?

BAH!!!! I CAN"T EVEN BLOG!!!!!!!!!!

I can't even write something funny!!! SURELY the world is going to end...

Coming Back to Life

2006-02-16T13:50:00.000+05:30

It's been a while. A week to be exact. Which is not much time, considering this is not my profession and so I needn't be doing it as religiously as I would, say, be studying. Yes, that was a joke, you can all smile knowingly. But it is such a compulsion to pour out the smallest, dullest, most insignificant happenings in your even more insignificant life into this webpage that you wonder if people don't have any concept of privacy anymore. The sad part is that it is so widely done as well, and getting ever so popular. The world is shrinking. But not so much that it shrinks into MY own, separate world. No Thanks. You can all shrink till just outside my world.

I don't know why I put that Floyd Song as the title. I don't know much these days. It's all abstract, a vague collection of thoughts and ideas and desires. The sinking realization that my life is headed nowhere suddenly rammed home with startling clarity in class today. Well, not nowhere, I THINK I can vaguely see paths laid out in front of me, leading to places. So I guess I must say I don't know where I WANT my life to go, instead of saying it's going nowhere. Yes, take the blame. It's easier that way.

I went through my Yahoo Mail Inbox today. The oldest mail I had was dated 25 July, 2004. It was one of those jokes which come through forwards. It was a good one, I wouldn't have kept it otherwise. I smiled when I read mails from my friends all excited about the first few weeks in college, whichever one they were in. And I was being pretty excited too, my Sent Items said so. "Oh wow, this campus is really cool.", "The Chemistry professor is unbelievable.", "The Computer Facility has Net connection at the speed of light!" Innocent, awe-struck wonderings of a boy lost in an unfamiliar place. And around November of first year in college, I saw the first signs of the crack showing. "I'm a man broken by the system he tried so hard to get into.". Now of course, I'm beyond all of that. Take life as it comes. Go with the flow. Things will happen when they have to. Call me a believer in destiny.... or someone resigned to fate.

Room-cleaning. With a vengeance. Trying to get back some of the lost me. I'm usually very ordered, I like to see things neatly stacked up and symmetric. Symmetry is pleasing to the eye. My room was a mess. The table was littered, the cupboard had clothes in a heap and there's a lizard in one corner of the room which lives in this room more than I do. Therefore the room-cleaning. Swept it. Once, twice, thrice. The dust simply wouldn't stop coming. So I gave up. Rearranged the table. Ordered the clothes in the cupboard. Why am I saying all this? See what I meant, in my opening paragraph?

What do I do when the quizzes are over. Where do the 24 hours go on normal days? Frightening thought. That absolute murder of time could come so naturally and without our realising it. What DID I do yesterday??? Um, I don't know! So there's a resolution made, to do something... anything! As ever. To be broken at the first possible chance. Oh well, at least I realised that I don't realise I'm wasting time. It's a start.

It's been a while. For many things. It's been a while since... I drove my car. Since I watched Live Cricket. Since I read a novel, lying on the bed, munching on horribly unhealthy snacks. Since I went to the beach alone and sat at the water's edge and listened to the waves. Since I watched the Saturday Night movie on Star Movies. Since I've been to a friend's house. Since I've had a pure, cold shower (Chennai's becoming COLD!). Since I sent someone a greeting card. Since I've listened to a very old song on the radio. Since I played Minesweeper. Since I wrote a short story, just for the heck of it. Since I sat in front of my book collection, took them all out and arranged them again in exactly the same order...

Since I've been myself...

Um... WHAT??!!!

2006-02-09T00:19:00.000+05:30

Frog.
Pond.
Plop.

... is apparently a limmerick. Hmm...

Hello! I'm still single too!

2006-01-30T23:07:00.000+05:30

OK, it just HAD to happen. I mean, if something becomes part of your life, no wait, becomes FULLY your life for five days, you just have to crap about it on this otherwise useless piece of webspace. Jeez man, visit any IITians blogsite and it's all Saarang, Saarang, Saarang! I've always been the rebel (I AM, really. See, I got 486 in my boards and got into this institution and am generally following the 'optimum path'... how rebellious is THAT!) and decided I'll NOT write about Saarang. And so now I'm writing about NOT writing about Saarang. And hence I'm writing about Saarang anyway. Man! Nothing ever goes the way I want it to!

Everyone knows Saarang by Day. But hey, I'm the man who slept at 5:30 on two nights and didn't sleep at all one night! I caught the sunrise of 29th January, 2006, folks, and it's NOT because I woke up early! So anyway, not sleeping and not eating and drinking loads of soft drinks and then not sleeping again can put your system slightly out of sync. As in you'll feel like vomiting all the time, but there's nothing in your stomach, so you can't vomit. And your stomach has this constant pain, but you don't know why, because as has already been established, there's nothing in your stomach. Wait... Except for the gas from all the soft drinks. Oh! So THAT'S it??? OK, NOW I know...

Not sleeping is this wonderful thing. You can feel very drunk when you don't sleep, and I got 5 people concluding independently that I was drunk on one of the days when I was actually just lacking some 30 hours of sleep. But yeah, that's the closest I can ever get to being high, being the 'rebel' I am. Another thing about sleeplessness is that you fall asleep in a micro-second when you hit the bed next time. It's a bleeding painful thing, to be in bed and not get sleep. That's when you start reviewing your life or current situation or the day ahead and you feel very down. On the other hand, lose some sleep and you can feel high for that time and also sleep off instantly without getting into angsty reviews of your hopeless life.

ALSO, you can walk around zombie-like all day with your head down and your mind switched off. THAT is a very helpful thing, especially at Saarang. It helps you to forget about the title of this post and walk above all the mindless flirtations of all the lowly mortals who strive incessantly to grab the attention of the fairer sex. In other words, it lets you forget that you are this give-up guy who can't get a girl all his life. So might as well do the "these grapes are sour" thing instead of accepting the inevitable.

Last, but not the very least, We, The Newsletter Team of Saarang 2006, are very happy that The Hindu noticed our very dedicated work towards improving the general excitement level at Saarang and decided to honour us by putting us on Page 2 of their daily publication (THAT or because they WERE the Newsletter Sponsors and we religiously mentioned that in every issue!). We also realise why they have people who do day-shifts and people who do night-shifts. We'd also like to tell them that there are a few things the Newsletter Team created in their long nights of mostly sitting around before eventualy beginning work at around 4...
The Newsletter Anthem :"Eef you come today..." (Rajkumar and Band)
The Newsletter Addition to Lingo: Khunntrrie Maxxx
The Newsletter Revelation :There actually IS a band called Repertoire Dogs!
The Quote that didn't come up : During WM, one of the participants goes, "this is my own composition by me..."

Goodbye Saarang... Hello boring old life.

My I(Mage)

2006-01-19T22:33:00.000+05:30

find your elementat mutedfaith.com.

No Man's Land.

2006-01-06T11:00:00.000+05:30

Oh wow, New Year's here and I'm yet to post anything. Well, I don't believe in reminiscing about the past year or making resolutions which I will break-down with about as much regularity as the MTC buses in my city, so nothing along those lines. Apart from that, it's been a dull, drab year so far. Till today...

I've also wanted to see how long it takes for me to type a post. So I'm gonna check that... in a different way. So, I'll see how many songs I run through on my iTunes before I complete this post, starting with...

High Hopes - Pink Floyd

Have you ever been to a place where you KNOW you've made a mistake in going there, the moment you enter it? It's a scary feeling man, you want to get out of that place as quick as you can but without making yourself look like the biggest fool in the world after the President of a certain country which starts with U.S and ends with A. So, now that you're in there, you try to mix with the crowd, most of whom are "veterans" in that place and are gulping in amounts you wouldn't have believed was humanly possible! And it's not like everyone's of the same kind, there's quite a heady "cocktail" of people in there. You feel so insecure, childish, lost, totally unsure of what to do next, what the procedure would be to get yourself one of "those".

City of Blinding Lights - U2

It's not like I've never wanted to go there. On the contrary, I've ALWAYS wanted to. But most of the times, all the things just failed to come together. So I wouldn't be able to go and remained a "good boy". But today, it was just so unplanned, so unexpected. A friend just said he was going over there and asked me if I was coming too. I don't know what came over me at that moment, but I nodded yes. And Bang, before I knew it, there I was- the place I had always wanted to come to but had "conveniently" got some excuse to keep away from.

Another Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd

SO, as I already said, now that I was in there, I thought Why not? I just followed my friend blindly as he went straight to the table and spoke in the most cinematic conspirational whisper he could muster. Then he went through a back-door into an even bigger room which was filled with rows and rows and rows of our... um... subject of interest! I mean, I didn't KNOW there was so much variety in this world, and that there were so many people who KNEW about so much variety... God!

Lifting Shadows off a Dream - Dream Theater

By this time, I had had enough. I was totally convinced this was the wrong place for me to be in, and looked for ways to tell my friend that. He, however, had already got really..."elevated", shall we say, and I saw that there was no point speaking anything to him anymore. I just hurriedly worked my way past all those rows of tables and chairs and people sitting on them... well, as near sitting as they could manage and found the welcoming light of the red Exit sign. But it wasn't over yet. Just as I stepped out, there was this other friend who was just walking in and on seeing me, raised his eyebrows so high that I'm sure I saw them disappear into his hair. I hurriedly mumbled a "I didn't DO anything in there" and scurried out.

Zoo York - Paul Oakenfold

Lesson learnt. Don't go somewhere just because everyone else is. It becomes painfully obvious in about two and a half seconds that you don't belong there, and you stick out like a sore thumb. And when ESPNStar says Please don't try this at home or when any other organisation issues any warning of such sort, heed them! Don't make the same mistake I did and go to places you don't belong...

Yes, people. I went to The Central Library, IIT-Madras today...

Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve

So, takes me about six songs then...

The Way I Am...

2005-12-29T21:44:00.000+05:30

There are people who have fixed goals and dreams in their lives. They know what they want and they have their lives and careers planned right from their graduation till they are thrown their retirement party at the end of it all… And then there’s me.

The First thing I wanted to be was a Spy. This was the period I was drowned in Jeffrey Archers and Robert Ludlums and learnt that KGB was Komitet Gazudastrevenoy Bezopasnosti. But anyway, the spy guy seemed to have the best life possible- cool gadgets, very helpful contacts, one of who invariably turned out to be a very good-looking lass and free trips to every country in the world! That dream’s not dead and buried yet. I DO know 5 languages, with fluencies ranging from perfect to Yeah-I-can-Survive-in-Spain. And I know three moves in Taekwondo. And I can tell a Browning Automatic from a Luger…

Then I wanted to be a Fighter Pilot… but that dream never took off!!! That’s because by the time I realized I wanted to be that, I already had a minor power in my right eye and thought it has not worsened, they say that you need 20/20 in both eyes to be a pilot… I think I have 15 or something in my right. But still, it would’ve been fun to take a MIG-21 up there and do a cobra-maneuver in it, wouldn’t it?

I think next up was Auto-Journalist. It would be the dream-job, really. I mean what other job lets you take Porches and BMWs at record breaking speeds around racetracks AND pays you for doing it??! I tell you, these auto-journos are the luckiest people on the face of this earth. PLUS the free trip all over the world to International Auto Expos to ogle at models… of cars, of course.

There have been cranky times when I’ve wanted to be nothing. You know, like, carry a backpack, hitchhike all over the world and do odd jobs here and there to refill the wallet. And as I already said, I AM a man who walks alone! Don’t know how wise a career option THAT is though…

And THEN I wanted to be a Football Player. Clearly, I have the pace and I’m not an old dog yet so I CAN learn new tricks. Besides the only time when I get unrivalled joy, other than when I am driving my car, is when I have the football at my feet and am juggling with it. Sure, it is the most physically demanding of all my dreams, but at least it won’t get me killed like Spying might… I think! Of course, all this was before I broke my foot. Now, I can’t even run.

You think there must be a latest fad, right? OF COURSE, there is. Now, I just want to be a Stand-Up Comedian. I know I’m funny when I want to be, and it shouldn’t take too much for me to morph my situational humour to the stand-up kind. Or I could just use some of the signs put up by our dear Traffic Police. I mean, there is this one which says “Accident Prone Zone. DEAD slow”. What’re they trying to say??? That if the accident doesn’t get you, going slow will? That either way… you’re dead???

So you see, I’m a very multi-faceted individual (Ha! That’s for you all who thought I’ll say CONFUSED individual!). And as befalls a man of so many talents as me, I seem to be faced with a problem of plenty. Well, I guess I just have to learn to live with it because… it’s just The Way I Am…

I WON'T give a title!

2005-12-25T08:53:00.000+05:30

My All-Time Favourite Characters (fictional or mythical or whatever):

1. Anbuselvan I.P.S
2. Rajesh
3. Percy Balckeney
4. Bruce Wayne
5. Abhimanyu

Top 5 Vivek Movies:

1. Minnale - SLISHA ob.

2. Saami - Again...

3. Badri - Not many people know this but he's REALLY good in this too

4. Parthiban Kanavu - Respected Sir, As I am suffering from fever...

5. Run - Funny in parts. Sporadic. Not the unbelievable flow of Minnale or the punch-after-punch of Saami...

I know I haven't blogged in a while... I also know this is a poor excuse...

Whatever.