Chiaroscuro

Murder, she wrote.

2011-05-01T11:17:00.001+08:00

Long overdue, and hence I will keep it brief.

Two thoughts. One from a friend, "Most people aren't really happy with where they are, but aren't really unhappy enough to do anything about it. That's a bad place to be in. Don't fall into the trap"

Second from Gordon Ramsey on Hell's Kitchen, where he asks a team to select who to 'nominate for elimination' and he gives a very interesting piece of advice to the team - to get rid of the dead weight. "It doesn't matter whether you like or hate them", he says, "what is important that you get rid of stuff which is dead weight on the team."

What a brilliant thought. Usually it's the most difficult thing to do, because of the sheer number of things we carry with us as albatrosses around our neck: nostalgia, relationships, things, clothes which do not fit anymore, old pencil boxes, broken pens. It is hard to get rid of things we're sentimentally attached to, but sometimes you're left with little choice.

This blog has become just that: dead weight. I keep thinking I will write here more, but this space and the mood I've set here just prevents me from doing anything worthwhile with it. And I hardly see any point dragging it on forever.

It doesn't mean I have stopped writing, but I doubt if I'd be writing here anymore.

I guess that's that.

So have you killed a blog today?

Dirty One

2011-01-07T08:51:00.004+08:00

Being firmly on the wrong side of thirty and hanging out with all early-20s kidlings on the eve of your birthday means you take a stock of your life. You think of how you used to be. To add to that, all your friends, including the 'complicated' ones -- the drunks, the chimneys, the yummy mummies, the divorced, the single-after-thirty -- also come to celebrate. All this makes you take a stock of life, of what you have, what it could've been, what you've done, what you've left behind. And you come to one conclusion, that even if you're given a choice, you wouldn't want to change where you are and how you are, perhaps. There are things you'd perhaps change in the journey, but not the fact that despite your warts and transgressions and murky past and the Annus horribilis, you're here, now, blowing 'a' candle, cutting a cake and licking the icing off your fingers, and just feeling very very loved.

Something will perhaps never change -- that I love receiving phone calls at midnight, and jump with joy each time I rip open the wrapping paper to discover what's inside, and stare at my phone waiting for the phone calls. Some people ask me to grow up, some people ask me to change, they can go, umm, fuck themselves, because now, being this old, I do know that the moment I lose that excitement, that nervousness of what lies ahead, I might as well die.

This year, I gift myself a re-solution -- something you'll see tomorrow or day after.
Right now, I am here, now.

A year in bad movies

2010-12-30T12:09:00.007+08:00

I watch one bad movie each year. This year, there have been one too many. In no necessary order of preference. Note: It contains nothing that hasn't been said before.

Tees Maar Khan:

I have the unique ability to sleep through movies. It's subject to much jokes among friends, but sometimes it serves as a boon. If the movie seems too boring, my brain automatically shuts down, and I can't really control it. So yeah, I slept through a better part of the second half of TMK, which some of you would've liked to do.

You could ask me why I went in the first place. Having watched "After the Fox" just a few days back, I was just curious to witness the massacre, given the bad reviews. (A was particularly offended by the fact that the credits don't mention the original anywhere.)

Either way, from what I watched, the Priyadarshan-ization of Farah Khan is rather depressing. While they ripped the jokes from the original, they really stripped the joke of the humour, and they're left to being wimpy lines like "day ho". People still laugh in the theater, so it should work out fine for the monies, but it really insults the intelligence.

The so called saving grace of the movie, 'I am Sheila's flaming youth', comes much too early in the movie for anyone to want to wolf-whistle. I am a huge fan of pep-uppy item songs, but they always seem nicer when you already know the character. (A good example would be Rajini movies, where even the non-contextual songs are often awesomely placed.) But then again, if I'd heard Katrina speak, I would've pelted rotten eggs at the screen (or perhaps, slept through it). Ms. Kaif would undoubtedly win the fingernails-on-chalkboard for me, if it wasn't for a certain Ms. Kapoor who drives me insane.

Aisha:

Hated it. HATED IT.

With Abhay Deol being on the cast, one would hope that the movie was redeemable despite the presence of unbearably annoying Ms. Kapoor whose lisp (or whatever the weird accent is) makes me want to kill her. From the beginning, you never quite warm up to Aisha, though you buy her rich spoilt brat act, as most of her is hidden behind layers of fashion and froth. In a movie like DCH, about rich spoilt brats, we liked them because there was a semblance of connect. Here, nothing.

Which seems to be the problem with most Hindi movies - over-stylized to an extent where you don't seem to know where the story lies.

The movie drags on and on. And on with this: Shopping. Party. Shopping. Races. Shopping. Camping. Shopping. You get the drift? In between there are a couple of songs, and it ends with some monologues.

The only good thing that come out of the movie, for me was the fact that inspired by Aisha, and her black nailpolish, I decided to experiment, and since then, toenails have been painted blue, purple, green etc.

Guzaarish:

Ah, 16 part YouTube uploads, how I love you.

Yet another over-stylized movie, hidden within layers of froth and curtains. The movie had a huge potential of exploring relationships: of the love-hate relationship between a bed-bound person and his sole provider (who is his sole companion), or that between the magician and the apprentice (who comes across as a counterpoint to the nurse in intelligence and spirit), or that between the nurse and her husband (who should be insecure about her devotion for her master.)

Zilch.

Instead we see, Curtains, bedsheets, tall windows, and long monologues. And the red to match. The emotions and relationships, we're left to guess. Inspired by 'Prestige', my ass.

Hritik Roshan is a very vain actor. Here he delivers his dialogues believing he's has a role in a character/arthouse movie, when it is simply a masala potboiler. The effort just shows.

Aishwarya Rai flits in and out of the frames, wearing some weird attire that no woman who's functional around the house should be caught wearing.

Prince:

The memory is kind of vague, but I remember it was funny. Vaccuum cleaners have undoubtedly been the preferred gadget off late - with the 3 idiots baby delivery, and here, in this movie, helping with the heist.

And code cracking is of the order of "five letter password for a man obsessed with susan"

"I'm in, it's time to win" 'nuff said.

I know, I know..

2010-12-23T08:41:00.007+08:00

Dismal failure.

Not that I didn't write, but as always, I never finished what I wrote. Like a lot of life's grand plans, once those pieces were raised from infancy until adolescence, I sort of expected them to grow up by themselves and figure themselves out and make a mark in the world.

Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Everything, everything seems to need the nurturing even through its adulthood. Abandoned verses are aimless. And that process of being, for lack of a better word, a preserver, treads the thin line between being boring or exhausting. A preserver mostly has to be a persevere-r.
Either way, this time of the year scares me - with the top ten lists and the amount of festive cheer forced down my throat. It's the time when I squeeze the truth and truce into my now tight jeans, and hide the much analysed and much handled-love within warm wintry layers of wistfulness, while the secrets get stuffed in the front pocket, so no one can pickpocket them.
I am not making any sense, am I?
Yes, you're right. It's all tripe.

To cut a long story short, past few months have been not-that-great. They seem to have passed off in a daze, without any peaks or landmines to mark progress or to remember life by. Not that there haven't been any. There have been many, but none of them give me the happiness or rebound I seek. And I don't like the feeling.

You see, there are two kinds of tangible wants: the ones you really want and the ones which you want so you can brag on facebook. I choose to believe that dig the former, those are the only ones I want. They've always been important, so much so that as a friend points out that that I'll never be happy thanks to my obsession with rockstars and rockstarriness. Nothing pleases me, nothing amuses me, nothing but people pushing themselves beyond what I think is easy. Unfortunately, these kind of wants are a moving target.

If only joy and cheer could be an ornament on a Christmas tree, and Santa would leave me a note saying "you're doing just fine" in the stocking hung on my doorknob.
--
So I attend this event where people showcase how they are not ordinary. Speaking there are surfers and climbers and the guy who aborted his summit attempt to Mount Everest to save a life. In the audience is a whole bunch of 40+ year olds who have a sub-4h full marathon time, telling me that I have a lifetime ahead of me. I make no secret of my envy and turn to this friend of mine and tell him how their spirit stumps me. (A man-child at 44, he always gives me the feeling of being young, because he is still making those mistakes that I hope to have grown out of by then.)

"Well", he says, "Only 40 somethings do all this shyte. At your age, I couldn't have been arsed to climb even the Bukit Timah hill. You're doing just fine."

You're doing just fine.

Ma...

2010-11-11T12:16:00.003+08:00

... I lost my way. Sowwy.

--

Just because someone else doesn't point your faults out, doesn't mean you don't have any.
It perhaps just means that they are nice enough not to point fingers.

Nepal, redux

2010-10-26T03:34:00.001+08:00

So looks like my post a week project has nearly failed. Nearly, not totally. I have three perfect drafts waiting for me. I have no idea where this odd perfectionist comes up from. I think I am just afraid to post what I write, and usually, the hard task of thinking of the title and the act 3 of any post has me exhausted. Either way:

One year after it all started, I feel it in my bones that I need to go back to the place which altered my life in a way I can't describe. That long winding painful trek to the Everest Base camp last year. Yes, the one I haven't told you about. Yes, the one that's beyond description. Yes, my ankle is not that strong anymore.

Save for the memories of the horrendous toilets, the pain has all but vanished. All that remains of the trip is the memory of the nip in the air, the euphoria of having made it, and the distant but happy strains of Resam Firiri.

And after promising "never again" a hundred times, all this while I've been wanting to go back.

So yeah. As luck would have it, I will be off to Nepal until Tihar (Diwali) starting tomorrow. On work, yes. I am in no physical state for a trek. It's alright. I'll deal with it. This time I aspire to write about the place more, and rediscover the favourite spots in Kathmandu.

Also, I am superstitious. I leave tomorrow morning without much notice. I still don't have tickets, I don't have hotel bookings. I have new shoes, but my new suit is not altered. Packing, oh well. I am almost afraid to press publish, lest I jinx it.

Weak one (also, on anger)

2010-10-04T15:04:00.006+08:00

I told purelynarcotic, on a whim, that I will try and blog once a week till the end of the year. Seems like a chore, but one might as well try. If nothing, I am a good serial quitter. Also I am whimsical.

I have this the_amit in office. Yes, the kind who judges women for the fact that they work, and assume that size of the paycheque is inversely proportional to culinary abilities. Also, the kinds who overhear conversations, and later, loudly comment. When I was younger, I would fight, but now I just shut up when the judgment comes about. Zen. Not that it gets any less annoying. Yet, zen.

In any case, this story has been repeated time and again to people, and I thought the only way this story would reach it's sell-out date is if I type it out. So here goes -

Two days after I first joined work (on a Friday), he asked me, subtly, "Weekend pe kya kiya?" (What did you do over the weekend?)

"Umm, nothing much, I had some errands to run," I said, knowing well that pubs I have visited wouldn't make for a good lunch talk.

"Acha," he delivered his punchline, "Hafte ke saare bartan weekend par hi dhulte hain?" (You do your dishes once a week?)

I replied, completely surprising my erstwhile firebrand self, and I guarantee you that my reply was quiet and soft, "We have a clear division of labour in our house. I cook, he cleans."

"Acha," He topped his punchline with the cherry," to matlab bhartiya naari ke koi gun nahin hain aapme" (You don't have any of the virtues of an Indian woman?)

Today the_amit spotted me digging into my packed lunch, which is pretty much a necessity, given I work in the wilderness where I probably have to hunt for food. Either way, he very left a very snide remark - "Yeh kab se hua, chamatkar?" (When did this miracle happen?)

As I said, if I was younger, my now-retracted claws would've been put to good use.

Which brings us to anger. I have inherited my anger from my mother - clearly ill-fitting genes. All my life, I have seen my mother suffer because of the way she gets angry. Once she does, there rarely is any looking back. Ultimately, she is the one who suffers the most. The object of her anger moves on after a bit, she doesn't. In a way, anger (or hatred, for that matter) bonds us to the object, much like love does.

Anger, like booze, has a tipping point. The point when it gets from alright and happy to nasty and ugly. You know, the xth drink that does the damage? The greed drink? The drinks-before that one don't last and the drinks-after don't matter in the bigger picture.

So the task at hand now, is to keep quiet at the moment when all goes wrong. At that moment, shut up for that leeettle bit.

That skill will need some practice.

Much like blogging once a week.

Wish me luck.

Of purpose and other debates

2010-09-04T18:34:00.004+08:00

I have a friend, a good friend. Though the time doesn't stand still, when we talk, and neither do we indulge in discussions of national importance. But something great almost always comes out of each conversation. For me, the comfort of being able to tell the truth about my fears, and my fears being understood sans judgment always alters me in a way I can't explain. If not the solution, at least I figure out a problem.

You know what my problem is? That I am full of doubt and I am aware of it. I think I get even more unsure of myself because I am constantly told that I am unsure. And fickle. And unpredictable. And everything a woman my age shouldn't be. But what to do? Making peace between the two -- what I am, and what I'm expected to be -- would perhaps be a lifelong battle. The editorials from others are positively exhausting.

But I digress.

This friend, on the other hand, is an expert in planning the unpredictable. Step by step, bullet point by bullet point, this friend runs through a list of scenarios. Every risk is measured, every fleeting quirk is evaluated for impact before execution.

In a way, both of us suffer from wanting too much for ourselves, perhaps in admittedly a selfish way. Or maybe the thought process has become an infliction. And we're both petrified of fading away.

Two separate conversations with the niece. She's all of 15, if you remember.

She asked, earnestly, "What is the purpose of life?"

I ran through my list of acceptable answers, and replied with an answer which I surprised myself with, "To be honest, I think it is to procreate -- to advance the species, nothing more than that."

Two days later she was back, "I have no ambition. I could've been a florist, but my allergies won't let me."

15 minutes later, "Since I don't know what to do with my career, I think I'll be a career counsellor"

Bingo.

Somewhere within those two questions lies the quest that baffles my friend and me. The purpose v/s the ambition. Ambition is man-made, purpose has to be for something God-made.

At 20, aspiring for the cash, the car, the credit card, is all ambition. At 30, when one hunts for purpose, it all falls flat.

I seriously have no strong ambition like I once had. Money doesn't inspire me anymore. Fame, maybe, but not that much either.

Somewhere I've managed to narrow down the answer to this - it is to create something of value.

Of what, I know not. To create, instead of just consume and support the system that exists.

Hopefully my friend has a plan chalked out for this, while I will patiently wait for divine intervention.

Ravana and Father's day

2010-06-20T17:56:00.006+08:00

Off late people seem to have discovered the character of Ravana. Movies, comics, stuff exploring the anti-hero, exploring the good things and rationale among the creation of the quintessential bad guy. It makes me look back at my first encounter with the idea.

No, it wasn't because of the TV series.

At the age of 8 or 10, I don't remember exactly when, Dad made me memorize verses from Ravana's Shiv Tandav stotra. I think he was bored, and this seemed like a good project. Something about memory, something about Sanskrit, heaven only knows why. What is strange is that he could've picked any other hymn, but he picked this one. Slowly but painstakingly, we decided to make through the fifteen odd verses. It wasn't an easy task, simply because it is easier to memorize things you actually understand. This was all rhythm, and tongue-twisting words. But memorize I did, and I still remember a few verses.

Often we would sit in the evening, learning a sentence or two, and then repeat it again first thing the next morning. Once while we were practicing it, a snake was spotted outside our house, and I remember wondering if there was power in the hymn.

But that wasn't the point. The point is, I remember asking him wasn't Ravana the "villain", a word I must have picked up from Hindi movies. I remember him explaining to me patiently that Ravana was in fact a great scholar, and the reason why he has turned out to be the bad guy in the books is because his actions were wrong and that it's equally important to recognize his virtues. [That idea was a stark contrast to what I was made to believe -- that life and people are pretty black and white. Good student = good person, et cetera.]

It's pretty unfortunate that often like my mother, I stereotype. (It's faster). But this lesson is something I remember and try to act upon - that as much as possible, one should try and keep perspective.

Thanks for that, Dad. Though you have no clue this blog exists, but it's easier said here than to you. And I know you would'nt be very proud of this soppy piece.

Pyramid scam

2010-05-21T14:04:00.006+08:00

People in my family firmly believe that I spend more time on travel and tourism than I should. So to clarify, I was in Egypt on work. Just that I had a day to see the place. I was super excited.

A tourist almost always gets scammed. But given that I'm not one of those tour group 15days/20countries/take-pics-with-monuments kind of traveler, I always assumed that I get scammed less than others. It's not so. This is the email I wrote to a friend of mine describing what turned out to be my single worst experience as a tourist.
--

Background first - The people from the client side have two company cars at their disposal. One of them, a BMW, has been given to this 47 year old wine-and-womanizer called Waeel (Wild minus the d, he lives up to his name). His driver is called Araabi. In Egypt, the drivers and the drivees share a very Munnabhai-Circuit kind of relationship. You would often see an Egyptian get into a serious discussion with his driver, furrowed brows et al, as if they're discussing matters of national importance, only to figure out that they're discussing how many crates of diet coke are needed for the day.

Anyway, Araabi introduces himself as someone who doesn't know English well, but he knows every tree in the whole of Egypt. The latter is far more important. He's a geology graduate. He has three children - one engineer, one commerce grad and the third is still in high school. He insisted to his boss that he will escort me to pyramids, otherwise I will get cheated. He tends to be very dramatic when he talks, and needless to say, I had no choice but to trust him. My colleague chickened out, and I was left in the care of Mr. Araabi.

Determined not to get cheated, and knowing well that they hike price of water at tourist spots, I picked up two bottles of water, and left to see the leftover wonder of the world. It was a long drive, and it was hot outside, but I was way too excited. Araabi convinced me on the way that the best way to see the area is to take a horse carriage (a tanga), and that he knew people. Of course, I agreed. As soon as we reached, he quickly took me to this guy, supposedly his friend, the "owner", who told me, "I have three type - small, medium, large." I thought he was refering to the size of the seat for my butt, but he wasn't. The long tour included a perfumery tour and a papyrus factory tour, where they'd sell stuff which I wouldn't want. Medium tour had something else. Short tour was just a glimpse of the pyramids and the sphinx. "You cannot see much." The pyramids are huge and impossible to miss, so I don't know what he meant by the last bit.

He then promptly lifted me into the tanga.

I asked, "how much?"
He said, "450 LE for the small tour, 650 for medium" et cetera. (5.6 LE = 1 USD)
I said, sharpening my fangs, "I pay you 150 LE for small"
He said, "500 LE for small, 650 for medium", clearly not understanding a word of what I was trying to say.
I said, "No thanks, Very expensive. I don't have money. Let me go, I will walk."

Note, how the numbers are moving randomly much like the stock market. Also note, I am already on the carriage, and almost held hostage.

That's when Araabi came running to intervene, much to my relief. He discussed something intensely in arabic with the owner for 5 minutes, and turned around and told me that the owner has obliged to take me on the long tour. "To everyone it's 600 LE, but since you my friend, for you and only you, my friend, it is 400 LE." Very good price, he said.

They should be recruited by investment banks.

Not wanting to offend someone I'd taken a favour from, I paid my way out and agreed.
That's when I was introduced to Mahmood (pronounced Makhmood), the tangawala. A flamboyant young man, who seems to like tourists and women in general. So he put me on the carriage and took me around to enter the area.
His principle was rather simple - Not letting me get off the carriage. "You should see the pyramids from far, since you can't imagine the scale from close by". (What about my childhood dream of touching the pyramids?) Then, at random points during the tour he snatched the camera out of my hand, and started clicking pictures randomly making me pose. (You know and I know, I am very insecure about giving my camera to people.) He also made me get up onto random walls and places - and in the process of helping me get up and down, as you would expect, he was a tad too touchy feely. Hands under the armpits to lift me up, trying to hold my hand, et cetera - you get the drift? The good thing is, this chap has a perfect idea of perspective. The pictures are howlarious, all of the Patel variety - me touching, feeling, kissing and kicking the pyramids, but all from a distance. It didn't take him more than 10 seconds to compose and click. I was suitably impressed. As for the guiding part of the tour, he told me the names thrice, and then repeated the same fact 15 times - "All the artefacts are in the Egyptian museum, there is nothing here."

Needless to say, I was totally annoyed by now. So I told him, I will walk on my own and click pictures I like. Or just sit around for all I care. He insisted, we still had the papyrus factory and the perfumery to see. I insisted on walking around on my own. Got off and walked around and then to the sphinx, only to be welcomed by a familiar language - "Behenchod", "hat yaar photo kharab ho rahi hai" "yaar, isme zoom kahan hai yaar" etc. That little enclosure where the sphinx sits, indeed has the highest density of Indian tourists I've ever seen. And by ever, I really mean ever. It is full of peddlers who sell you everything from headgear to tiny pyramids (all made in china) and speak in every language from Spanish to Chinese, but don't understand the three simple words - "Leave me alone". You can imagine what a hassle it can be to arguing with them and dealing with them.

To cut a long story short, there is no peace. The big moment you imagine in your head about the day you'll finally see the pyramids, gets ruined by all the noise around.

Mahmood asked for a baksheesh (a tip). He said "They give me 100bucks." I didn't give him anything. The "owner" took 400 bucks from me. Araabi asked me if I was happy. I said I was, wondering if he and the "owner" are a nexus.

And that's the story. Either way, the place is stunning. Each of those rocks you see is 2.5 tonnes, and to think they achieved it back in the day leaves me confused. More on that later.

Yep - so: Entrance to the area - 60 LE. Scam Tour - 400 LE. Patel snaps - Priceless.

State of the union..

2010-05-09T05:05:00.004+08:00

.. it is not. But there are odd thoughts about twitter and facebook.

Amit Varma speaks of Twitter* and Internet Hindus and the alleged Enemy #2** on twitter, and how we shouldn't take people seriously. His point is rather simple, and I quite agree with it. The people who argue passionately on twitter will often not take such extreme positions in the real world. We often argue for the sake of argument, without any objectivity, and sometimes without a clue. We have little to add - voice has indeed entirely become noise.

I recently spotted it again with the Kasab sentencing. Like the incredibly hot SpyMaami said, 90% were talking like right-wing nuts and 70% like Arundhati Roy***. That death sentence led me to have a little flashback to the day it all fell like dominoes on twitter. It was 26/11. That day, we were sitting and chit-chatting like we always do. We discussed failwail, jazz and punkrockers (with flowers in their hair). And then the attacks happened. Twitter came handy, people managed to organize help and resources. It was quite brilliant, the way it all worked, the way it really put power and control in the hands of the common person. Everyone became very involved and suddenly, very serious. For a few days, anyone who would dare to say "Oatmeal for brekkie" was reprimanded. "Be serious, this is no time for frivolity", they said, "a country is in crisis". #Mumbai was trending for days. The aftermath was that the publicity in MSM brought many more curious people to twitter. Soon the mood had almost entirely changed - it became about issues, about making a point, shouting a message out. Some people thought that twitter would give them an opportunity to see their name in print. The lack of care was gone, and twitter, for me, came of age.

Now the place is all herd, all mob, especially when it comes to re-tweets and trending topics. It looks odd when people start talking about topics other than the ones which are already under discussion. People celebrate the arrival of a celebrity on twitter. People re-tweet the celebrity till the comment has lost its context. Often a discussion on a serious issue loses its merit because the objectivity is long lost, and people are relentlessly hashtagging.

Not that all is lost, not just yet. I've met and still meet wonderful people there, who have become some of my close(st) friends. There is still a lot of wit and wisdom -- in fact, way too much of it. I still have a lot of fun, but when there is noise, I tend to run away. Still, somehow, I don't turn and run, I don't quit.

Elsewhere, I find this piece about why one can't quit facebook. The list-maker says:

Sure, Facebook has privacy issues, but you don't care about privacy anymore. Remember when you wouldn't use your real name on the Internet?

I absolutely hate it when they equate lack-of-anonymity with lack-of-privacy. People don't mind using their real names on the Internet only because there are gazillion people out there, and to some people there seems to be little point in hiding a under a name.

Privacy is different. It's more about who you really want to share whatever you want to share with. That's why I have the Internet, so it can make sharing easier, so to me, it's quite strange when people say, "Don't put it on the Internet then!" Don't get it? Picture this - I have a, errm, picture I want to share with my friends. Instead of spamming their inboxes, I want to put it somewhere, so they can see it. I don't want to share the picture with my colleagues. Both these sets of people know my real name. In fact, I don't want these people to ever know my moniker, lest they google me out. See the difference?

*Quite a few sentences are more than 140 chars. Such a noob (sic). :) See, some of us can now naturally write sentence shorter than 140. I'm quite sure the first bit about twitter above is all under 140.

**Who's the enemy #1 that everyone likes to trip on, is anybody's guess.

*** According to me, 35% belong to the third kind - the people on twitter who claim that people on twitter don't know anything.

Death sentence

2010-05-07T05:05:00.005+08:00

The capital punishment for Kasab leaves me very confused. That guy came to India all prepared to die, then how can giving him a death sentence act as a deterrent to the terrorists? They'll just call him a martyr, and he will perhaps make an example to all the hot blooded but confused young men, much more than the others from 26/11 whose names we don't know. As my friend Senthil says - "It's applying a common man's law to an uncommon man, almost like sentencing a fish to drown." It barely counts as punishment towards such a heinous crime.

I was also given the argument that it will allow the families of victims to make peace. Which makes me think (and it's at 5 am now), how our ideas of justice are perverse it's always been about tit-for-tat, albeit structured and rule based.

Though we throw words like Gandhigiri and "Hate the crime but not the criminal", most people perhaps don't actually believe in it.

As I said, it leaves me confused.

On criticism

2010-04-30T18:23:00.004+08:00

I remember watching "Up in the Air" (the book is better!). The critics unanimously agree on George Clooney’s "raw portrayal", but reading those pieces of criticism left me wondering if a critic can ever identify with Ryan Bingham the way some of us do. The Us who've taken the red-eye, and have spent time picking shoes that don't get caught in the dreaded metal detector. Can a critic ever feel the coldness of the hotel room, and the abandon with which one approaches a single-serve conversation at the end of a tired day across a bar stool? Can a critic imagine how troubling it can be - being “professional” towards a task, a job that one’s not entirely convinced about? Can a critic feel how some of us treat frequent flyer miles and the free upgrades to be only quantifiable incentive for a lack of a personal life? Can a critic ever feel how disconcerting it can be when the guy at the reception in a hotel looks at you and says "Welcome home!"?

--
Roger Ebert has argued that video games can never be art. It's supposedly a five year old debate, which makes me wonder where I was and what I was doing five years back. Needless to say, his piece has infuriated the gaming community (and a lot of other people), who have since flooded his comment-space and their blogs. I doubt it's because they seek validation, it's only because no one wants to be dismissed.

Which is the thing with gamers, or at least the thing with my friends who play games. They've never tried to educate me or dismiss my interest in anything else. All they ever wanted to do is try to get me to share, and I quote, the "awesomeness" they feel when they play, despite the restrictions of rules, points, objectives and achievements.

The passion and fascination with which they speak leaves me envious. They want me to be a part of the world that changes at every iteration; it turns out different for each player. Which is what art does, isn't it? It's almost always been a subjective assessment, a personal experience. Be it a movie or a poem or a painting, it touches each person differently, so much so that it would perhaps be safe to assume that there is no single way of evaluation. There can be pointers and pathways, but there can’t possibly be absolute rights or wrongs.

Given that awareness, to say something is "not" art is quite strange. It doesn't appeal to me, to others, maybe it does – so good for them. Who's anyone to decide what appeals to someone?

But then again, Critics have always perched themselves on a pedestal, and peddled their opinions as judgment, almost like it is their need to decide for us what is good or bad, what is art and what is not.

Art, like religion, has fallen prey to its keepers.

C+

2010-03-12T14:04:00.009+08:00

"C+", someone graded me today, "Wit", "General behaviour", "Overall intellect", adding "What happened to you?"

Needless to say, I was a little taken aback since this came from someone who thought I was intelligent once upon. And if it indeed was once upon a time, I'd retort and fight and turn aggressive on them, or read, or do something to prove a point. I just got upset. "If you say so..", I said. The reason being, that particular compliment was doled out to me for missing a Pulp Fiction reference. The momentary blank out which happens, which shouldn't happen. Slap forehead, yes, but what to do? Am rusty around the edges.

For as long as I have known, the intelligent people have consumed everything that pop culture offered them: music, movies, books, tv shows. To be known as intelligent one has to have read/watched/had/devoured all those things, to be known as witty one has to bring out sitcom references right on cue, and occasionally twist them. So yeah, to have intellect, one has to be a glutton.

That awareness that I am such a shameless consumer, bothered me a bit. If at the end of my life, if the only thing I was left to speak of would be my experiences of consuming other people's experiences, I doubted if it would be something I could be proud of. What have I created? What have I produced? Do I have any thoughts I can call my own? Or nothing can ever be original.

So I set out. I stopped watching movies, TV shows, and for a while, reading. I set out to see what I could see. I set out to feel what I could feel. And see and feel I did. So if you speak of mountains, I can tell you how they are. Or if you speak of the quiet underwater, I can tell you how it is. Even if it was for a brief bit, that firsthand experience, that adventure will have me talking for many years to come, and was a lot more fulfilling than reading about the same things.

Only time will tell whether I've made the right choice or not, but I know for a fact that despite my efforts, I'll always be evaluated for how much I've memorized from creations of people who're truly original.

So yeah, to use a very popular blogger and dear friend's line-

Until next time, see plus...

Normal

2010-02-20T09:44:00.006+08:00

"Why are you like this? Why can't you be normal?"
"I don't know what qualifies as normal."
"You know like other people, people who want an ordinary life. Marriage. House. Car. Kids. In that order."
"I think my life is pretty ordinary."
"No, you're crazy. You want crazy things."
"Once I get my driving license, I will be on rung#3 of ordinary."
"Then you'll find something else, random."
"I'll drive a stick shift."
"See..."
"Sticks are cool."
"Why can't you want what others want."
"You expected otherwise? You fed me all the stories of your mother and her adventures and how happy you were doing what you wanted. I want all of that freedom."
"Sounds good in stories. Who would've thought you'd take it so seriously and turn into a gypsy."
"Sometimes being Bohemian is conforming as well, only differently. But to be honest, I am not addicted to the idea of being a nonconformist."
"Still..."
"Ma, all I ever want is to not be afraid of wanting something, regardless of whether I get it or not..."
"You take after your grandmother."
"That's a compliment."
"I think we gave you too much freedom."
"Too much freedom? No Ma, am tied, as tied as tied can be."

Fwd: Past Forward

2010-02-05T09:46:00.003+08:00

Dad sent me a forward, a Powerpoint presentation, and he and I ended up having an argument over emails. Yes, it's in the genes, picking up an non-issue and having tedious arguments which follow like streets (and twisting metaphors on their feet.) Hell I could write a post on it, but I won't inflict the pain on you, unless you want me to.

But that's not the point. The point is, the forward was so bad, and so damn bad that I loved it. It was like watching a bad B-grade Hindi movie. And that's when I thought, that these forwards, the original weapons of mass distraction, are all but gone from my inbox. Gone are the days of the subject lines: "Fw: FWD: Fwd: FWd: [tbc1998_thebest] Family(Beautiful mail) Must read.", "Amaaazing video [Must watch]", "Too funny", "awwwesome" all with an "enjoy" in the body of the email as the sender's helpful comment. No more retelling of "History Mystery..........Lincoln & Kennedy", in font size 45. No more doing to death of "Cow economics", in pink and blue and green and black. No more "Tips for staying young....... NICE". No more wmv attachments. No more studying the forwarding trail and knowing the email addresses of strangers. All gone.

Now, link sharing is through FB, video sharing through youtube, "good morning" sharing through twitter. Save for some people in my parents generation, no-one else seems to send them. At least to me. It's good, but it's also sad because the glorious opportunity of judging people on the basis of forwards they send is now gone. (I am like my mother. I stereotype. It's faster.) A friend of mine once broke up with a girl who made the ultimate mistake of sending him a "Gud morng!!!!" forward replete with pictures of soft-focused flowers leaning in all directions. A friend of mine lost his job because he accidentally sent his lady boss some misogynistic stuff. She wasn't offended by the content, but by the all those hopping gifs. Ok, the last bit is made up, but this bit is true: a friend sent a wedding invite in that format, peppered with animated gifs, and am sure many people missed the joke, not giving him credit for his degrees, and skipped his wedding.

So yeah, I'm really glad that these are all but gone from my inbox. Do you still get them?

Pay per clique

2010-01-28T14:20:00.015+08:00

Dear Mr. Vir Sanghvi,

This issue is nearly five days old and I am opining now because I feel the need to. What's strange is, when I first read your post about how the bloggers are the bad people of the Internet, I wondered why you were bringing up an issue that was roughly five years old. Nobody complains about bloggers anymore. For some strange reason, you seem to have just discovered them.

Don't get me wrong, I am barely a blogger, but I read a lot of them, and I will tell you why. For that, I'll have to go back to my origins --

Like in any educated middle-class household, as a part of my education, I was forced to watch the news and read the newspaper, to inculcate a love for current affairs, opinion and language. In the evenings, we were forced to sit in front of the TV as Salma Sultan and Rini Khanna (née Simon) told us what happened in the world that day, with a certain amount of indifference. Once a week, on Friday nights, I was allowed to stay up late and watch Prannoy Roy on "The World this Week" (Loy Mendonza's title track gives me gooseflesh.) Back then, Hindi was Hindi, and English was english, we were told to respect language. For analysis, we had to read the newspaper or magazines..

All this reading came with the strong belief that the people who were writing in the newspapers were qualified to comment and were the best people to do so. That they wouldn't write just to please us (or please anyone, for that matter). Having never seen their faces, and content with those little caricatures (by RK Laxman) accompanying their pieces, we put our blind faith in these could've-been-pseudonymous writers. To be honest, to me, Jug Suraiya never felt like a real name, but it didn't matter. I liked reading what he wrote.
Similarly, when movie reviewer gave a movie his "stars", we assumed that his judgment was right, because he knew what he was talking about. Even if we liked a movie he didn't, we assumed we'd missed something. We would perhaps not even admit that we liked it. In fact, for a long long time, I barely blogged because I always assumed my opinions were wrong.

Times have since changed. (Times has since changed too. Heh.) In the papers, instead of Mukul Sharma's Mindsport, we have "news" about Konkona Sen Sharma's latest party appearance. On Live TV, for current affairs, we have a journo shouting at us from outside the gates of the Bigg Boss household. In studio, for opinions, the moderator is shouting at the panel of analysts, all in some undecipherable mishmash of a language. Hell, now the media people are even shouting on twitter. Amidst all this, we, the then middle class, now haunt silent spaces to find good opinions and good writing. We find this noise to be unbearable and it seems easier for us to ask our friends for what they think. I don't remember when was the last time I read a "valid" movie review. These days I just ask a couple of my friends, read a couple of blogs -- people whose taste matches mine. Even if I don't agree with them, I read it for all the wit and good writing. I also take it as my responsibility to tell them of my opinion, sans fear. I usually put in some effort to articulate my thoughts. You could call it clique formation, you could call it forming a network of people you can trust.

It works fine for me as a reader, but why does it upset you?

I don't know what your exact grouse is, but it seems to be one of these: that the bloggers don't take your opinions seriously, or that that the bloggers are not qualified to opine, or that you are no longer the elite, or that we've found our friends who don't talk "at" us, and we prefer taking a weighted average of their opinions.

This was our little party. We hung out here, in our crowded little dark rooms, happy by ourselves. You seem to have entered the place right now, breaking the fourth wall, and are upset at us for having a party.

Sincerely,

PS: Am not sure if Mindsport is still published. Can someone please tell me?

PPS: Other better posts on this topic: Manu, Lekhni and this for all the revie-wit: Manu, again.

Twinkle of my sky

2010-01-25T16:24:00.002+08:00

You know I've been thinking a lot about death. Three drafted, one published, and one published-and-retracted post later, my brain is still trying to make peace with the mechanics of loss. My brain still tries to get the early mover advantage on grief. I think it's a phase thing. You know how 25-year-olds discuss getting married, 30-year-olds discuss midnight feeds, and 40-year-olds discuss clogged arteries? My parents are losing their peers, and I can't offer them comfort that their friends went and became stars in the sky.

I realized yesterday, I had forgotten how to look at the moon. I had forgotten how the moon looked. Crescent, half, full, spotted, pimpled, you know the phases. Sometimes there is no reason to look at the sky. Sometimes there is no reason to spot the Orion or the Big Dipper. Sometimes there is no reason to draw the line to the Pole star. Sometimes there is no reason to wish on the lone star.

I realized yesterday that the night sky had stopped being black. It had stopped being the metaphor for a maiden's hair. Instead, it had turned into this nightmarish shade of ink blue. It looked faded. The salt and pepper was gone. It looked like all the stars had been forgotten, and hence they went undercover. Ah, the blinding city life, the bright lights have taken the twinkle away.

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art...

2010-01-23T18:05:00.003+08:00

One of my mother's students committed suicide. Dad informed me, adding, "The 3 idiots effect."

I didn't ask for any other information, because sometimes it is easier to deal with statistics than dealing with real people. However much we try and shroud it in euphemisms, "13 people died" is far easier on our tongue, on our mind, than saying "Ma's student passed away." However indifferent or concerned we pretend to be, it always seems closer home when it happens to someone we know.

I can't imagine the parents are going through. Ma feels as guilty perhaps, being the teacher, and I wouldn't blame her. She has always taken it as her responsibility to counsel all these kids about their adolescent problems with love, puberty, alcohol, career, studies. I wonder if there are many teachers who take as much effort as she does, to connect with the students. Needless to say, she is immensely popular with her brood. So with all the honesty they give her, I can imagine why she would feel guilty. If she had spotted signs early on, that what this kid was going through was more than what other kids are also going through, maybe a life could've been saved. It may just be that she finds it unethical being part of a so flawed education system where students/kids are humiliated in school and at home for not performing well. I don't know, I will have to ask her.

What is also interesting is how many people have connected the dots and drawn a line to the movie. We can't help it, it's the job of engineers and scientists to collect stats, and present it as a trend. Somewhere along a trace of that line, the individual and his problems get lost. As I said, sometimes it is easier to deal with statistics than dealing with real people. "Suicides are on the rise after 3 idiots"-- was anyone even collecting statistics before the movie was released? Was anyone even serious about them? Plus, I fail to understand why 3 idiots has collectively had such an impact, but not a movie like Rocket Singh. How does watching the movie create such a big impact? Why do kids suddenly identify with the character, and like him, to take the harsh (or easy?) way out of life's troubles?

Which brings me to the bigger question - is the blame really on the educational system or on the society in general? The way it seems to have evolved, everyone seems to want to raise a prodigy, you know, a multilingual blackbelted rockstar with an IQ of 175. Studies, exams, education are just a small part of this.

I was reading some posts here and there about how the government could help it with educational reforms etc. The policy is important, but this could also be the issue of mental health in general. I still believe that the onus for it lies closer home. We see our family, our friends, our neighbour's kids. It should be easier for normal people to see signs of depression or anxiety in people who are amongst us. It should be easier for us to accept these as a valid illnesses. It should be easier for us to accept that some people need help, and not be dismissive about it. The govt can only do as far as to create helplines and ease up question papers and collect stats, but unless there is a broader social change, an acceptance of the individual and his mental state, the problem will perhaps not go away.

Dirty Rock

2010-01-07T06:27:00.007+08:00

Finding NiMo.

I slip underwater effortlessly and at that depth feel calm and peace that comes with being in control. And yet that control comes with an equal amount of dread -- something could go horribly horribly wrong. Every time you take that risk of doing something else, something different, apart from being on the couch, you take an unassisted step forward. Scary, yes, but the thrill makes up for it.

--
"Age is just a number" or "30s is the new 20s" -People who say that are really really old. Youth is wasted on the young, and yet, nothing's perhaps ever wasted if you've devoured every little bit of whatever was on your platter. I feel I have.

I finally feel comfortable in my own skin. Of course, the butt's too big and the hair's too frizzy and I haven't still bought the Ferrari I swore I would. Frankly, I don't care. I don't feel the need to drastically alter myself because I know nothing's going to change much. I don't look over my shoulder for approval. I am way more confident than I ever imagined I would be.

Gone is the anger of the early twenties, or the slogfest of early-mid twenties, or the crisis of mid-twenties years or the sinking feeling of mid-late twenties or just the tic-tac-toe of "what's up with life" of really-late-twenties. There's a life to be lived, and I feel I am making the most of it.

--
To be fair to me, I never had a consistent list of what I wanted to achieve before I became this old. It's been switching every year. Earlier on, my to-do list was filled with silvery shiny things and checkboxes, now it's just the hope that I'd not be ashamed to have a pink haired day. Someday, someday!

So yeah, since I record gifts, this year, I bought myself a birthday card.

End of a yearn

2010-01-01T06:52:00.003+08:00

Quit job without having another
Moved to a new house, and did it up.
Wrote, a lot.
Got my diving license.
Sketched/drew/painted things I am proud of.
Baked my first cake.
Traveled, and a lot.
Trekked to the Everest Base camp.
Dived in the Great Barrier Reef.
Didn't waste time on movies (rather, kept the resolution from feb).

And many others. Not bad, not bad at all.

Happy new year, y'all.

Accident p0rn

2009-12-09T11:15:00.003+08:00

--
Written a little while back.
If it wasnt so tragic, it would be funny.

--
I find myself sitting in my odd spot with a bandage around my left thumb. Not much of a difference. I use the thumb for the space bar and nothing more, so it's not so hard to type.
Gone are the days perhaps where the thumb was the important tool for warriors and poets. How to hold a bow and arrow or a pen? Ha, times have changed, we modern day warriors and poets can manage without our thumbs. The forefingers pull the trigger, and well, we type. Even it's use as the ancient phallic symbol has been replaced with the middle finger. Tom Robbins wrote an entire chapter about the importance of thumbs. I can't seem to remember any of it, except what I would perhaps not be able to do without my left thumb, is hitchhike in the commonwealth countries.

The friendly doc told me to ensure the nasty fella stays dry. I told him I am a veteran in this department. I get loyalty bonus points from dressing companies. I even know the latest fashion.

--
Cut to late march 2009.
I woke up that morning trying to open a carton to find something. Someone had left a swiss knife on the dining table (to open a bottle of wine, of course), the blade of which went into my palm. It bled a little, not much to merit panic. Two days later, the whole thing was full of goo and stuff, and it was impossible to move my hand. I was in pain, hallucinating, screaming, threatening to write my will . An incision and drainage had to be performed, under general anaesthesia. The last memory was that of laughing gas. I woke up from the stupor the next morning to get it dressed and discovered a hole in the middle of my palm. The resurrection happened on easter, I kid you not. Did I ever have any doubts about me being the child of God?

But a few days before the bandages came off -

And a few days after I was given the laughing gas -

I tripped and fell and landed up with a gash on my forehead. It has left a lightning shaped scar right above the left eyebrow. And not some itsybitsy clipartsy scar, but a real lightning shaped scar, which seems to turn red and throb every time I drink red wine. I feel it's a message, but and yet to decipher it. May be it's morsecode.

Of course, true to myself, not to be defeated, I still decided to run the JPM corporate challenge - a 5.6km run through the heart of the city, the central business district. Ever so popular with the cutthroatmanager type people, who lack civil behaviour. One of them gave me the elbow, so I jumped off the pavement and stepped on a discarded bottle, twisted my ankle and fell, skinning my left knee. I was left with running only 1 km, and I had no choice but to limp the rest of the way.

It was only april, the cruelest month.

By this time, the horoscope came chasing my back to indicate, that the dosha (flaw) found last december was making me accident prone (that's the topic of another post)

So then, after a few inconsequential cuts and bruises, A was made to sit through a 4+ hour pooja to reduce the impact on my behalf, because women, as you would perhaps not know, have no rights to pray for themselves (or so I assume). I dutifully sat through it, touching his right shoulder, hoping the faith would heal and protect.

Soon after I got back, both of us were in a bike crash. Though safe, we landed up with major skinning of all body parts, which took a while to heal and completed the match-muched set of scars. Of course, after the initial shock, my immediate response to sink into terrible self pity, assuming I brought it upon him, and losing faith on the dosha vendors.

I will not get to the story of the crashes and tsunami warnings and the close calls, which actually are entertaining and sound adventurous, and will take the tragedy out of this story while I need your sympathy.

Now the thumb - a little kitchen accident which happens, happens to the best of us. It understandably made me hyperreact and run to the doctor and feed myself three years worth of antibiotics.

My body is a war zone, full of land mines, scars and pits and spots, all ugly on a grown woman. When I was all of three it was a big deal to have a band aid on the knee, now, I wonder if men still find it enviable.

The jokes arent tiring, the advice is. This includes: not venturing out of home evvaar (though half the accidents have happened while I was, in fact, home), realigning the feng shui of this house, and getting pregnant (don't ask.)

But I wish people would say some encouraging words, because I seem to have lost all confidence. That doesn't stop me from doing anything, but it has become a hassle to lose confidence in something seemingly innocuous, like peeling potatoes, and this constant thing that keeps running at the back of my head that I am accident prone, and so I am waiting for the next disaster to happen.

I am the next disaster waiting to happen.

Gonna fly now.

2009-12-06T18:27:00.003+08:00

Running is something I talk about a lot, but I never get around to doing as much as I talk about it. Yep, it's one of those things, which people believe I love, but while I've confidently spoken to all my running friends about my intentions, minus the odd short (~5km) runs, I never actually got around to registering for an event till this year. Most often than not, I am plain lazy to register on time, and such events are usually oversubscribed in Singapore.

The other problem has always been that I find running extremely boring, which is not surprising given my extremely short attention span.

This year, I also finally found the gear I so needed to be able to keep at it: an iPod shuffle.

So the night before the Standard Chartered run (SCSM), while other people were busy carb-loading and hydrating, I carefully sat and planned the music I so needed to pace myself, and to help me keep going without realizing what was going on.

Speaking of hydrating, it didn't help that SCSM kept sending me scary messages the whole of yesterday asking me to hydrate. So much so that I woke up with sweaty nightmares a couple of times and found that my throat was parched..

Now comes the best part -

I decided to take a cab in the morning. The plan being, I will go as close to the starting point as possible without tiring myself out even a leettle bit. I got in and before I could say a thing the Sardarji at the wheel asked me in impeccable Singlish, "Why you going to run so late ah? I see people run from 5 o'clock, you know."

I patiently explained the strategy of staggered starts. He further went on to explain the best route to take to get closest to starting point. Trusting him completely, I proceeded to adjust my headphones in place and checking my playlist, taking carefully measured sips of water from my bottle.

Then he decided to talk:

"Where in India are you from?"

I explained my middle-east-origins, which he was expectedly clueless about.

"Close to Calcutta", I said, hoping to help.

"Worst place in the world. So dirty, so ugly. I nevaaaaaar want to go there evaaaaaaar."

I smiled.

Then it hit rockbottom.

"Doctor say, running very good. I say not very good. Three friend die you know"

"One fellow, he went New Zealand, three day he run. Then too cold something he die."

"One more fellow, last week, his heart stopped."

"One girl, she came asked me to find army gear for her. I help her buy. She run for charity. I never hear from her again."

I kept quiet. I was scared, of course. Two seconds later, he asked me if I knew anyone else who was running.

"Man or girl?"

"Girl must not run"

Ultimately, he stopped at one end of Robinson Road, and said "That's it miss, I can't go any further. You have to get down here."

Annoyed at myself for having trusted, because I knew the road was blocked, I paid him, asked him to keep the change as I didn't want coins jingling in my pocket, and landed up walking all the way to the start point, which as people in Singapore would vouch, is quite a bit. On the way, I crossed the 2 km and 3km mark for the full marathon course. Needless to say, when I finally got there, I was sweaty and thirsty, and very scared about my heart.

I also saw the early finishers of the full marathon on Anderson bridge while I was trying to navigate my way up and down the underpasses. A six-foot tall african, followed by a six foot tall chinese, followed by that cute guy from gym. Hell, the cute guy from gym runs? I didn't know that.

The run itself was uneventful. It was crowded. Like the entire world had nothing to do except get up and run on a nice Sunday morning. The point with such slow crowds is that one lands up being better off walking, because even at your fastest, you are slower than the average walker. And given my past experience with aggressive women, and men, and given the warnings meted out by helpful taxi guy, I decided to stick to my lane and run slow. I finished slower than the last time, and thankfully, am still alive.

High, and disoriented, and sweaty, I took the train back home.

Strange, I needed so many words to write about a 10k. The one who finished the full marathon, needed very few.

... and let dive

2009-09-24T11:43:00.006+08:00

You know when we were growing up, and getting from 6th standard to 7th standard was a big deal. It was like something to be conquered. As I read somewhere, a three and a half year old knows the difference between being three and being four. I am three-and-a-half years old. Ever seen a kid who is not proud saying that?

Sometimes I feel that I need that metric just to experience the ecstasy of taking a number down. Floating around aimlessly with little joys and without tangible milestones simply won't do. I guess that's why people run marathons. 42 becomes that number to run for, to say I've been-there-done-that.

Does one need milestones to find happiness?

Now I am being all scatty. This is right after Cyn called my blog a sleek minimalistic condo. I wonder why she would say that. Must be true. This is where the dirt is under-the-fancy-rug-swept, there is no storage space, and money-plants grow, ironically, in empty wine bottles. Plus, though this place impresses others, the truth is that however long I live here, I never seem to belong.

But I digress. As always, I digress.

"Collect your thoughts", a friend in college used to say, "collect your thoughts before you dive into the middle of it all"

There you go, back to the point.

Diving is something that has given my life some semblance of that structure. From a non-swimmer who struggles in the choppy waters, and panics, I transform underwater and move around somewhat elegantly, somewhat effortlessly. Somewhat, I said. Don't push the limits of that somewhat. It would sound trite to say I belong, but I really do enjoy the water above my head and nothing but my equipment to trust. Such a heady feeling swimming among the fish above the corals. And the addictive silence. There is absolute peace and quiet for noone can talk. You communicate with signs and symbols, and commit what you see to memory, so you can come to the surface, and check the name of that brightly coloured fish which held your attention for that little bit.

When I started, I was into the star spotting- the stingrays, the turtles, the sharks. Hard to find, and always the lone rangers, it can make ones dive trip worth bragging about. That was then. Now I am content and much more confident identifying the gorgonian fans and batfish and spotting the odd clownfish moving in and out of anemone. It is always full of odd surprises. Sometimes you find the jellyfish being eaten by small fish. Sometimes you find yourself engulfed in a school of barracuda. Sometimes a rabbitfish comes and befriends you. Sometimes you squint your eyes to spot a pufferfish. Sometimes you make up names for the redfish bluefish yellowfish.

Such joy!

Don't get me wrong, as much as I pretend to be good, I am far from it. There are many people who have clocked many more dives and are much better divers. I barely started.

So, why am I writing all this?

Good question.

Hmm.

Saigon kick -2

2009-09-21T16:11:00.000+08:00

Due to the brilliant response of the first part, I have decided to post part two. You people are very kind.

---

The day after we went to Cu chi, we woke up early and made our way for another tour - to the Mekong delta, which is also a two hour ride from the city. I wasn't very sleep deprived, so I decided to listen to Romeo who was nearly bleeding with songs and information about the superstitions about birth and death in Vietnam. For instance - farmers would ask to be buried in the farmland to prevent the wayward sons from selling the farmland.

On the way, we visited a temple of the Cao Dai (Pronounced: cow dye) religion. Primarily monotheistic, they have symbols from all religions placed inside the sanctum. God is symbolized by the left eye as it's supposedly closer to the heart.

From there, it took us about twenty minutes to get to the Mekong Delta. "The waters in the delta are not dirty, but red because of all the alluvium in the soil", Romeo informed me, reminding me of the word "alluvium" which I hadn't heard for many years. Needless to say, the area is very fertile, and has a lot of rice fields. Vietnam is (was?) third after Thailand and India in rice export (of course, that could be related to the consumption, but still..).

The delta tour itself can be not very high energy and exciting, save for the ride in a canoe, through a canal, where you wear those hats, and the arms of strong women render your years of gym useless.. Oh yes, we did visit a couple of "staged" villages - you know the kind where everything is how a village is in our imagination, where we were served snacks, and fruit and tea and chewy coconut candy, which got stuck to my teeth and prevented me from speaking for a full 15 minutes.

For me, the best part of the trip was identifying different fruit trees. I, for one, had never seen a grapefruit or a dragonfruit tree. (Yes, many of you haven't seen a dragon fruit, but it's alright.)

I slept through the two hour return trip finally finding comfort in the singsong voice, while A indulged in a conversation about Mooncakes and ricefields and the city.

We made our way to the Ben Thanh market in the evening assuming it would be a handicraft af-fair with loads of local made stuff, but it turned out to be a night market with the original duplicate (read:Chinatown type) stuff, which I wasn't too keen on looking at, because I had no patience to bargain. Bargaining needs not heart, not liver but powered up lungs. I gave up and decided to get fleeced by one of the tourist shops instead. Vietnamese lacquerware paintings are unique but almost all the shops sell identical stuff, and are affordable.

Then someone recommended us to see the water puppet show, and trust me, it turned out to be more enjoyable than I could've ever imagined. Mostly depicting life of farmers in Vietnam, the deft hands of the puppeteers standing in chest deep water tell folk tales and mythology. They are accompanied by musicians with banter in their voices. The puppets are language by itself. A and I still laugh about some of the jokes moving our hands about and jumping around.

The city is best seen on foot. One is better off staying in District 1, and then walking around and getting lost on the map. It is the best way to get by and to spot the life as it passes by. You see a swarm of 80cc motorbikes coming at you as you cross the road. You see the mess of overhead cables as they mark the corner of the streets. You see scared lady drivers swinging their handlebars left-right left-right to dodge you till you make up your mind and stay still. You see old ladies with the traditional baskets on a pole doing the hop-walk. You see the joy on people's faces as they dig their teeth into scrumptious street food. Walking is the only way to enjoy the vibe.

Which brings us to the food. One of us couldn't stop drinking coffee (Ha, gotcha, wasn't me!). It smells of coconut and tastes like Vanilla and does random things to your tastebuds, giving a weird caffeine kick. I, on the other hand, was addicted to the food. I have always been a huge fan of fresh rice paper rolls (Summer rolls) and prawn on sugarcane but now I am willing to cheat on my love for any other cuisine and start a torrid affair with Vietnamese food.

Banh Mi is this sandwich type thing, which is made of baguettes, and has meat and a gooey vietnamese style sauce making it delisshhus.

Pho, or noodle soup has beef pieces, soft noodles and broth. I don't eat beef, so carefully picked the beef pieces out, and drank the broth anyway.

Vietnamese are of the habit of putting fresh herbs in their food as opposed to cooking and cooking with a whole lot of unidentified powders and pastes like we Indians are used to, and hence leads to flavours where every note is identifiable and hence comforting. I am told there are a lot more vegetarian options in Vietnam, because of the strong Buddhist roots, but I would be wary since though there are more than enough Vegetables in the food, the fish sauce and condiments may contain some stuff they don't want to admit.

Food is religion, I have converted.

Beer, umm, there is 333 (Ba ba ba) and Sai Gon, both palatable, drinkable, and muuuuuch better than Fosters (which is my rock bottom for beer and gives me the rash). I have a rule of drinking only the local beer when in any new town. Rice wine is worth a try I guess, I didn't try any, since beer is cheaper, and closer to my belly. Many pubs and clubs with live bands use random number generators to price their beer, so it's better to be cautious.

There is this atrocious drink called snake wine, where you see rice wine bottles with snakes and scorpions and weird things. Booze is already poisonous, why adulterate it with more? Plus, I read that the venom is denatured by ethanol, so what's the point anyway. And with that I end my carefully crafted justification of chickening out.

--

PS: Apologize for the delay in posting. I have another trip to write about now.

Saigon kick -1

2009-09-09T22:55:00.004+08:00

As expected, this thing begins at the very end of the trip. One always thinks about what one has seen and done at the very end, mostly while sitting at the airport. One can't help it. So as my travel companion struts away to a much needed foot massage at the airport, I trudge to what I think I need most - quiet time with my computer. Just so you know, I can see the "spa" from the corner of my eye, and can spot more men walking to the place than women. Women are always blamed for their indulgence, but I love the way men manage to peddle their indulgences as "need". "I *neeeeed* this" doesn't quite sound the same as "Oh well, maybe I should buy myself a new bag". You would find a guy wistfully staring at a piece of art which doubles up as a gym trainer and a rocket launcher (a.k.a an iPhone) he so badly *needs*, when you know and I know it doesn't even match the furniture.

Anyway, one is attempting a travelogue about their recent trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. And all you kind people should encourage me. For info, it's logical, not chronological.

--

Ho Chi Minh City nestles in a spot in the south of Vietnam which if you stare at the map long enough, looks like its wrist. Formerly officially known Saigon, it was named HCMC after the city was captured by the North Vietnamese forces at the end of Vietnam war. It is still informally called Saigon by the locals. All on that in wiki, if you're keen.

I was ashamed of how ignorant I was about the intricacies of Vietnam war till I actually visited the city and felt the vibe of a place which can perhaps never forget. The words "War veterans" and "Agent Orange" is thrown around a lot for anyone's comfort, and yet the details seem to have slipped right through my history lessons. For those who don't know and don't care, and to cut a very long story short-

Vietnam was occupied by French after the Second world war. The Geneva Accord of 1954 which kicked the French out and essentially divided it into two states ("pending national elections"): - The North ( Democratic Republic of Vietnam controlled by the communists) and the South ( Republic of Vietnam controlled by, well, what the vietnamese call a puppet govt placed there by the US). To prevent the communist forces from rising to power (and to harness the mineral resources in the area) US entered Vietnam.. The North vietnamese army (Viet Minh) led a conventional war, however there was a guerrilla operation run by VietCong against the anti-communist forces in the south.

If you find me a little biased in the above paragraph, it's only because it is hard not to emote after seeing a city which has assimilated war into its identity. I will try to sound more indifferent from now on.

Hold on!
Back to the beginning -

So, soon after we landed, after an early morning budget flight which made toast out of us, we had to bite into the morning traffic jam. As expected, despite what we thought was smart bargaining, we got nearly looted by the taxi driver, like tourists often do. It's the fate of a tourist - however cautious one is, however much one reads the stuff online and prepares - printouts et al -- one almost always gets cheated on the first ride from the Airport to the hotel.

Once we reached the hotel, we realized that time travel had given us an extra hour that day, we asked the kind lady at the tour desk downstairs, to take us to the Cu Chi tunnels.

Soon enough our friendly tour guide arrived, shoved us into a van, handed us a bottle of mineral water each, and decided to give us our money's worth by not letting us sleep through the ride. Going by the name Romeo, he spoke good English, and gave us, the clueless two, trivia about the country and her people and their superstitions. He didn't stop till the van did.

The Cu chi tunnels, which are roughly two hours away from the heart of the city, were built by the VietCong during the war, and are work of wonder. Up to 10 metres underground, and having upto three levels these were mostly dug using shovels. The tunnels are for the petite and small ( read: size XS) "because they knew that it is impossible for the westerners to fit". It's hard to imagine how people lived down these rabbit holes for years, and how kids were born inside those tunnels which barely have any light, and were often infested with poisonous ants and scorpions. Sectors have been widened to fit the tourists, and lights been installed, but one still needs to crawl and it is still too dark and narrow and can get claustrophobic. It's barely a treasure hunt as you would imagine it to be.

The other highlights of the tour are the booby traps and other ingenious methods used by them using mostly the scraps from the enemy - scrap from shells used to make the weapons, rubber tyres used to make slippers, soldiers' uniforms to throw the "German" dogs off-track. There are B52 craters, unexploded bomb shells and broken tanks which were damaged by the land-mines. One does realize the uselessness of such massive brute-force type tanks and weapons (?) in a war, when they were up against short and quick and agile people using common sense and intelligence.

A day later we made our way to the Reunification Palace. A little after the US withdrawl from the Vietnam war, a tank of the North Vietnamese Army (dramatically) bulldozed through the main gate, ending the Vietnam War -- an event recorded as Fall of Saigon (wiki, if you please) and reunified the country under Communist rule. The p(a)lace itself is full of rooms full of furniture, which can best be described as regal or imperial, and collects all things stinking of affluence (read:wastefulness) of the (then South vietnamese) govt. It can get boring, but I guess it holds a lot of importance for the Vietnamese people. The interesting part here is the basement under metres of concrete which is like one of those "War bunkers" you see in movies - full of maps and old communication devices where the generals point with those long pointer things and plan their attacks.

A final stop on the War trail was the War Remnants museum (formerly known as "Museum of American War Crimes"). The "American" bit was dropped sometime in 1995 (and they perhaps had no choice but to) after they normalized the relationship with the United States. There are tanks and bombs and missiles and all tangible war remnants kept outside, and one can't help but wonder about the amount of money spent in shipping those things over halfway across the world. The inside of the museum tells us the tale of the war, and is replete with pictures. There is an temporary exhibition about the true remnants of the war -- pictures of victims of Agent Orange. It was a defoliant used by the American army containing a toxic (and banned) agent dioxin which poisoned their food chain and resulted in innumerable birth defects. Indifferent as I may sound while telling you what it is, the exhibition is not for the faint hearted. A gave up after walking through ten pics. I saw around twenty, and stepped outside as if closing my eyes and getting away would prevent all things bad from happening in the world. How I wish. All around me, people were walking with their mouths covered, in disbelief perhaps, that the most celebrated war veterans, the most celebrated presidents were party to such damage, such carnage, such mutilation of life.

Nothing, I repeat, nothing ever justifies war and a war like this. Nothing justifies death of people, even if it is masquerading as nationalism. The entire vietnam war left millions dead, (including ~50,000 americans, if you please). In Cu Chi area, of the 16000 people living in the tunnels only 6000 survived [to be verified], I am told. I don't even want to get to the amount of money which could've been put to better use, perhaps. Was it even worth it?

PPS: If there is one person who has read till the end of this post, and hence I get one comment on it, I will write the part two. Else, you miss the best parts.

PS: Art work -- my own.

Breathe and be

2009-09-09T17:23:00.008+08:00

There are days when I miss you. You were the one full of dreams and ambition and need to kill the world, or make the world keel. You are not the same anymore. Full of doubt, full of need to validate yourself against what others have to say, dwelling on the words, quotes, pulling notes out of your hidden pocket, insecure as you can be.

There was a time when you were quiet, not saying anything for you were afraid, measuring words, deleting them, controlling them, shifting them, spacing them as need be. Now, vocal as you are, it seems futile, for you can't tap your feet with the times, eschewing nails (for they are a pain when you type) as you have walked too far down a path which seems to be familiar to others, and yet is not remotely what you are, on a road better as less travelled as it can be.

The dreams and hopes and flights seem to evaporate into the cumulus, a cumulative accumulation of what you've learnt, they cloud your judgement, trap you into your future, rain doubts, drain hope. And it's not a future less traveled, it's as done to death as it could be.

Sometimes I wonder how you became so emotionless. Sometimes I wonder how you can go through the motions. Once upon, the very notion of a motion put you into a fit of love or rage or hunger or anger. Now you look straight through life and death, guiltless or wallowing as the case may be.

As I said, though double the size, you're not half the person you used to be.

Face of things to come.

2009-09-03T22:20:00.006+08:00

In a near dystopian future, mutant fortune cookies take over the world, they save your personal information, oozing venomous messages to all those who dare challenge their supremacy - "Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can". All the helpless people can really do is give in to the oddball addiction.

Human beings are constantly monitored, being accountable for every single stray thought that steps into the frame - "So, update us, what's on your mind?" Their colleagues, friends, fathers, mothers and big brother silently watch. Humans feed, humans read, lapping up every bit of information thrown at them.
There is no such thing left as free will. Every decision taken through a series of questions to the one, tap of a finger, click of a button - "What is my purpose in life?" "What should I have for dinner?"

People rub their eyes in the morning, wake up into a world where they can't dis-like things - they can only "like" the stuff. People compare people, rate them, order them, hand out superlatives. Flick of a wrist, click of a button. "Friend-unfriend", "Accept-ignore" "Red-pill, blue-pill"- they make their choices, the screen flashes in protest and they become a part of the system.

The farmers become the herds -- some 11 million of them. They grow cash-crops - eggplant and strawberries. Somewhere, a lonely black sheep strays into their neighbour's farm. She feels very sad and needs a new home. There is no one to help them out.

While the farmer toils on, the soldier fights the new enemy. The mafia slowly takes over the city. The war wages on, as the pawns in the battle lose their energy, health, and stamina by the minute.
Then there are the guerilla warriors who form the resistance, fighting the cookies and the mafia. They have no weapons -- they fight with their bare hands -- poking and throwing snowballs as they find spots to hide in a box.

Somewhere my taste buds protest, overwhelmed at all the force-fed information. Somewhere my cause to ignore a protest kicks in. Somewhere, I ride the nightmare where Facebook is skynet, and resistance is futile.

Somewhere I give up hope, somewhere I get bored of it all.

Gah, I really got bored writing this post, but decided to post it nonetheless, so don't complain about the abruptness of it all. kthxbai.

Just about fair

2009-08-28T21:06:00.003+08:00

It's funny how I speak to people with completely different results. At any given point of time, with certain people I am open to their point of view, their ideas, and with certain others, I become a person who wants to drive the point across and is not receptive to anything.

Manu brought this point about the SRK issue and infinite justice, and made it seem simpler than algebra. His piece touches upon of the varying ideas we have about things fair-unfair, just-unjust, things we hold dear, and the greatest common denominator very few have - objectivity. Dang, can't believe I lost a chance to argue the point on twitter.

The weird thing is, I had a long drawn writeup on the matter, but I now realize this discussion is way past it's expiry date, and there really is little point belabouring it. So here is the gist of it -
--

I remember once sitting on a terrace, much before my present life of sloth, with a couple of drinks and do what young-single-NRIs do best on Friday nights- argue about what's wrong with India. It's a way for us to justify the selfish choices we have made. We let go of a lot to live this life, and prevent ourselves from tripping over guilt when we watch Swades, because we have made that choice of giving up a life full of struggles in "our" country, just to be happy in our little worlds where things run like clockwork.

And in one such moment, a friend had an epiphany. He chanced upon the idea which one lives by in India -- the fact that law isn't the same for all. For something as simple as a license renewal to something as elaborate as a hit-and-run, the law will hardly ever treat two people the same way. The sad part of it is, even young-bright-urban-educated-upright-individuals like you and me, give in to the system. or find ways of solpa-adjusting our way around it. We simply don't have the time, or the patience, or the courage, or the conviction to deal with it.

What additionally bothers me is how we pity ourselves when we hear of any incident involving someone "powerful". "If it can happen to him, imagine us..". So the "outrage" that loyal fans experience is also bundled with a whole lot of self pity.

Tell me, why is getting frisked unjust? It may just be fair on a gazillion others who are traveling. One man's suffering for the greater common good. I've been "randomly" selected for the "special safety screening channel" more than once - Shoes off, belt off till the metal detector gives me a clean slate. If they could, they would perhaps try and account for the iron in the blood. I even opted for ceramic fillings, because I am petrified of the beeps. I don't think it is unfair in anyway. I am fine with it, since I am sure others are frisked too.

As far as the racial profiling goes, given the current state of world affairs, and given the havoc the religious extremists have created, they are perhaps just trying to live by what the statistics suggest to them. You can't blame them, can you? Agreed that statistics are flawed, as Nicholas Taleb would argue, but statistics just give us the reassurance we so badly need. Tell me, what other way is there to tell?

Life, on the move

2009-07-04T14:50:00.005+08:00

The fifteen year old calls. She tells me she is now obsessing over apocalyptic events. I don't have to try hard to find the correlation between that and her impending board exams.

A little while later -

I fly out to this beautiful city. The ride from the airport to the heart of the city warms the cockles of mine. A glimpse of a lot of spots from the past. This is where she lived. That is where we stopped that day. Pronouns infest my mind, my eyes resolve the anaphora. I will perhaps never fall out of love with this city. Never.

A little while later -

Children of brothers and sisters unite in a violin shaped Hall. All share muffled laughs as kids crack jokes decidedly adult.
"Didn't you find the botox joke funny?"
"No sweetheart, at my age you don't."

Two angels, now grown up, and the coolest aunt plan a sleepover. They plan to giggle through the night. "Gimme gossip, yo"
"D and N are going out."
"Since when?"
"Sixth grade. Can you believe they were seen making out in McD's? McD's of all places."
"Oh wow", I say, dealing subconsciously with the facts of life, and trying to get rid of the mental image of a six year old D with a water bottle hung around his neck asking for a kids meal at McD's. Of all places.

I wake up to see her hair beaded with red thread, and my nails painted an apocalyptic purple. Work of the devil or the work of a 13-year old. I don't have to try hard to find the correlation between that and the fact that she played the lawyer the night before. Yes, on that stage.

A little while later -
Shamelessly flaunting these badges of honour, I trudge to meet an old partner in crime. He makes me wait at the wrong mall where Lush smellscapes and jobless people surround me.
I run to the right mall braving the traffic. One could make a movie out of that little ordeal of mine.
One eats lunch and then one hunts for coffee.
Some seemingly tone-deaf DJs loop MJ.
A stack of spoons falls in a loud protest.
I laugh.
He talks.
I suppress an accidental yawn.
He curses.
I explain, "Coffee makes me sleepy. That's why I have so much of it"
He doesn't buy the argument. Who would? (But it's true.)

A little while later -

I go to the town tucked away on one side of the world. I drive through the lines joining points on the landscape: End Point, Endless Point, Peacock point so on and so forth.. Things have changed. A garden rests where end of the world used to be. A building has come up where the road used to be. A university has come up where peacocks used to be. On that odd drive, I spot a house painted apocalyptic purple, oddly named "John Corner".

A little while later -

Clouds turn an ominous shade of grey, it could be Day after Tomorrow. The skies unfold. The rains I had prayed for, so earnestly, land up in the middle of my vacation.

--
Edited to add: Since you asked, the person who gives wrong directions to restorants, is this guy, someone we fondly address as Punmaster t9

Life, suspended

2009-06-19T01:42:00.010+08:00

The word "auto" never ceases to amaze me. Autorickshaw. Auto, the self, inspires a sense of freedom that one can't explain while taking any other mode of paid transport. A taxi seems very upmarket - like you would walk out of a mall holding a gazillion paperbags and wave for one. Calling it a cab is even more deprave. To be honest, when I first started calling it a cab, I just couldn't stop - "Cab" "Flag a cab" "Call a cab" etc.

An Auto on the other hand free, open, odd-wheeled and stands for that: the self, the independence.

One has broken the terms of the house arrest and ventured out in an auto. Fwee. But that was in the evening. Before that -

One little boy, in the house behind ours, refuses to get out of the shower. Squeals of protest.

One little boy, in the other house behind ours, annoys the hell out of his mother, and gets it from her. Squeals of fear.

One little boy in the house facing ours, a year and a half old, figures the doorbell out. Ting Tong Ting Tong tingtongtingtongtingtong.. Squeals of joy.

They all squeal in tandem.

One speaks to a friend, tells him about the unbearable heatwave which has claimed lives and ones brain in the process. One even manages an apology for whininess in the midst of profuse sweating.

"What's the weather like?"

"40 degrees, and it's only 10:30 am."

"That is nothing, 45 degrees here"

Okay, yours is bigger than mine. One is sorry, for having told you that one has air-conditioning at home.

Ma calls one for the nth odd meal of the day. One brilliantly stuffs themselves.

Dad calls, asks "Tell me, what's happening?"

"Breaking news: The milk got spoilt."

He changes the topic, "Is it raining?"

"Yes", one says, "Two drops fell."

"It's a sparrow crying."

One then gets back to hobnob the loverchild, the mac, which crashes for the 10th time. It perhaps rebels. One had decided to call it Macartney, but now thinks Macavity suits it better. Evil evil. Too much thought. Brain collapses under the pressure.

One then takes a break, guzzles water.

Ma uses the opportunity, the gap in one's mind, to ask if one is hungry. Considering how much she hates being even in the vicinity of the kitchen, even the question is a valiant effort.

One calls a zillion people. Or chats. Or emails. Or uses telepathy.

One speaks to another friend. He calls one a girl and a tube-light, in no necessary order of preference. That's a bad exit strategy in a conversation. One has never pretended to know all, then why is one being drowned in conversations involving undecipherable jargon, and then being judged for it? If you were that smart you would be able to explain it, instead of calling one a tube-light.

Brillig.

Meanwhile, one forces Ma to watch the Blue Umbrella. Halfway through, she promises never to watch another movie with Pankaj Kapur in it, if he is the one who has indeed stolen the umbrella. Fine, let's wait. She lusts after the umbrella too, "When you go to Japan.."

We are a dramatic family.

Dad calls again, with a more oddball question than ever "If a ball is thrown up in the air, when it reaches the ground what will be it's velocity?" One answers, to the best of their abilities. "And the force?" "Mass times g, no?"

It is the evening - one finds their way to a small DTP store to print five sheets of paper out. Five, no more. He prints. "This is the best I can do." Two people walk in requesting for help with download. One little gigs, two little gigs.

One flags an auto. Negotiates. Refuses. Walks off. One plays games in which noone loses. He chases, agrees. So does one.

One then rides with the wind, two little sparrows cry, dusk settles like dust.

That auto-ride smells of humus in the soil, of hope of rainfall in the air, of the little rebellion in the sky and more importantly, of all pervasive freedom.

Fwee.

PS: Bits of fiction.

Heatstruck

2009-06-17T15:03:00.007+08:00

When life gives you lemons, make a lemonade. Or wing it right back and add lemons of your own. That is not too difficult, since lemons grow all year round. Mangoes, on the other hand, choose summers. One must suffer to enjoy the fruit. We are but slaves to the king of fruits.

I'm sitting in the middle of a heatwave. Home, and virtually under house arrest. You know snowstorms in movies - same situation, less fur. I am such a weatherwhiner. Leave me in any situation and I will complain about the weather, save for the fragile season of fall -- I'll never complain about the fall. Or mangoes.

So yes, it is 40 degrees. Clothes stick to you. Dust finds it's way to the table top. The milk gets spoilt. The kids don't play on the street. The schools are closed. I haven't written a word for two days. People have been visiting. People have been visited. I have watched enough bad movies to put me off bad movies for a lifetime. This firangi apple is getting baked. My brain is getting fried, my wit has melted. I'm just a bundle of reflexes.

Thankfully there is homefood. And mangoes.
--
Edited to add: Thankies to youth icon Manu for the first line.

Life, delayed.

2009-06-13T20:14:00.014+08:00

Airports are fascinating places to observe life as it passes by. Which is what I am doing now. Now, if only I could speak my mind. The din of the drill is just blinding. My mind can't see what it wants to write.

Still -

I walk.

A little girl stretches her legs out on a trolley. She gets a free ride. Whee. Three humans walk through the pyramid of trolleys. No, not a pyramid, but a queue. They lend direction. Whee. People walk around. Two people talk to their own left shoulders. "Sho cute no baby?", a young woman whispers into the ear of an old man, albeit loudly. "Baby"? I turn back and look, I extrapolate to fit their story as I hear snippets of a language which was once familiar.

Indulgence, temptation, reward - the ad for a credit card company screeches, blinding the one remaining sense.

Dad calls. He considers me incapable of finding my way around the hundred metres worth of distance. Fly I can, walk I can't.

Like a sniffer dog, I hunt for free wireless. Sniff sniff, I lean against the wall. Refresh. Sniff. I give up. Packet data not available. I breathe. I discover little boxes of viagra in the makeshift pharmacy with chastity belt of a rubberband tied around them. I peer. People stare at me. Why would someone would leave their nose prints on a pharmacy window?

I read the first five and last ten pages of a new book in a crowded bookshop, standing, as my backpack blocks the way of everyone that walks the aisle. The ordinariness of his writing is punctuated by the "excuse me", "excuse me" of all the people who want to take the shortest route to the other famous book. Also ordinary. Everyone wants to find the quick route to easy writing.

In the coffee day lounge, people drink beer at 8 in the morning. In the newspaper, a Sanjeev Kapoor lookalike finds innovative things to do with Rose syrup. Oh wait, that *is* Sanjeev Kapoor, he has shaved off his moustache. On India TV a channel finds a mega thag, someone who poses as God. Someone switches. On another channel, Women's bill becomes a priority. Someone gesticulates.

Dad calls again. Miles to go before I sleep.

Two drunk people talk in the quiet recesses of their brain. To the outside world they are mumbling. Someone looks surreptiously at me. I stare back. Someone judges. Do I look like a loose woman? I look at him as he guiltily squeezes ketchup onto his potato chips. He then licks the leftover ketchup off his fingers.

Now, Ma calls, all nervous. "Can you find your way?", she questions.

I ask for a coffee.

"Cappuccino?"

"No, just coffee."

I put two single-serves of sugar in it.

Indulgence, temptation, reward.

Winter of content

2009-06-05T14:24:00.009+08:00

Cyn said my writing has subtle layers. Needless to say, I am immensely flattered and in lust with the term. I feel this blog is suitably and fashionably dressed for winter, hiding dry flaky skin without making the subtext look fat. Warm but dirty for heater or not, it's hard to shower in winters. Noone speaks here, for the words somehow freeze as the people open their mouth to say something, and yet, in a way, it's cozy company. I know you read me. More importantly, this blog hibernates. And a lot.

I find it intriguing how much people get trapped in their blog persona and land up making it more onedimensional than it was originally intended to be, at least the eminent bloggers do. One could argue that the blog represents one part of their personality usually linked to the one moniker, unlike the real names which come with baggage and history. So time after time, eminent bloggers are forced to deliver the quality assured fun, and they eventually become petrified of failing. Sometimes you can see the effort which has gone into placing the sentences, balancing the tenses, and deleting the words over and over again till the expression is right, but then the mood becomes trite, no?

It's your ego that limits you -- "I am a famous blogger, you are not, so whatever I say has to come out right". Admit it, it occasionally could be filed under selfcentredness - "Ten people read this blog and comment. I get gazillion site hits a day. Hell, I even have trolls. Whatever I say should sound right, and should get loads of comments and people should love it".. The numbers don't give a blog the legitimacy for it's existence, it's the content.

You people are immensely talented. I don't read you because of the number of comments you get, or because you are popular or controversial. It's not your mugshot, or the curiosity about your real name. I like to read you because you have ideas, opinions and observations which are original, as opposed to link whores who would be peddling your stuff back to me.

Seriously, I would rather read an honest post than read a famous post. So, disable comments if it bothers you, be unafraid and write an honest post today, wouldja?

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Of emotional farewells, and gratitude for all the paperclips

2009-05-28T07:37:00.015+08:00

It's been a long journey, and not one that would've been complete without you. When we first met, I was very young and as unrefined as they come. You were the high society kinds, someone the whole of silicon valley spoke of. I was proud of making it big enough to have you.

I agree, you were the one who changed for me. You even moulded into me, rising and lowering yourself according to my whims and fancies. Hope it wasn't too difficult for you. I also hope that you have loved me as much as I loved you, even though no words were exchanged.

I want to thank you for watching my back and covering my ass. As I move on, I realize what had inherently gone wrong between you and me. You were my comfort zone, and every once in a while, one needs to get out of it to discover the world outside. In a way, you and my possessiveness for you, describes the whys and wherefores of what I am leaving behind.

So yes, as I prepare for what could turn out to be the worst-yet-to-come, dear chair, I will miss you the most. Fare thee well, my friend - hope you find an owner worthy of you. And please, wish me luck.

--

The cab ride to the farewell-lunch place lasted just about 15 mins, but in those 15 mins I saw the last few years in front of me. You know, like memories scrolling in bright flashy lights in a marquee.

Those two had joined a few months before me, supposedly roughened up by their experience in Army. I believed to have been roughened up by life. Yesterday we remembered all of the last few years.

"Naive", he started.
"Full of hope", I added.
"Well, we still have some hope left", the other said.
"Oh, well, hope of a different kind."
"Grown up hope. Can you believe it?"

"Remember the time when I screamed on the phone and the whole office heard it", I pulled out a fragment of nostalgia.
The other two burst out laughing at the memory of a frizzy haired and firebrand me.

"And how solving little problems made you feel like King of the universe."
"Yeah well, now the EODs (end of days) don't seem like the end of the world."
"Remember how those two fought."
"And how we ducked under the table, trying to control our laughter."
"We have calmed down so much."
"Hmm, yeah", the other two agreed.

Ah, well. All that roughening up was followed by substantial sandpapering, I suppose.
Needless to say, most of yesterday was spent sulking.
Now if only overrated nostalgia could pave the way, I would like to get some real emotions through.

Many things.

2009-05-25T11:06:00.011+08:00

These days, I get that feeling of being truly in love. No, it's more like the feeling of falling in love. With something, anything, someone, anyone. I just free fall.

Acutely aware that it has taken over me, I frantically search as to what it is that I want, that I need. It's not attached to anything or anyone, or my immense need to constantly want. In that moment, it's just me and the feeling. And I float, undrunk.

Maybe it's the wait for freedom. Maybe it's all the sunlight. Maybe it's the thoughts you inspire.

--
You are indeed two steps behind me.
There are some things that I solved a little faster than you.

And take a look around, you'll see what you cant find.
Like the fire that's burning up inside me.

--
There is this part in Chak de India where SRK says: Neeyat chahiye.
The line always stays in my head.
One can want a million things and all at the same time. One can wish till the world's end, y'know, hazaaron khwahishein aisi ke har khwahish pe dum nikle.
But to get even one, one needs the intent, isn't it?

What were you doing on May the 21st, 1991?

2009-05-21T18:40:00.010+08:00

We were on our way to Mangalore in a bus, Ma and I. We took the bus from Bombay like we always did. The western ghats are tricky, and hence a bunch of buses usually left together. Somewhere near or after Belgaum, our bus slowed down, and then stopped - we couldn't figure the confusion was, nobody told us, just some hints about one of the buses being caught up/delayed and hence this one had to wait. We reached in the morning. Amidst the noise and chaos of the reunion, someone screamed for us to shut up when we heard the heard the words "Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated" on the radio.

What we didn't know was that my uncle was traveling from Bombay on the same day, and on the bus behind and was the one that was caught and torched by rioteers (?), because the news of the assassination had spread by then. It tumbled into a ditch. He reached home 11-12 hours late.

Over the next few days, Doordarshan stopped the broadcast of all their "entertainment" programmes, and it was one of those occasions when noone complained. The entire family, led by my grandmother, wept in front of the TV, openly, as Sonia Gandhi hid behind her giant sunglasses and Priyanka looked suitably in control. Everyone made guesses about the future of the elections and the family.

18 years later, the memories of that time have hit adulthood and some of the details have been lost, but the bus ride the chill in the spine, the ambiance, the lull afterwards, I have never quite forgotten. Since then TV or not, I remember, albeit quietly, every year.

Recently, I was quite surprised when a friend asked me the same question in the midst of much rave-talk about his big backpacking trip to India in '91. It was surprising only because he is not Indian, though he is sufficiently brown on the inside. We swapped the reconstructed bits from our memory, that evening. "Where were you?", "What were you doing?"

--

Needless to say, everyone misunderstood me when I asked the question today. I wasn't campaigning for any political party, or saying that Rajiv Gandhi was the greatest PM India has ever had, or trying to bring up Bofors or gaping holes in his policy. I have little or no personal interest in the matter. It has little to do with recent death of Prabhakaran.

I was merely experimenting on whether people retroactively attach importance to ordinary goings on in the wake of a "big event". I was also trying to verify whether Rajiv Gandhi's death can be considered one of those "big events" for someone my age, or was it just me who remembers everything so vividly.

I have a substantially accurate memory of time leading to that event. And I wondered if many people could accurately reconstruct the mundane goings-on of a day because something seemingly big has happened. It was a study of how the brain captures memories of a Black Swan event.

It struck me when someone (Oprah, was it?) said about the day Obama won "It is one of those things where you'll tell the future generations - What were you doing that day when Obama won?"

I do believe that ordinariness of a day gets magnified because of a big event, and you retrofit the events leading to the point when the news was broken to you. I was skipping about in the corridor, doing my math, playing hopscotch - when I got the news. Some remember more details (from the start of the day), some less (five minutes before the event). Almost everyone remembers the location. It's almost as if people correlate the ordinariness of the time before to the degree of shock/joy/any-other-emotion experienced.

Right after the event, everything perhaps moves in a sort of slow motion. If the event was the cause for the succeeding chain of non-routine events in an otherwise normal day, for instance, riots, then even the normal circumstances during that day become a part of the memory, even if it's only to connect the dots, the high points, and one remembers every bit of a that train ride in excruciating detail.

Agreed, the importance of the event is subjective, it comes from the buildup, the months preceding, the media, the charisma yada yada. Someone in a small kampong in Malaysia is perhaps not that greatly affected by 9/11. But due to his charisma, or the general Kennedy-esque tragedies that have are attached to the family, Rajiv Gandhi's death seems to have had a great impact on quite a few people of our generation (except you, youth icon Manu). I think the previous generation was impacted by Indira Gandhi's assassination the same way.

So, yes, tell me, what other such events can you remember in this detail? Describe.

Of intelligence, stereotypes and word salads.

2009-05-19T10:31:00.005+08:00

Overheard: You get tired of people complimenting you for your intelligence, and hence read trash which insults it.

--
Monday morning came with the unusual comparison to a very interesting character, a man, from a TV show. Immensely flattered by this compliment, my question was rather simple "Why aren't there any intelligent women to be compared against?". The answer I received was nothing short of a revelation: "Because intelligent women become a stereotype and then proceed to get utterly lost."

The Activist, the Carrie Bradshaw, the power dresser, the Martha Stewart, the Liberated feminist, the Joni Mitchel, the SAHM, so on and so forth. At some point of time most get slotted, pigeonholed into their parts.

I have heard this before, I think. It never registered. And never before have I been this amused.

Every now and then..

2009-05-11T12:34:00.007+08:00

...I do this to myself. Every now and then, I go back there and devour the trite.

Cut into little pieces, rinse-repeated in an infinite loop, the ordinariness of a story is executed in detail. And it's not just executed normally, it's clubbed to death. Then you round up the usual suspects who all go by the last name of Trite. Let me say that once more: TRITE.

Oh, and the drama in a bowl of Chocolate frosted sugar bombs.
Every single time, I put a skeptical spoonful in my mouth, and then I promptly start complaining about it. Ah, how does one resist the incredible urge to throw up.

I really should have no reason to complain. You would tell me, it's a choice I make. There are other people to read, other ideas to live by. I know. And yet, I don't know why I still do it.

I still do it, every single time. Every single time, I hop out of control. Rather, I hope out of control. Maybe it's the curiosity of knowing if something has changed. Maybe it's the insecurity of "Why can't I be like them?". Or the confidence of "Hell, I'll never go that low". The only reasonable explanation of why I go back is because oftentimes you see something really disgusting, and so really disgusting that you can't take your eyes off it.

No, something must be seriously wrong with my planetary alignment that makes me so masochistic. Marquis de Sade Saati.

--
Oh, don't ask what or who it is..

The klutz and courage

2009-04-05T19:21:00.012+08:00

The five hundredth time she tripped, he finally sneaked in a snicker or two. What could she do? The mysterious roadblock seemed to have cropped up from nowhere. Or was it those invisible cables?

Amidst her protests of "Jalega, jalega" (it will burn, it will burn), he joked, "Baby, you give an entirely different meaning to baby-proofing the house."

--
To say life hands out important lessons like people hand out advertising pamphlets on street would be a cliche one must avoid. More than that, at each iteration, every single definition one has ever learnt gets trashed. One constantly reinvents, redefines. What I am yet to figure is, as one starts paying attention to the little details, does the learning get more trivial, more ordinary? Or is it just that as the greatness of old tasks seems extremely easy one gets more time to fret over the inconsequential stuff?

Take for instance, courage.
At a certain point of time, it's no longer about whether after a nasty fall, you can get up and walk back home, blood streaming down your face. That becomes easy. As trivial as it may seem, it seems to be about whether you have the courage to go to work on Monday morning, and answer the gazillion questions about the scab.

The blue horizon

2009-04-03T11:11:00.007+08:00

Sitting amidst the leaning tower of cartons, the house empty but for these boxes which have our life, our belongings carefully wrapped, I watch the memories of belongingness running amok.

We loved the view, loved the blinds.
Here we were, you and I, hoping that life would be a cake walk and discovering that switching the oven on causes the mains to trip.
Here we were, being careful as we clinked our precious crystal, wiring up the microphone, singing freedom on Fridays.
Here we were, yo-yo-ing in and out of faith and trust and invoking the Gods, as our washing machine gave up on us.
Here we were, you and I, curling in a corner waiting to grow up, taking decisions for our lives and our hearts, like which cooking oil is healthy.
Here we were, locking our knees, carrying the weight of the world and your prized Marshall half-stack across to the study.

Nothing was easy, as we, you and I, sharing the same space, got hooked to looking at the world outside.
We learnt and we learnt, not to cook when angry, and not to sing out loud at 3 am. And how to tell the sound of the others footsteps downstairs, on the broken tile below the window.
We gained pounds and lost our dollars and cents, never quite learning how to deal with change.

And now, though we are not reluctant participants to this change, there are some things which will perhaps never let us forget the first big challenge in this house - that our toothbrushes were of the same colour.

--
Unbeknown to me, you brought some of our mess over.
Unbeknown to you, I left some of our nostalgia behind.

Popping bubble wrap...

2009-03-22T03:42:00.011+08:00

...is about the only fun bit of a pack and move.

Moving usually is an exhausting process , both physically and emotionally. Pickling in your own sweat, nails chipped as you try and locate the damn end of the packing tape, you hit the great realization that the first thing to go inside the box was the pair of scissors. You think of how you could possibly manage to organize and compartmentalize life and times into little boxes? Not to mention the battles with the skeletons in the closet and monsters that lurk under the bed.

Stubbing your toe for the four hundredth time, you resist the urge to thwack someone on the head as he sneers at you. Really, how did you ever manage to have a godzillion cartons labeled "Books"?

--

Our environmentally conscious packer Gary recycles cartons. For packing "loose items", he gave us cartons which have been used by people before. Some of the labels are still stuck and it's much fun to observe how people pack. There is a chaotic packer whose labels go from Assorted-1 to Assorted-11. Two massive cartons are tagged "Daniel's wine and liquor", with FRAGILE written in red, and underlined. Then there are the rich - Third floor Second Room(a house with three floors in this country?), the secretive - "RM 1 - plecatbe", and the sublime - "Kids school bags + Oil". "Kitchen" says one in a kiddie scrawl - an 8- year old trying to help his parents perhaps. But the one that really made me smile was the little note which says, "Relax".

Unable to resist, I decided to be creative. So, if you ever encounter a carton with bits of masking tape which says "How fragile we are!", or "Blue suede shoes", you know who did it.

WTF1

2009-03-20T08:25:00.010+08:00

One is not qualified to write about Motorsport, but one can always mention a sport we love: Calvinball.

The only consistent rule of Calvinball is that it may never be played with the same rules twice, because Calvinball is against organized sport. You can always change rules on the fly, especially after it (the game, the season) has started.

No sport, really no sport, is less organized than Calvinball.

So with all these rule changes, maybe I'll switch to watching football, learning the offside rule is much easier.

--
Title credit: shub

The first date

2009-03-19T11:07:00.001+08:00

The evening had been fantastic. The friend who set them up had been right about how much they had in common, though to others they looked like a very odd couple. She a fair brown woman, he a tanned white man.

Coming to this Indian restaurant was his idea. A common friend had tipped him about her foodlove, and what better time to experiment with Indian food than with an Indian woman. She chose an assortment of curries, letting her fingers do the talking, while he struggled with the unpronounceable names. Soon after, he started melting into a puddle of sweat. She poked fun as she saw him through different stages of red, blushing coyly at his miserable state.

They walked back home on that quiet winter night. When he stopped at her doorstep, her heart did too. He had this look of urgency in his eyes, will she invite him in?
And she did. She was nervous. His stomach rumbled.
As soon as the lights were flicked on, with a moment of quiet hesitation, he pooped the question: "Can I use your bathroom?"

Riposte

2009-03-18T00:37:00.006+08:00

She wishes she had listened to her mother when she told her not to believe that man.
Heartbroken now, she swears that she'll chase him down to the end of the earth and not rest till she pierces his heart with her sword. The heart, only the heart, and nothing else but the heart.

--
She stands facing him, eyes bleeding rage and bloodlust. They engage in a dramatic duel. Years of training have given her the agility which the world would be envious of. Reflexes, on the other hand, can't be acquired - one needs to be born with them.

He swings at his opponent, who barely dodges the blade before launching her own attack. She retreats a few steps before slashing forwards. Swiftly, she lunges and aims her sword at his chest. He bends backwards. She misses. The sword slices his gut instead.

Content, she skips down the winner's path. For though she has missed the bulls eye, the promise has been fulfilled.
Her mother always told her, the real way to the man's heart is through his stomach.

Reviving Romance

2009-03-17T07:46:00.006+08:00

To cure her headache from last night
he placed on her palm a pill-
the morning-after poem.

One of a hundredth of something.

2009-03-16T07:06:00.000+08:00

Weekend was people filled and beer filled. No movies to boast of, no reviews unwritten. No new experiments except packing plates and a hundred little things to eat a meal by the poolside. And trying out a hundred shoes, a failed attempt at shoe shopping. And making a list of things to do for a pack and move. And chewing nails as a hundred distant others scream through the exciting Liverpool-ManU match. And witnessing a very boring meeting between two very old friends.

Distracted, one runs through a diminutive list of a hundred words in their head.
A hundred words run right back, causing a bit of a collision.

One intentionally hides their intensity behind the accidental frivolity of wordplay.

The clouds form the comforter, and one hides the dark black skies behind the new monday morning blues.
Just when one is about to find their comfort zone, it raineth, it thundereth.

Mojo Rising?

2009-02-25T01:08:00.013+08:00

Written a few nights ago, this is mostly a placeholder for thoughts.
--
I, the Money Spinner (a.k.a. the corporate zombie), have done the unimaginable. Right in the middle of a recession, I have quit. No, I didn't get the pink slip. No, it wasn't a momentary lapse of reason. No, I don't have another job yet. But despite the work and perks and money being good, this job was draining me out. I decided that the prime of life was not worth wasting on the petty. There is only so much that achieving capitalist milestones can do for what we all ultimately want: happiness. Plus, I was tired of talking about it and not doing anything..

So we, the Mortified engineer-scientist-consultant, the Monochromatic non-photographer, the Moody photoshopper, the Modest writer of intense pieces, the Morose writer of humour, the Montage of uncertainty, the Motormouth, the Mockingword, the Motivator, the upwardly Mobile, the Model citizen, the Modern artist, the Morally deprave, the Movie lover, the Mover-and-shaker, the Moron, the Mortal, the Moribund -- all of us and Mo -- are happy that some steps have been taken which move us out of our comfort zone. We believe that even if we don't do anything, the ride on the Mobius strip would still be more worthwhile than the nothingness.

Of course the definition of nothingness changed right after MoneySpinner took the step, yet, we are happy that we have taken ownership to reclaim our life.

Now, we use the leftover bits of our daily courage limit to admit that we are a little scared, since we don't seem to have a plan.. MoneySpinner may take over in a few days, who knows?

Anyway, tonight we sleep, for tomorrow we will probably have to dream.
Let's see how the story unfolds..

Of Perversions and attention spans.

2009-02-23T16:30:00.010+08:00

Dear Mr. Muthalik,

In the midst of Oscar frenzy, while everyone is busy celebrating and criticizing, ranting and revolting, I write to you. Not because I have anything worthwhile to communicate with you, but because I accidentally found this article online: 'Pink chaddi' campaign a perverted act.
I felt an incredible amount of pity for you, for no one really cares about what you have to say. Not any more.. Whether you sue the Consortium of pub going, loose and forward women or not, this story has exceeded it's shelf life. Unless you go get married, and then get involved in some other controversy thereof, your fifteen mins are over.

Pity.

Not that I agree with your doctrine, but my inherent need to look at good in people makes me think hard if your intentions were noble and your execution was pathetic. And apart from airtime and pink underwear, you got nothing more. It actually is a lot if you think about it - Indian women shedding their inhibitions and underwear and being proud of it. Imagine a daughter asking her mother to send some on her behalf. But then again these days salwar kameez clad chammak challos are curling their toes in ecstasy.

Mr. Tharoor had written an article about the disappearance of the Sari, requesting Indian women not to stop wearing Saris. Needless to say, he got a lot of flak for it. His point was rather simple: India has always been firmly grounded in her culture, while making sufficient progress, an example of which is the Sari. It's perfectly normal for a woman on top to "power dress" in a Sari -- despite it being more revealing than western clothes. Japan, China and all other countries have almost entirely given up the traditional attire. You hardly ever see the cheongsam or the kimono except during weddings.

I assume your point was something similar, only you are not as erudite as Mr. Tharoor, and made a mess. But when you said "Prem ek pravah hai", you don't need a day to celebrate it - I kinda got where you were coming from.

You misunderstand our generation. We are not the pravah types, not with the kind of patience to let a thing develop and go with the flow before it strengthens and forms a web of roots.

We go from one high branch to the next. In quick, short leaps. We live because of our short attention spans, hopping from one such high to the next, hopping from one viral to the next, hopping from one controversy to the next, hopping from one bus to the next - for which Sari is the most inconvenient. Glued to our computers, we check for the latest trends, we barely raise our eyes from the keyboards, and when we do, we realize that there are occasionally ordinary people around us, who don't care about goings on in the world. We look down on such people. We claim we are not ordinary, because we are up to speed. Sometimes we are just too fast.

Today we talk about Oscars and the Slumdog win. Tomorrow it will be the filmfare, perhaps. The day after it will be the F1. Then there will be something else. Some days an Indian will win, some days he'll lose to others. Some days there will be a racism row. Sometimes Apple will release a new product. Some days there will be a new election. We will sit and talk about it. Do nothing but talk about it.

Everything will fit itself into the 15 min frame, and then much like the protagonist of that horrendous movie, we'll wipe everything out. We won't allow our memories the luxury of a fade out. We'll forget with a bang.

Hence, the flow business doesn't really work. Even love, like birthday and anniversary needs a day, a quickie -- it only needs those fifteen mins.

Not that this is going to change. A permanent revolution, a change of thought process is not likely to happen. So if you you can't beat them join them - write, tweet, communicate. If there is anything worthwhile in your thoughts, we'll understand. But make it quick, else, well, give someone else a chance for his fifteen mins.

I know I have said this a little too late, yet..

Sincerely,

--
PS: Only 1500 Pink chaddis were received by Sri Ram Sena, the FB group has 51,831 members.

Because we need a superhero story.

2008-10-24T10:34:00.000+08:00

Once upon a recent past, in a tropical island not so far away, there lived a girl called, what else, Tomoko. Of unparalleled goodness, niceness and sweetness. since she was a girl, and this has started off as a fairy tale, it obliges us to have a supervillain called evil-stepmama-san.
The evil-stepmama-san, the aerobics instructor, made her do all the work at home, and at her studio. But it kept Tomoko slim, and she didn't complain. And then, Tomoko decided to have other plans. So secretly, next to the cinders, she hatched her great plan of getting out of this mess, and finding a superhero.

She decided to cheat, and looked through the phone book, for all the alliterative names. And after rather bad attempts of making blank calls to people called Bunny,Bugs; Duck,Donald and Parker,Peter she found a name she thought sounded imaginary enough to be that of a superhero. [But I can't tell you what it is, because it would make it his story, and that would be unfair. And we will save his story for another day.]

So she packed her clothes, and her precious glass slippers and gladiator shoes, and set out to find her superhero. After a long day's journey in public transport, she found a little shack called Namastay. As soon as she checked in, she fell asleep. And as soon as she fell asleep, she started dreaming. And her fairy-godmother, poco coco, [a fashionista - Her aim in life is to eliminate all badly dressed people. But we will save her story for another day too] came into her dreams and gave her the message. She told our darling Tomoko, that the Cinderella look was outdated, and to ensnare the man, she needed to dress the part.

Latex body suit - green. She didn't care that sticky latex made her hot (not like thaaat) in that equatorial weather. Next, she coloured her hair an envious shade of green, and wore red lipstick on her grin, (taking inspiration from Joker, who suddenly seemed very popular). And she got a purple cape, which apart from giving her the superhero aura, , also served the purpose of keeping her warm, when the air conditioning froze her to the bones.

--End of story, maybe--

Bindra and all that.

2008-08-15T11:15:00.005+08:00

As an Indian blogger, I can't possibly miss out on the Abhinav Bindra slice of the blogging pie.
Much has been said about how it's an individual achievement, about how India -- her govt and her people-- had little to contribute and yet dwell in his glory. A generous dose of sarcasm has been meted out to the officials accompanying the Olympic team, with passing comments on lack of sports infrastructure, and lack of money in sports except cricket. Much has also been said about the golden boy being born with a silver spoon -- his father being rich and being able to risk the head of a domestic-help and waste (invest?) money on his son's indulgence.

And yet, somewhere, maybe, we all miss the point. The onus is not on them. It's on us.

--

Very recently, I was at a friend's place. A single mother, she had a tough time controlling her little son who is hyperactive and showed textbook (wikipedia?) symptoms of ADHD. We sipped tea. On Tv, Olympic cyclists reached their destination of the badaling section of the great wall, after a grueling 5 odd hours of cycling. We spoke of their endurance. And A and I joked and bantered whether her son should be trained to be a fencer or a gymnast. The mother looked sternly at us, and said "You two can start a fund if you want, I am only paying for his education, and not for this". She stopped short of uttering the word "nonsense".

By the time the child is 14, he will be enduring marathon study sessions at his table. And before we know it, he would be sitting in front of the TV watching Olympics 2024, looking at the athletes with envy.

And yet, we crave that kind of glory that being on TV would bring us. We like to associate ourselves with glory. We all know "a cousin is a cricket player", "A friend who started his own business and made millions", "An uncle who won the Pulitzer prize", or the "colleague who ran the marathon". We didn't do it, someone else did. Then we spend hours evaluating whether s/he deserved it. If they are related to us, the glory somewhat rubs off on us, by law of association. If not, then we settle for dressing our envy with criticism -- how we are/were equally deserving and they cheated their way out of it, how we never had the opportunity. To give you a simple example, I love repeating that Anil Kumble was an alumnus of my engg. college. The sports teacher in college though, didn't have the nicest things to say about him.

For every one of them that succeeds, there are thousand others that fail. And naturally, we are not willing to take any such risks.

We don't aspire for glory, we aspire for mediocrity under the garb of security. So, the hypermobility is not a reason to take up swimming, it's just a cheap party trick. The big feet are just a shoe-shopping issue that mothers would complain about. And in the end, it's the marks that matter. And frankly, it's not anyone's fault. Without a social security system, the insecurity about bread and butter gets the better of us. Given that it's gonna be a while before this changes, our mindset changes, govt is better off spending their money on additional IITs.

Goodbye Randy Pausch

2008-07-27T22:44:00.003+08:00

And thanks for everything.

Twittery tales

2008-04-22T06:28:00.008+08:00

Everyone is talking about twitter. It seems to be the latest fad, much like the word "shenanigans", which seems to creep in every other review and blog post. Including this one.

But I digress.

Twitter, twitter, twitter, the lesser said the better. It works, and it works well. The authoritative post on why twitter works is here.

I have taken rather well to it. It makes things easier, given my ADD-type behaviour, and because I am always doing ten things at once. As much as I would love to spend time on IM and write long emails, it's getting increasingly difficult to focus on work. Most often than not I just need a quiet little space to share links and tools, debate and have short discussions which are not about the weather :). And to record (and broadcast?) the stream of consciousness. And banter. It's perfect for that. I love the delightful randomness of it all.

The constant flow of information could be overwhelming. Constant tweeting could cause a drainage of ideas, what will you blog about then? I have no idea how people follow tweets from 200 odd people, and have 100 updates a day. I am already confused at 20. Plus, the twitter ego-system is yet to evolve fully for me to figure out what's right and wrong (much like we figured, at some point, that writing in all caps on IM was rude)

Right now, since it doesn't have the penetration, twitter is not diluted. Believe me, even orkut was clean and fun and nice five years ago. Most people are discussing ideas and tools, and not people. Not too many personal updates either, and thankfully, no leetspeak. But I am afraid it's a matter of time before people start murdering grammar to kill time.

But till that happens, I'll write about my life and times in 140 characters or less.

Indulgence

2008-04-18T10:10:00.003+08:00

Ooh, I was digging up drafts and I found this. This one written in late Jan sometime:

--
The one indulgence I allow myself year after year, is writing the birthday post. (Dig up archives you curious people) And this year, I missed the birthday post! I missed the opportunity to write a deliciously self indulgent post about the discovery of another strand of grey hair. Ah, old age... we really should leave it to the kids.

So, today we were having this conversation at a dinner. And everyone claimed that they had no idea where the last ten years went by. I thought it was strange, for I remember having felt each day giving me gooseflesh as it passed me by. I told them that. They thought it was strange. I am miles away from where I was at 18. Ten years is a long time! I have lived, I have grown, I have learnt. And I can say it with no bitterness.

And yet, they ask me to grow up. I heard that four times last year, one for each quarter perhaps. "Grow up", they said "We are waiting". Why should I?

Maybe they are just jealous.

Joker

2008-04-13T08:39:00.007+08:00

"Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another, if I have to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice"

One always want to enter the book loving the hero and hating the villain. That's how it's meant to be, isn't it?

For the record, I am not a graphic novel fanatic. Yet.
I bought the deluxe edition of the "The Killing Joke" only because it looked beautiful on the shelves, and I fell in love with the glossy shiny pages. I also seem to have lost the patience for reading books. It took me three weeks to read the last one which was only 200 pages long, and I had already watched the movie. It's temporary, I tell myself.

Fool's day

2008-04-01T18:05:00.005+08:00

Today was good. Awesome, even.

I was surprised with my own enthusiasm.

Was off gtalk. And Facebook. And Yahoo. And all other social stuff.
Checked feeds only twice.
Listened to Bowie.

Sent a few emails though.

All too weird, I know. Who am I trying to fool?

Back in Black

2008-03-16T18:31:00.002+08:00

In the past few days a few people have asked me where I have vanished, and whether I have abandoned this already neglected child of mine. Considering how little I write here, thanks, I feel flattered (while secretly wondering why anyone is waiting for me to write anything). In this world full of rock-star bloggers and prolific writers who get TV coverage and book deals, may be, I am the indie artist with a small, hidden and devoted fan following. Maybe after it's all over, someone will dig up the archives and fit me into well-stitched quotes, word for word. Till that day comes I will stay in the square brackets, stay aside. And yet, I beg you, don't feed my ego so much, please.

Blogging is not what it used to be. People who I used to read have moved or moved on. Busy with lives, or have found other suitable obsessions. Some people who are still writing have lost their edge, like characters in the last season of a long running sitcom who have refuse to evolve. I know them, I know their jokes, and yet the laugh-track seems all too familiar. It's almost perverse... The others who are still writing have few hundred people leaving comments of the order of - "How sweet", "How beautiful" or "How right". It's cloying. Yeah yeah, who am I to say anything? Their blog, their spiel. They are better known than me anyway.

Oh, and the meta blog I liked has been linking to such pointless pieces -- it's almost depressing.

And to be honest, if I still needed to stalk, I have facebook.

Just a handful of bloggers remain who I actually *like* to read.

And I am not talking about anyone or any specific blog, nor is this a state-of-the union address, I am just trying to figure out why it doesn't feel the same anymore. Or maybe, I am not reading the right things.

Anyway, time to dig up the drafts. And to try and write again.

EOY

2007-12-28T14:26:00.000+08:00

I am usually on a hunt for metaphors, I just found mine which should sum the year rather well. I just went to the optician after a year and was told that the power in my right eye has reduced. I am less myopic. I am not as short sighted in my right eye.
And that would be the one line I would write to summarize this year.

So I have decided not to be as emotional as this. But I will write because I need to keep track of what I dealt with, what I achieved and what I lost.

I lost my wisdom tooth. Molar decay, I said.

Apart from that it is nothingness of a year that just flew by, where I struggled with decisions and revisions. And inflation. But that's not gonna change. 2006 was troublesome. 2007 was inconsequential.

Oh, I regained strength. And some of the lost faith. I got a new hairstyle, and I also gained some fashion sense. I now flaunt aviators. But I painted my toenails the same boring shade as last year and the year before.

I saw friends deal with change. I tried be there for them, and yet be still. I tried to keep a neutral perspective.

I wrote many emails. Read not as many books. Spent some time on facebook. Lost interest in orkut. Studied Spanish. Forgot my French. Penned irritating verses.

I forged new bonds. They are the same old people, but there is newfound strength in relationships. This should tide me over any trouble.

Into the third year of working, I had a terrible time at work. One, there was so called "lack of motivation". And then there were the super high expectations. Also, I can't seem to deal with the repetitiveness of this. It's just way too mundane.

Which is like 2007. Random. Mundane.

I have no idea what 2008 holds. But it shows promise.
And at least I am not as short sighted anymore.

Winter Solstice

2007-12-21T23:08:00.000+08:00

I wait for what could have been the longest night of the year.
It doesn't make much of a difference at the equator.

And I scratch, pick skin off the scabs, while I wait for inspiration.
The bookshop is in an old shop house, nestled against a hawker center.
Irony of that quiet corner, that isolation.
I buy a notebook. Moleskine. Clad in plastic. Used by Hemingway, Picasso and Chatwin.
I look at it with hope. Oh, the desperation.

The bookshop owner puts a small packet of punched holes into my bag. Paper snow, a handwritten note says.

"Did you notice he put in a packet of paper snow?"
The thought collates.
A sign, perhaps. Maybe I should put in my papers now.
The resignation.

I think I was much happier when I was discontent.

Office attire

2007-11-23T10:28:00.000+08:00

The company I work for is a privately held French firm. The partners are all naturalized French citizens - they of Lebanese descent. Most of their families, and those of many of my colleagues are still in and around Beirut.

It's a cool place to work. They let us be. As far as attire is concerned, they don't care one bit. We dress to our nines only when we go to the client side. Rest of the time, everyone is casuals - Jeans and t-shirts, even on weekdays. Yes, they are nice to us. Which is why I was stunned when I saw my teammate wear "Israeli Defense Forces" T-shirt to work. I casually asked him if he didn't think that it was kind of inappropriate. He said "It's just a T-shirt man! My friend got it for me". Following which, he hurled a mild accusation at me for making a big deal out of it. I smiled and changed the topic. I admit, I have heightened sensitivity to things, but somehow this unnerved me, and I began wondering how much are our T-shirt messages meant to demonstrate what we stand for. Maybe it struck me as odd because I feel the company is being nice to us by not insisting on proper business attire, and my colleague shouldn't misuse this freedom.

It really is a T-shirt. There is little reason for one to be sensitive, or to believe that it portrays ones allegiance. Like a foreigner wearing a t-shirt with a bold "Om" emblazoned across it, doesn't mean he believes in Hinduism, or is remotely spiritual. The figure of Ganesha has become more or less a commodity, till a bunch of religious fanatics find it on a piece of clothing and create a furore. We argue - it really is nothing but a t-shirt.

And yet, I still feel that there is a thin line between coolness and impropriety.

----------------
Now playing: The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Linking park

2007-11-15T21:53:00.000+08:00

I can't type Linkin Park without making a mistake.
Anyway, I went for the concert two days ago. It wasn't because I still listen to them, it was because I listened to them eons ago, and I wanted to watch them then and hence had to watch them now. For completeness.

Lights were fantastic. Really really well done. I was truly impressed. Sound was ok, though A claims it was better than many other concerts he has gone for. The vocalists are mindblowingly good. Considering that having two vocalists (and their egos) may be a bit too much for a band.
Oh and the turntables and the DJ were in a position which rightfully belongs to the drummer. The drummer was kind of sidelined. At one point of time, there were major drum-rolls going on, and we caught the drummer getting a drink, and we figured why he was placed in a corner. Rest of the band kept themselves occupied - they changed guitars as often as they could even between songs. For appeal. (Heh!)
Much of their stuff is programmed, so it gives little scope for improvisation or interaction with the audience.

So that's that.

As an aside, what's with the encores? The bands pretend to go off stage without performing their best-selling/most-popular songs, leave the guitars on stands, and then the crowd will scream and clap. Then they will come back on stage and play three whole songs.
Mockery. I can't stand the farce of encores anymore. I am yet to experience the euphoria of a genuine encore.

How dare he?

2007-11-15T10:58:00.000+08:00

Was rushing to work this morning, late and stuck in traffic. As usual.
At the traffic light, there was this old man behind us on what I would call a luna/moped/what-do-you-call-them-here.

And he was whistling. A song he liked perhaps. And he was whistling. With ups and downs and vibratos. Like there was no tomorrow.

How dare he? How dare he enjoy the morning rush?

Om Shanti Om.

2007-11-11T11:07:00.000+08:00

No review, just notes.

Its like a big party that you have been invited to, and everyone seems to be having a whole lot of fun, and you do too. But at times one just has to stand in a corner and wait to get noticed. It's full of in-jokes that only a die hard Bollywood fan will appreciate. It's full of these moments that one will remember and guffaw about, but the story-telling is very average. The story is obviously predictable, that's what Farah Khan intended to do. The point being that the this predictability doesn't have to be in the face.
Shah Rukh Khan: In a place which seems to be reserved for people with connections, he has really made it. He hams, overacts and does all that people claim that is SRK. He is a natural in the role. I love him.
Deepika Padukone: We argued over whether she is hot or cute. Sam summed it up rather well "She is trouble". I am not qualified to rate her talent, but the thing about her is that she's got the appeal, the aura of a star. She walks into the screen, and you stare at her in wide-eyed amazement.
Songs:

Dard-e-disco: Ok only. The song was not a stand out. Even the choreography very ordinary, especially by Farah Khan's standards. I prefer the others.

Deewangi Deewangi - I love that song. However, it's not actually 31 *stars*, it's less than that. Aftab Shivdasani and Dino Morea are stars?!?

Having said all of that, I love the movie. It's full paisa wasool.
I might even watch it again.
I am not watching Saawariya. No chance in hell.

Diwali

2007-11-09T22:10:00.000+08:00

Diwali is supposed to make one nostalgic, and homesick. Sadly, it doesn't do anything for me. Not any more. Have been away from home for far too long. Nine years is a long time. In any case, the hostel Diwalis can hardly be counted as proper celebrations. We walked up and down in our new clothes, jumped and danced around a little bit, and then went back to our rooms to gossip about the warden. Oh and we visited our local guardians. But, that wasn't really home.

For me, Diwali is supposed to signal the onset of winter. If there is anything I miss, it's the crispness of Diwali air. The chill you feel after you have finished bursting your stash of fire-crackers and have settled to see those black tablets conjure up long snakes. Yes, the ones that burn their way out of fire.

But I don't feel a strong wish-I-was-in-India sentiment anymore. I am fine here. Here is where I want to be.

Maybe I really have moved on. Maybe there is no going back. I can only visit, but I can't lead my life here thinking about how much it was better back there. Because even if I go back, it won't be the same. I think the harshness of it struck me when I went back home after the first semester, and I realized that time hadn't stood still. Things hadn't waited for me to come back and continue from where I had left them. Ma had found use for the cupboard that once belonged to me - she had stuffed linen in there.

Anyway, I have cooked up my own ritual for Diwali here - I wear a sari, go to the temple and pray. And pray hard.

--
Here's wishing all the five devoted readers of this blog a very Happy Diwali.

Counting Sheep

2007-11-09T14:59:00.000+08:00

Confucious says: Don't hold on to a post too long, else you will hate it.
I hate it. It pretends to be informative and intelligent and worse still, funny.
Anyway, since I put in all the effort typing it, I will post it here. For completeness.
---
No, its not another pint of whine about Insomnia.

Now that I have ruined the opening gambit, I might as well tell you that it's about the NZ landscape. The rolling plains with balls of wool. For miles and miles. Speckled landscape. Dotted eyes.

In that country, the sheep outnumber people by 10 to 1. If they were not the aww-inspiring mild mannered creatures of our metaphors, I would be scared.

Far away from civilization, we focussed on subjects in sight - the sheep. The conversation ranged from bitching (Why don't they get tired of eating?), to curiosity (Is grass sufficient nutrition for them? Do they have boring lives?). The sheep were judged, classified (the ones by the highway, the "City sheep" - confident, conversant - they flock to look at us, as opposed to the ones on the off-roads, the "country bumpkins" who run for their lives instead of making good use of the photo-op). Their enclosures were judged - crowded ("Downtown Tokyo") to sparsely populated ("Singapore CBD on a Sunday afternoon"). Jokes were created ranging from bad (Sheepish grin/ Silence of the lambs - DIY jokes) to worse (Why are songs by Meatloaf not kosher for the sheep?) . There were some games too, but trust me, no counting or throwing of sheep was involved.

We went for a farm adventure, which promised us the real thing. As the farmer took us around his never ending acres, the complexity of it all struck home. Farming is far more difficult than studying/working can ever be. Farming needs common sense which as we well know, is in short supply and that itself should discourage anyone with the herd mentality.
The amount of effort needed for a human baby from conception to infancy - now imagine managing 3000 sheep through their pregnancy and raising 4000 lambs through infancy (?). And that doesn't even include the circus of worrying about their healthy diet, how to gather them together to shear them and the selection process of which ones to keep. (Cows are much worse, anything and everything scares the crap out of them.) Anyway, I dont think I could have ever been able to take that kind of stress. I am glad my teachers warned me when I was young, that if I don't study I will have to become a farmer.

And now that I am noticably in love with the species, please don't throw any sheep at me.

----------------
Now playing: Om Shanti Om - Om Shanti Om - 02 - Dard-E-Disco

The gate

2007-11-09T09:16:00.000+08:00

----------------
Written a while ago, after looking at the new structure at the entrance of the alma mater. Very emotional moment that.

--

Once upon a time, there was a fragile looking board, faded, rusted, stood in a corner. The name was written on it.
More than an institution, it was our passage to adulthood.
A fancy structure, an arch of stone, now marks the entrance. And a slab, also of stone, bears the name. Etched and fitted with metal letters. Shining. Tall. Promising matching futures all the same.
And an MBA school sits where Dreamland once used to be.

I can still see us.
It wasn't time that was passing by, it was you and I.

Daffodils

2007-10-16T05:23:00.000+08:00

There is a part in the movie The Namesake, where Ashoke's family come to "see" Ashima. And her dad proudly tells them "Our daughter's best subject is English", urging her to recite a poem. She starts - "I wander'd lonely as a cloud.." . Her father-in-law-to-be completes the lines with fervour "A host of golden daffodils", thereby putting his signature of approval. (I don't remember reading this part in the book. And I didn't last the entire movie, just so you know)

Anyway, I don't know if it was intended to be that way, but the importance of that little part is accentuated to me because of my upbringing. Wordsworth's Daffodils was a big part of the education in Bengali (and Oriya) middle class families of those years, the ones who consider themselves culturally superior. How do I put it? It was a sign that you appreciated poetry, you were a step ahead of the standard coursework fare.

My grandmother was one of those culturally elite people: well read, well aware. She knew her Shelley and Wordsworth and Keats and Pope, and refused to drink tea if it wasn't served in a cup with a saucer with a spoon on the side to stir the sugar. And one had to stir it gently. She firmly rejected the use of words such as "fridge" calling them colloquial. But I digress. Why she liked the poem is still a mystery to me, but she recited the poem to me when I was quite young and urged me to memorize it. It is strange, because not only was I was alien to how Daffodils look, I was completely oblivious to the vacant or pensive mood described in the last para.

Anyway, now that I have seen the flowers I can tell you that they are indeed very delightful. They grow in hordes and yet by themselves. Like nobody planted them there. As we drove around, I saw them everywhere. Stretching in never-ending lines. A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. In a place where the landscape changed like a video game, they lent a vague sense of sense of continuity.

And they shone, they really did. Like stars that shine, and twinkle on the milky way. Jumping and joyous in their dance - how else do you describe them? In certain places, where it was still too cold, they were the only reassurance that spring was on its way. They stood there, braving the chilly southerlies, with their silly pouts. Swaying sideways, frantically at times. Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Self absorbed. Vain. Narcissistic.

And my thoughts, if they spill towards the grey skies, the memories of this trip will blot them out. At least for a while.

Been there done that

2007-10-11T20:12:00.000+08:00

Taking the plunge.

Yes, that's me taking what seemed like the leap of faith. Feet tied, strapped in a harness, I went through a round of obligatory chickening-out, "I don't want to do this". And Timmy said "Believe me, you do". He was cute, and I didn't want to look uncool. So, I stared at the bridge straight ahead on that chilly spring morning, and jumped. Into Euphoria.

I know Bungy jumping is not fashionable anymore, but hell, I did it, I took that giant leap, so let me show off for a bit.

First, a bit of history, as I have learnt from the little pamphlet I got along with my photos: The people of Vanuatu have been throwing themselves off huge towers with nothing but vines tied to their legs. Some coming-of-age ritual that. In the late 70s, some crazy folks in Oxford university Dangerous Sports club got inspired by this, and they tried out a few test jumps. AJ Hackett saw one of those videos, and teamed up with Henry van Asch, to develop the Bungy into the modern ritual it is today. In June 1987, Hackett jumped off the Eiffel Tower straight into international spotlight.

The Kawarau bridge Bungy, in Queenstown, New Zealand, though not high by any standards (43 m), is still the unique for being the world's first, and is hence styled as "Home of Bungy". The other choices in Queenstown are the Nevis highwire (134 m) and the Ledge where you go up a hill and jump looking at the city below you. I don't have the guts to attempt either of those two.

The feeling of free fall, might not be new to many of you, but for me, a first time jumper, it was like: No no no no no. WTF. Eeeeee. Ah the cord. Stretch stretch strech Touch touch touch. Wooohooooo. In civilized English and in Hackett's words "You will go from nervous to completely elated in five seconds"

Oh yeah, I tried, I really tried to touch the water, but was short by a few feet.

PS: Speaking of childhood dreams, this was one: to do the Bungy jump at the original site. Yay.

The lecture.

2007-09-27T02:29:00.000+08:00

Mr. Lim has been a turning point of sorts. It cured me of regrets and remorse. The memories are far too precious to be wasted on them.

The experience that sealed it up was the last lecture of Dr. Randy Pausch. To use the oft repeated cliche, words don't do justice. It's an experience, and I would urge you to watch it.

It's easy to be scared of death. It's easy to live mediocre lives. But to be able to look back and say, in this life, I have been able to achieve all that I wanted to do, I have been able to get all that I desired, that needs something. Don't we all want lives like that?

I had a friend argue with me that he is not impressed with the speech of Dr. Pausch. He's white, rich, educated, American, smart, born with the privileges. There are many others who have done it, face cancer, face death, and yet keep their courage. "What's the big deal? Let him be an African", he said, "Have kids with malnutrition .. live in a country torn by civil war... then we will talk about his contribution"

It's so easy to be cynical. At the expense of sounding crude, if a person with one leg manages to get from point A to point B, would it be right to undermine his achievement by saying "What's the big deal? A person with no legs has managed to do the same."

Probably the reason why we are starved of heroes. Because we refuse to believe. I agree that many others have done it. Bad example, but didn't millions eat spinach before Popeye did?

Touching the lives of millions and setting an example needs courage. To do so in the face of death, even more so. This is what a teacher would do: communicate, in no uncertain terms, the lessons learnt, and provide a structure for the path ones life should take.

I am a changed person.

--
PS: Comp Science people should be able to recognize Andries van Dam. Remember the big fat book of CG?

Prayer

2007-09-26T04:41:00.000+08:00

God, give me my forty winks, and I promise I won't ask for anything else.
Today.

The uncommon couple

2007-09-24T22:12:00.000+08:00

Due to the immense popularity of my previous post on Mr. Lim (Two people, both friends, read it and liked it), I have decided to do more sketches of people. The people I meet make up most of my stories and to avoid repeating them when I meet you in person, I will type them here. So today, I will introduce you to Jorge and Soo. Both in my Spanish class.

Jorge is retired. Jubilado. The connection with the word jubiliant is rather distressing for a workaholic like me. If I have no work, what will I complain about? Anyway, Jorge seems rather happy. He comes on time, does his homework, and pays attention in class. He has a snorty laugh and perverse amount of curiosity about rights of transsexuals in Spain. He also refuses to accept that things like tables, chairs and keys can be classified as masculine and feminine.

Soo teaches. Somewhere. Something. But that's not really relevant, is it? She speaks very clear English, which makes me suspicious that she teaches the language. She owns a dictionary, and brings it to class rather religiously. I don't carry mine around since dictionaries are thick and rather boring to read on the bus.
I think Soo is a closet activist. She brings up her dissent in the rarest of moments. The word bonita means pretty. It can only be used for things and little girls. Chica bonita. Pretty little thing. This made Soo immensely worried about the objectification of women.

Soo and Jorge have been together for many years. It is rude to ask how long, but I am curious since she pauses before she refers to him as her boyfriend. They are too old to be boyfriend and girlfriend, you know. What makes them strange as a couple is that they don't stay together. He claims, they would have killed each other if they had another day under the same roof. This works, and works well for them. But it must be togetherness, since he buys her a snack before coming to class so she can grab a quick bite during the break.

They amaze me... for in this world of fragile relationships, they are willing to stay away from each other just so that they can be together.

The question of anonymity

2007-09-24T12:42:00.000+08:00

I think bloggers make a big deal out of their online identities. You find some of them obsessing over keeping it secret. Not sure if it is because the persona they create, that of being fun and erudite and with a fun life is far detached from their real lives. Not sure if it is the romantic appeal of being a mysterious stranger with a smart moniker, or Spiderman-Peter Parker dichotomy. Maybe it was a trend started by the chicklit bloggers to preserve the identities of people they speak about and to avoid being googled.

Anyway, nom-de-plumes are a good idea. If and when you become famous, it will make a good trivia question a la - What was 'The blogger formerly known as Prince' formerly known as?
Ok, bad joke.

My point being that bloggers put up a nice little fight to keep their identities secret. Frankly, it's hardly a challenge, ever since orkut, facebook and the other evil sisters came about to put one's six-degrees in the public domain.

How hard can it be? There is a high chance that people blogroll their fleshandblood friends (as opposed to virtual friends?), and few of those friends are ~~vain~~ confident enough to use their real names for sure. A click here. A click there. Easy, no?
And then there are pics of family, kids, latest holidays and tattoos proudly cross posted on orkut and the blog. Seriously, you actually thought you won't be discovered by someone who has ~~listed "stalking" under "passions"~~ a lot of time to while away.

Sigh.

Find a random person on orkut, and discover their blog. Now that's like a real challenge.

Deseo

2007-09-22T09:06:00.000+08:00

Desire.

If the last bits of my memory would fade away, what would I do? Would I look at everything differently? Would not knowing what to call a table bother me? Would there be any remorse left with me? Would it be like speaking a different language? Would it be worth expressing pain in a different language? Would I have any memories of my desires?

Mr. Lim is about seventy years old. He is in my Spanish class for beginners. We are in the early stages, and still at a loss for words. What sets Mr. Lim apart is that he is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. His motivation, his perseverance confuses me. I want to ask him, will it be worth forgetting it all in a different language?

Deseo, he said the other day, doesn't that mean desire? And Hawaii, doesn't it have active volcanoes? That when he was being helped with his homework. The homework I had forgotten all about. Never before have I felt smaller, like a speck, whining about the memories that I would rather forget. My memories are what make me, I had argued with myself endlessly. My memories attach the relevance to my existence. And that, when I can't remember my best friend's phone number... when I can't remember who my best friend is... when I can't remember which was that one moment that filled me with joy... when I can't remember the how "wonder" feels like...
when I can't remember what I desire...
And yet, like Mr. Lim, perhaps I can't remember the end of my desires...

Hazaaron khwaishein Aisi, ki har khwaish pe dam nikle.
A thousand desires, each one worth a million times to die for.

Its not desires that I lack, I lack lifetimes...

For posterity

2007-08-25T17:41:00.000+08:00

Some jokes I heard over the week. Very niche, and heavily dependent on cliches (Isn't it unfortunate that those two words don't rhyme?)

- On Jazz bass players.

What is the difference between jazz bassist and a large cheese pizza?
A large cheese pizza can feed a family of four.

- About the electric bass players.

A man gives his son an electric bass for his 15th birthday, along with a coupon for four bass lessons. When the son returns from his first lesson, the father asks, "So, what did you learn?"

"Well, I learned the first five notes on the E string."

Next week, after the second lesson, the father again asks about the progress, and the son replies, "this time I learned the first five notes on the A string."

One week later, the son comes home far later than expected, smelling of cigarettes and beer. So the father asks, "hey, what happened in today's lesson?"

"Dad, I'm sorry but I couldn't make it to my lesson. I had a gig!"

To which a bassist said:

Q. What has six strings, is black and blue and lying in a gutter?
A. A guitarist who cracked too many bassist jokes.

-And a guitarist/lightbulb joke:

Q. How many guitarists do you need to change a light bulb
A. Five. One to change the bulb and four to reminisce about how good the old tubes were.

- And the one about Mac users, which you will get only if you have been hanging around with too many obsessive users, who can't get enough of telling you how great their iMacs are.

Q. How many mac users do you need to change a lightbulb?
A. One. Let him change the bulb and see the whole world revolve around him.

Its nine o'clock on a Friday

2007-08-24T23:45:00.000+08:00

There comes a time when we realize our problem stems from the fact that we are pretentious. And judgmental about ourselves. And that we are so afraid of mediocrity, that we would rather not do something than to do it badly. Which is worse, of course.

There also comes a time, roughly 20 seconds after the previous epiphany, where we drop the unnecessary garb of the royal "We".

Very Ayn-Rand-ish, but not too bad for a Friday. For which "I" am Thanking God. Profusely.

Rant

2007-08-16T12:19:00.000+08:00

You know what's frustrating?

To spend three years working on something, and then getting the terrible feeling to sweep over you - "I am too good to be doing this."
And to have a blog and not be able to rant. Because it is barely anonymous. Because I am too stuck up. Because I pretend like this is literature.
Normal lives we lead here,
Breakdowns, disappointments, frustrations, hopes, and dreams of an improbably futuer.

Maybe I lack the confidence. Maybe everyone expects too much from me.

Let's just hope that hindsight fixes it all.

Alex

2007-08-11T15:25:00.000+08:00

Alex wakes up at 8 in the morning on Saturdays.
And plays soccer. The door of the study is one goal post, and something at the end of the living room is the other.

He is also learning how to play the piano. On Sunday mornings.
His impatient fingers trace an unfamiliar path on the keys.
He can't keep time yet. It will hopefully, sound like music someday.

Alex is all of 4. Or 5? How does it matter? It does. Because he is at the age where being four and half years old is different from being five.

Alex stays in the house above, and screams goodbye to his dad every morning.

Last afternoon, while I was sleeping, I heard him play Ludo, or Snakes and Ladders, or some other board game. He was perhaps playing with an adult.
Every few minutes, the dice would fall and roll on the floor.
And I would hear him make his move. Definitive, like it wasn't a move, but a statement. It was mostly tak tak or tak tak tak. Just that once he moved six places. Tak tak tak tak tak tak. Oh how happy he must have been.

As much as I hate him in the mornings, Alex makes my weekends surreal.

Office Romance

2007-08-04T01:21:00.000+08:00

She wakes up
with a faint recollection
of the dream
of the guy from work.

In front of the mirror,
the smile,
the blush,
and the doubt
if he would seem
too familiar today.
And the decision
if she should wear red
and put
a twist in her ponytail.

Notes and quotes

2007-08-02T10:20:00.000+08:00

Quote:

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
- Oscar Wilde

******
Which leads us to collect some notes from a Swedish Hindi movie buff:

- He wonders why the Hindi Movies follow the three layered approach - they have the comedy part, the tragedy part, and the family part. By the time one is all geared up for comedy, the tone of the movie has already changed. He says it confuses him.

- He claims to have liked "Salaam Namaste". But he didn't like another one with a aforementioned three layered approach. Which movie? In his own words "There were two guys in the movie, and the girl liked one of them, but this one dies, and so she gets married the other one in the end. It had Pretty Zeenta, and the guy from Salaam Namaste, and the other guy who is in all other Hindi movies" Geddit?

- Next on his list is Krissh. Before you starting judging his tastes, I will be the one lending him the VCD.

********
And the note to self:
Next week will probably be worse than this one. So see, on hindsight, this week was not so bad after all.

Cultural hierarchy and Potter

2007-07-18T10:22:00.000+08:00

Lowbrows: Have never read the books. Watch the movies the weekend they are released. Derive joy from calling it "Hari Puttar". Appreciation severely limited to "Cho is cho cute, no?"

Lower-middlebrows: Have read the books AND watched the movies. Deeply involved, and yet a bit confused. Don't remember too many details. Love Hermione, like they loved Dana Scully.

Middlebrows: Have pre-ordered the book. Have made plans to spend Friday night ~~drinking~~ standing outside the bookshop so as to be able to grab the first copy of Deathly Hallows. Know the curses, the charms and the animals. Play Quidditch like they play Calvinball. Have spent at least 15 minutes mulling over who "R. A. B" could be^*. Watch the movies without much ado. Chew on it. Promptly post reviews on their blogs saying, the book was better.

Highbrows: Don't read Harry Potter. Claim that it is an insult to the fantasy genre. Wax eloquent about how it's a marketing gimmick, and how everyone has become a capitalist slave. In fact, they force the fact down everybody's throat that they don't endorse the franchise, or anything else. Visit the loo more than once during the movie.

^*My guess: It's Sirius Black's Brother.

Verses which probably should never see the light of the day

2007-07-11T15:09:00.000+08:00

The End

Ever get the feeling
something can't be mended.
stuck in limbo, you yo-yo
and wish it had ended.

Potent mix of coffee-whiskey
in the bloodstream blended
wide-eyed, drunk on thoughts,
All for the better, I pretended.

----
Rouge

Up at the hour of loneliness
of her empty bed
Narcissa painted her toenails
a wanton shade of red

Far away, in the throes
of yet another orgasm
Juliet painted the town
a happy shade of red

The possessed one, Durga,
in the fury of scorn
painted his nightmares
with an angry shade of red

Quiet in her quilted corner
Cathy, (*identity concealed),
painted her mind with
a helpless shade of dread.

Insomnia - part 2

2007-07-02T04:05:00.000+08:00

Every tick of the clock,
with invidious intent,
steals one away
from the awake hours
of the next day.

PS: At this rate, it will have a book full of these

On romance novels...

2007-06-27T13:54:00.000+08:00

The first one I read was at home. It was Ma's. It was called Kona Winds, it was set in Hawaii. Its weird because Still life with Woodpecker, the book that I tend to quote most about love, is also set in Hawaii.

The second Mills and Boon I read was the one I liked more. I don't remember the name, though I remember the story really well. She was called Alicia, and he was called Jean-Luc or Jean-Marie or Jean-something.
She was very pretty, and British. After been jilted by her ex at the altar, she duly lost faith in love, pulled her hair back in a tight chignon and made it big as a high profile fashion designer in Europe. Now this tall-rich French guy, with his hyphenated name, squarish jaw and piercing eyes, is hosting a wedding for his goddaughter, and our belle dame sans merci, Alicia, has been hired to design everything for the wedding of the century.
She walks in. She can feel his eyes following her. Animal magnetism. A passionate kiss in a moment of weakness. Confusion. The other woman. The other man. Further confusion. Then in the last ten pages, they make-up, and kiss. In that order.
There were some hints about the happy ever after.

Classic M&B. I devoured it. I read it like it was literature. From cover to cover. And then I read it again. And again. A few times over. Ah, to taste the forbidden fruit... and the cheap thrills of youth... At that age, I was curious as hell, and ready to read anything in print, and romance novels were out-of-bounds.

Ma and I never spoke about romance. I am not sure she liked the story I just narrated, but it would be wrong to judge her ideas about romance. She would buy them for long boring train journeys, and upon returning home, symbolically trash them by hiding them in the top-most shelf, hoping I couldn't reach them. My cousin sisters would come, and take these away. They were a lot older, heavily into this stuff, and unwilling to buy it for themselves.

College came with its own share of romance and romance novels. With the curiosity dead, and having figured out the pattern in them, it wasn't so exiting to read them anymore. But during those uncertain years, there was definitely something reassuring about their predictability.

There was this little lending library next to the hostel which stocked up very few good books and tons of trash. During cram-time before exams, Dep and I would borrow Archie comics and M&B from there, and read them for a break. Each of us had developed our individual style of reading them. I used to read the back cover and the last twenty pages. She used to read the first five, and one page every ten pages thereafter. Neither of us admitted to the other that we occasionally skipped to the two-pages-where-they-kiss and read them too.

I don't think the books really affected my ideas about romance, or love in general. The characters in there were rather unbelievable, hence. But those days, these books did strike a note somewhere...

I haven't read even one since.

Quo Vadis?

2007-06-23T16:49:00.000+08:00

A.k.a, in which I figure out the root cause of all my dissatisfaction.

Its not because I feel I have anything less.
Its only because I want more from life. More experiences, more travel, more learning.
Its only because I want a life. A life full of life.

For past few months have done nothing except work, just to see how it feels. And have realized that the element of disuse, the whole feeling of not knowing what to answer when someone asks me “What else have you been up to?”, is the culprit. That irritates me to no end, that I have no answers when I ask myself, what have I gained in the past few months? How have I grown as an individual? (Before you take a dig, I dropped two Kgs)

You know, there was this small shack, quite named Dreamland right opposite our where plans for life were made over copious amount of chai. You know what we had then? No, not talent. Passion, yes. And more so, the non-judgmental attitude towards anything and everything. We had deep devotion for everything we did, small, big or otherwise:
Making those posters for College clubs which lasted on the walls just for a few days,
preparing for the next quiz, the glory of defeat in which lasted only till the next,
screaming your lungs out for your team when they played a losing match,
and singing along when the college band played their own comps in a badly planned concert.

I miss that.

Insomnia

2007-06-22T02:02:00.000+08:00

Its a been long time since Hypnos wasn't kind to me.
Really.
It was the coffee maybe.
Drunk with pleasure then, as I am drunk, now,
with this languid sense of being awake.
And why does this time of the night come with this itchy-scratchy feeling?
And the song playing incessantly on the radio channel in my head happens to be Justin -
"What goes around, comes around!"
Stuck in my head.
It's just that one line playing, no more.
The stuck head. The scratched record.

The sheep are tired, they have walked in and out all night.
They go around and come around.
And what happens next?

The clock ticks away, ten minutes too fast.
The lights from someone else's window flicker on mine.
It's almost dawn.
The early birds yawn.
And my dreams for a better tomorrow wait for sleep to come by.

Of Flus and Fathers...

2007-06-18T20:00:00.000+08:00

Been down with fever and a sore throat since yesterday, and I am back to work.

Falling sick when I was growing up was different.
Dad would take leave from work, and launch a one man crusade against the invaders. Home would become a father-daughter citadel, meaning, we were allowed to make a mess of it till Ma came back from work.

No sooner than she had left the front door, he would start with a status check - he would put the thermometer in my mouth, and then head to the kitchen to make some herbal tea. I would squint, and wait for the mercury to reach 99, and get the thermometer out of the mouth. If it had already reached a 100, I would shake it down to 99 and then announce loudly and gladly that I was decidedly feeling better and should be allowed to go to school. He never called my bluff, but am quite sure he knew. So, despite all my protests, I was sent back to the bedroom.

By then the herbal tea would be ready. The tea was a speshul remedy for sore throats, a miracle cure, I was told. It had herbs instructed by old-wives - except that he would add them all at one go. The results, though not totally disastrous, were potent enough to scare the viruses/bacteria away.

He would then proceed to cook lunch. He is not a bad cook, just that he likes to experiment a little too much. Those days, anything he could successfully boil and add salt and generous amount of pepper to, would be served with much-ado. With the numb taste buds it hardly made a difference so long as the stuff could slide smoothly down my throat. Though, I must say, he has improved over the years. Having a guinea pig helps, I guess.

And medicines? Dad was particular that they be taken on time. I remember him waking me up on cold nights, and giving me an assortment of pills with half a glass of warm water. A cold hand would check if I still had fever, and he would stand still for a minute to check if I was wheezing.

Years later, he packed me away to the hostel sans much emotion, but with a semesters' supply of medicines: antibiotics, antihistamines, multivitamins, the works. One day, lying alone in the hostel room, running a temperature of 103 and yet trying to be all adult about being sick, I felt cold, lonely and abandoned. And then I realized it wasn't the medicines that I needed, it was all the fuss. So I did what I had to do, called him, and whined on the phone.

Like I did yesterday.

Verse #2343

2007-06-15T13:05:00.001+08:00

I could see him distinctly in the light of the moon.
His dark face seemed paler than marble.
His left eye twitched, perhaps to violently protest against what was about to happen.
It was then that I realized that it had all gone wrong.
Right before he pulled the trigger.....

Flash of a lifetime
Loss sifts through moonlit leaves
Haiku left behind.

Peddling pedals.

2007-06-13T14:43:00.000+08:00

Many summers ago, two boys went on a shopping trip to buy a cycle, It was vastly frustrating, so they boldly went where no men have gone before. They decided to open a bike shop.

It all started out when Nikhil and Rohan came up with the crazy idea of cycling to work. Despite the killer traffic, these two aficionados have been religiously riding their bikes to work for more than a year now, and have discovered that it is far less stressful to manoeuvre a bike in the traffic than to drive. They strongly believe that this could be a healthy solution to the current unhealthy traffic situation in Bangalore. With the nobel intention of sharing the gyaan, and helping people attain the same nirvana, , they came up with the idea of getting state-of-the-art Trek and Firefox bicycles to Bangalore. And lo and behold, BumsOnTheSaddle was born.

Together, the erstwhile-partners-in-crime and now in business are looking at spearheading a community of biking enthusiasts. So check out the cool website, the blog and/or the bikeshop (big incentive - it is located bang opposite the Girls' hostel in Jayanagar). And do remember to drop them a word even if you are not looking at picking up a cycle.

Generous as they are, they even offer free test-rides.

PS: Rohan, I just emailed you my bank account information . :)

The baker's dozen

2007-06-11T14:23:00.000+08:00

Fans of the classic caper genre will say that Ocean's thirteen doesn't qualify as one. Maybe, this wasn't meant to be one. Also, that 11 was perfect. For this one, the aim wasn't perfection, perhaps.

Roger Ebert might ~~complain~~ argue that the plot is fragile, and whatever is left of it is quite absurd. I beg to disagree. While not cult-level, or anything remotely memorable, this one did justice to the series in a way no threequel this year has managed to achieve. I drooled, I laughed, I guffawed, and then I left, and that is what this was meant to be. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Matt Damon emerges as a personal favourite among the star studs. Brad's Rusty is well, rusty.

Also, for my plebian tastes, the Oprah touch was quite a masterstroke.

?

2007-06-09T09:55:00.000+08:00

There must a reason why common sense so uncommon!

The process

2007-06-06T12:04:00.000+08:00

So the plan was quite clear, thus spake the Engineer/MBA. He charted it out for me neatly on a piece of paper. He excelled at spreadsheets, that kinda stuff you know. This is how he put it:

#define Start date T April sometime.

Start chatting;
T + 1 month: we will send pictures to each other.
Iff (all goes well) /*meaning, she doesn't get a heart attack looking at his pics*/
{

2 more months of wooing;
Early part of the following month, he proposes;

If( she says yes) {

Jump up and down ten times;

For(the next three months) discuss if we should get married?;

If (OK) then {

For(one month) - discuss when to get married;
loop for One year {
swimming and sinking in love;
If (End of next year) get out of this stupid loop;

}

Check(bank balance);
Tie the knot;
}
}
Happy ever after;

Bloody geek. Wants everything to be perfect. In order. Six Sigma compliant. Cant go wrong. Only 6 defects in a thousand pieces. In a million, the nitpicker would correct you.

Thankfully Love, as Tom Robbins said, is the ultimate outlaw. And it had other plans.

So then she called, and said she had sent him the pics like he had asked for, for which he had cooked up a silly excuse like a hard disk crash, and that she had Paneer butter masala for lunch which was too spicy.
And thankfully, the process crumbled.

Eeeesshh. Shilly phish, the two of them, I tell you.

With their parents blessings, they will probably elope today. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Kee Kando.

Somedays, I am not so cynical about the world. And I am kind. And excited.

[PS] I know the brackets dont match. Its okie. Its fine.

On reviews :)

2007-06-05T10:55:00.000+08:00

Two goats who wandered into an alley behind a motion picture theater happened across a can of film. Being goats, one of them promptly devoured it. "How was it?" asked the other.

"Not bad," replied the first goat, "but the book was better."

Hehhhehehhh.

The attack of the unimaginative three-quels

2007-06-03T22:23:00.000+08:00

Will keep it brief. Pirates 3 was convoluted, too tedious even for the swashbuckling Jack Sparrow to resuscitate. Special effects are never as funny as people. They can wow you, but they can never ever strike a chord. Having said that, with every little ounce of life and love that's left in me, I am and will remain deeply devoted to Johnny Depp . So I still kinda liked it. The movie has its moments, wish it was easier to find them though.

Shrek 3: Ahh, the lesser said the better. Waste of popcorn. And what's with everyone giving emotional speeches in the end?

Fantasy, they say, has to have its ends tied up, only reality has frayed edges. But yet, just because all known characters come together on screen in one scene, where they all fight it out, give their speeches, find their loves and say goodbye hoping to squeeze some tears out of the cynical audience doesn't necessarily mean justice is done to the characters. It just leaves you with a bad aftertaste. Whatever happened to the joy of simple storytelling?

As for Danny Ocean's Motley Crew, I really hope thirteen proves lucky. Frankly, I have little hope.

SpiderMan 3: the obligatory bashup

2007-05-22T17:37:00.001+08:00

All I can say is that, this heart wrenching love story of Pavitr Prabhakar and Meera Jain would make Sooraj Barjatya proud.
The dying speech delivered by the hero's best friend makes up a memorable moment for Hindi Cinema, no?

Rhetorica

2007-05-20T15:22:00.000+08:00

In all honesty, the idea wasn't to hurt you. When you reach an age, my age, you are not guided by judgment of right and wrong, but by the sheer fear of consequences. Tiny mistakes glitter like the shiny sequins in the memory-scape. None worth the mention, but none that you didn't learn from. There are mounted picture frames on the wall. Some staring at you, some you can't look at in the eye.

The woods are lovely. We walk to collect nostalgia for the future. Though this road less traveled seems alluring, yet, shouldn't one have the sense not to take a path where everybody gets hurt?

And then there are some promises to keep. One, the promise to oneself that at the next iteration, you would fix it all, get it right, right at the start. Two, the promise to a friend, that you won't retreat.
Some of that courage keeps you going. Some of that courage let's you go.

So, to sum up what I have learnt -
No loss is ever as big as the loss of peace of mind.
No motive as meaningful as the one of protecting your loved ones from hurt.
No sense as common as the need to live and let live uncomplicated lives.
And yet, despite all that is there to justify -
No apology is as heartfelt, as the next one, here -
I am sorry, I couldn't, I can't.

Contrary to what you may believe, the choice wasn't between holding on and letting go - the choice was between venom today, and leaving you with discomfort in my will.

Spring Cleaning

2007-05-20T09:03:00.000+08:00

What I perhaps will never learn is how to deal with yesteryears. I don't think I like the feeling of flooding myself with a certain set of memories. And yet, I keep all the stuff, just because I am afraid that if I let them go, I would have nothing left. It would be like losing history of my being.

I have never been able to delete mails from the past. The way I deal with files/photos is even more peculiar - I zip them up, and put them away in a CD or in a folder named "Important". And then one fine day shift-delete or junk the CD. It helps me get rid of the remorse, and doesn't spike my curiosity of why I kept them in the first place.

Clutter. It is almost impossible to classify my clutter between what's truly "junk" and what's really "important".

In comes Ramdeen, who got an unfair share of wisdom at birth, with the recommendation of the cleanup. The experience, he promised, would be cathartic.

So I have cleaned it all up - good, bad, otherwise. Have kept a few priceless treasures, though - one being the first email sent by then-little nieces, one with an intense discussion about the feasibility of the layers of a stack being implemented as different processes, one containing sepia toned pics of awkward teenagers in bright shirts, and one with my favourite little Johnny joke.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

2007-05-19T11:13:00.000+08:00

And Ma said today -

If for all these years, I could keep the plastic flowers from withering away,
why can't you?

the escapist

2007-05-17T17:11:00.000+08:00

there was a time, the truth was fast
like the highway,
the view of everyone
everyone's view
blinkered by the helmet.
sticking to the order of the day.

now its the winding road,
hidden from everywhere
convoluted
the ride is scenic
and un-polluted.

at the hairpin bend,
i take a break.
i stand in a corner,
hunched.
thoughts collect
bunched.

as is the case,
they are -
all lowercase.
and i am the protagonist,
the narcissist,
the escapist.

Horror. Hope.

2007-04-22T10:02:00.000+08:00

Opened the previous post.

Date: 16-April-07
Title: Horror-scope.
Last line: Somedays, horoscopes stop giving you hope.

Gave the post another read, one of those pointless, inconsequential posts. And yet, a certain sense of ominousness took over. Horror. Hope. The words seemed the same, I had written them alright. Cut pasted them fine.
What had changed then? The perspective? A perspective which seems to fix itself only in hindsight.

Virginia Tech happened. A senseless act of murder. For the past few days, I have read and re-read the news. Watched the guy's rants on youtube with a sense of disbelief. A seemingly normal guy. The kind you would see walking on the streets around you.

Gooseflesh.

This of course is just the beginning of what will seem like an endless analysis of his psychological profile. You know, finding the right pigeon hole to fit this guy in. Son of immigrant parents. Had a tough time fitting in. Wrote of sadness. Wrote of violence. Obsessively listened to Collective Souls' Shine. Sounds like a killer alright?

Is everyone who writes of sadness depressed? Is everyone who writes of violence a potential murderer? Is everyone who comes from modest origins a threat?

What could have been done to stop this?
Guns? Enough has been said about the ease of access to guns. And yet, not enough for them to do something about it.

But I would also hold the gross neglect of mental health issues responsible for a good part of it. On hindsight, its easy to judge him, call him a madman, with a perfect profile for a killer. But I wonder if enough was done to prevent him from sinking to these depths?

PS: Orkut offers advice today: Society prepares the crime: The criminal commits it

Horror-scope

2007-04-16T10:29:00.000+08:00

Dear Mo,
Here is your horoscope
for Monday, April 16:

Could it be that you've outgrown this way of life? If that's the case, you need to let this old identity go. Isn't it time you acknowledged how much you've changed, and accept the scope of your recent emotional development?

Somedays, Horoscopes stop giving you hope.