Lingua Franca

Have you ever noticed how we all construct sentences in more or less the same way? Yeah, I know this sounds funny. "I mean, give me a break here – constructing sentences the same way?" This has got to be the silliest thought ever, huh?

But just think. We humans speak countless languages across the globe, each originated and evolved over thousands of years in a thousand different places... at different times even. But how come most languages have the same way of expressing themselves? Not commonplace sentences like 'how are you, thank you, what is your name' etc, but even proverbs, colloquial phrases. I guess it has something to do with Adam and Eve, huh? Yeah. According to linguists, the origination of the human species has got a lot to do with this simple yet intriguing thought. Whether it be a simple greeting, or a complex abusive sentence containing a lot of ‘f’s and ‘b’s, our sentences are constructed the same, with the same adjectives and verbs. Hmmmm...Well, just a fleeting rant. Have a great weekend, y'all.

Dream come true?

Ok, let’s talk about dreams. Nah, not the ‘I wanna be a celebrity some day’ kinda dream, but the regular ones that we get while sleeping at night. It would be stupid to explain what a dream is. So let’s just get on with my thoughts about dreams, my thoughts IN my dreams and well, my dreams.

First. Just what the hell do dreams translate into? You know, right from my kidhood up until now, I’ve never, I repeat never had a satisfactory answer to this one. I’ve read books, spoken to friends, spoken to oldies, browsed the net some, but tish, nada, zilch. Uh huh. Nothing really makes sense. I guess all the guys who wrote about dreams were sleeping when they wrote them.

And then those weird interpretations by grannies.

‘I died in my dream last night.’“Oh really? You shouldn’t dream such things.” Yeah, come and tell that to me when I’m dreaming about it. But then the safe (read convenient) explanation that follows is, ‘anyway, you don’t have to worry. Dreaming about dying actually means you’ll have a long life.” Oh really?!

“Got bitten by a snake, or seen a snake? That’s auspicious. The snake God’s gonna smile down upon you.” Jeepers! I don't want no snake smiling, frowning or even looking at me.

And then the debate of color and black & white. Yeah, dreams are videos that you choose from the local video store. Take a pick. And you know what’s really funny? And I’m not making this up. I read some place, some book written by Freud’s failed student, that guys dream in black and white and girls dream in color. How the hell do you prove these things? And then that baloney about a different set of interpretations for same dreams by a girl or a guy. And these guys have spent sleepless nights researching this stuff, when they should've been sleeping instead! ha!

And my wife - She dreams episodes. We’re talking sitcoms here. She dreams a story, an entire movie if you may. And the amazing thing is, she recounts the whole thing to me the next morning. Like she’d seen an episode of the X-files or something in her sleep. And I scratch my head trying to figure out if MY dream made any sense (If I remember it, that is). My dreams are so disjointed, if you clipped them all together, they’d resemble the title sequence of ‘Ripley’s believe it or not’.

The only thing I like about my dreams is, when I’m chased by some lunatic, most times I just take off. Soar into the air like Superman. And oh man, is that cool or what. Just don’t remind me that the lunatic also might follow me a la Lex Luthor. But hey, he doesn’t know I’m dreaming, does he? *winks*.

Spaceman Stiff

Was reading Stephen King’s ‘The dead zone’ some time back. Stephen King made his millions scaring the living daylights out of weak hearts, but he made us believe (well almost) that there exist certain unknown zones, certain areas outside of normal human comprehension that operate in exactly the same fashion as the world we live in. So, ask this question. Is there a parallel world? A parallel dimension in which everything’s the same as here? Even you. Only you can’t see. But from time to time, you do feel your presence in it. In other words, déjà vu. I don’t know how many of you have felt it, but I have. When I’m sitting in a particular position and talking to someone, someone else walks by and as my mind cuts away from my conversation for a fleeting second to look at the third person, a thought, a tingle of a thought, cuts through my brain like a bullet. ‘This has happened before’, a faraway voice inside me insists. And I clearly remember the entire scene in a split micro second. I shake my head and return to the conversation. And the whole thing’s gone. Snap. Just like that. Maybe it’s happened before. In the *other* dimension.If you remember, I don’t know how many of you guys do, they used to show a series called ‘The sliders’ on the hallmark channel. This serial explored this idea. Was pretty good. As a kid (to be honest, even now sometimes) I would wonder at the entire expanse of the sky above us (or around us, whatever you please) and think,’ what the hell is this? How the hell is this spherical planet floating in air?’ I even enrolled in an astronomy class to find out answers, but this subject is as vast as the universe itself. I found myself sinking in it, but could never reach the bottom. Ah, well. Someday…

“Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition." – Isaac Asimov.

Sweet nothings...

"If you decide to avoid sweets on that day, you will certainly end up eating them"

- Burfi's law

friend, philosopher, guide...

The mentor-disciple relationship has always held me in awe. It's a sensitive bond, according to me. And it has to be handled really well in order to make it fulfilling to both. In countless movies this has been portrayed as a sub-plot and it indeed makes for a great sub-plot. The various angles to this relationship makes it even more intriguing. There's a difference between the conventional 'teacher-student' relationship and this one. A mentor could be anybody, from any walk of life. It's from the very nature of such a relationship that great careers are built, or a great person emerges. And it all depends on how the mentor guides his protege. Down the line, an emotional bonding also happens, but a true mentor knows when to detach, when to let go. It's like teaching a kid how to peddle his bicycle for the first time. You're behind him, holding the bike and somewhere along the way, you've to let go in order for the kid to really appreciate and feel the sense of control over himself. My dad would do it, when I first started riding the bicycle, at 9 or 10. Even today, when I watch movies with this sub-plot, it gives me a weird high. You watch the rookie grow under the mentor's tutelage and then one day, it's time for the baton to be passed on. And that whole journey of learning and coming of age is what inspires. And the good thing about mentorship is, it needn't be specific to any profession, it could be about the ropes of life. Some great movies in my opinion:

*Scent of a woman
*Training Day
*Donnie Brasco
*Finding Forrestor
*Choti si baat
*Karate Kid
*Million Dollar Baby
*The Professional
*The Untouchables
*Colors
*The Man without a face

There are many more, I'm sure, but I remember only these...

Notes from the past

Was listening to 'Nights in White Satin' from one of my fav albums 'pure movies', driving back home from work. It calmed my stressed nerves and by the time I reached home, I was ready to face the world all over again. There are countless songs that have that soothing effect. And they also help connect to certain incidents, events in the past.

And then I remembered this post from blurty a long time back. Some of you might've read it back then.

*******

They say songs are therapeutic. You know, cows giving more milk, plants growing better and beautiful and blah blah blah. But with me, some songs are like time transporters. They are associated with a certain place, a certain time, a certain moment in your life. Could be anytime – a month ago, six, a year. Maybe 15 years back. But these songs are like connectors. The moment you hear them, a spark lights up a million cells in your brain and you are immediately reminded of a particular place back in time. A particular moment. Ah, but for these songs life would’ve been such a boring journey.

My association with the fine arts is on an almost ancestral level. My great great grandfather was a vocalist. So was my great grandfather. My grand father as well (mother’s father), my mother, me, my sister. Though after my grand father no one pursued it professionally. My sister is a classical dancer and my mother sings folk songs. I *used* to sing. Now it’s confined to, no, not the bathroom. Singing lullabies to my daughter. Even that will stop one day.

So, what’s the big point that I’m trying to make here? Nothing. Something I was listening to last evening, made me remember a certain time in my childhood so vividly, it was scary. I remembered every single minute of that moment, like I were actually living it again. And all ‘cuz this song was playing in the background back then too.

I think I’m gonna need a lot of tapes / CDs / LP discs if I plan to write my autobiography some day. Speaking of which, that is another thing that reminds me of the past. LP discs, or long playing discs. Those black plastic ‘CD’ like things big as pizzas, that need a special micro-needle to stick on ‘em to play. And boy, would I enjoy it when the needle got stuck. Was fun to listen to the same line playing over and over again like an autistic singing. (An example from an old Doris Day LP: When I was just a li’l girl, a li’l girl, a li’l girl, a li’l girl….)

My father used to travel a lot around the globe back then. And he’d make sure he got back with him heaps of LPs. He has a huge collection – from the 50s slow moving love songs, Doris Day, the classic western themes by James Goldsmith, classic bands like the ‘Puppets’, Indian classical music to just about every thing. I used to love listening to them. But more than that, the entire process of pulling out an LP lovingly from it’s paper case, wiping it carefully, looking at it longingly, placing it on the turntable and then slowly placing the needle on it, sitting back on the couch and closing the eyes as the music began; the soft ‘ruffle’ of sound bites due to small scratches. Ah! Lilting.

Was planning to digitize the entire collection some day. But on second thoughts…nah! They’re too precious to be tampered with. Que sera, sera.

rats!

When li'l Jerry outdoes Tom, breaking every possible bone in his body, we laugh. We smile at all the impossible things the duo does on screen. Jerry is perhaps the most loved mouse, next to Mickey. These days I even feel he's beaten the latter to it. Mice have always been cute in the movies, be it Mouse hunt, Stuart Little or...donno, there are several movies on this little 'cute' creatures. Once you switch off the TV or come out of the cinema however, these four legged rodents are something quite different. My tryst with mice started in Mysore, many years ago. There was this mouse (my mom always calls them rat). So, this 'rat' came in on a rainy day to take shelter I guess. When and how it came, nobody knows. But it walked right in, like it were walking into a Hilton or a Sheraton and booked the kitchen suite for good. It all started when one night I walked in to drink a glass of water. And there she was. Standing on the kitchen plank, staring right into me. I rubbed my eyes. I'd been watching Tom & Jerry the same evening and wondered if she'd appeared right out of my dream. But no, the bold li'l thing stared at me while I drank as if to say, 'well, finish it and go. I've to eat." I raised a hand, to shoo her and she disappeared into thin air. Over the year or so she stayed with us, she fed on only potatoes and other raw veggies kept under the stove. We let it stay cause most of the other things in the kitchen were intact. Little did we know that an entire family was being raised in other places in our house. I still remember the count when we bid goodbye to the 'jerry' family. A total of eight mice!

When I moved to Bangalore, a cousin of our friend's came visiting once again. Only this time, she had an elephant's appetite. Mixie cable, the washing machine electrics, TV cable. She had an 'electric' presence.

You know, mice are damn intelligent for all of their tiny girth. They'll tease you, dare you, defy you and counter every little move of yours. Just when you thought you'd seen the last of them, they'll peep their pesky little heads from some hole and stick their tongues out at you. I thought they'd been awfully glorified in the movies. Boy, was I wrong!

We shifted home recently. And there seems to be a colony below our house and they picnic in our frontyard. One enthusiastic mouse even knocks on the kitchen drain every single night. I've sealed the drain cover and called pest control. I don't mind a stray guest or two, but a whole bunch of refugees? No, thank you. And I don't wanna try rat poison because that's more a vaccine. I'm not even going there.

I hope I'll be seeing the last of them soon, but I know they'll have the last laugh. Until then...

Pallo...?

Ok, who remembers Deepak Malhotra, the hot hunk? Raise your hands. All those pretty/not so pretty...well, mostly all girls who were teenagers a decade and a half ago, please jog your memory. Remember walking out of the theater, disgusted and aghast with disbelief when you heard that one word - 'Pallo'? Pallo in this case was our very own 'hawa hawaii' girl, Sridevi and the guy who whimpered the word was - YES! Deepak Malhotra. In Lamhe. Remember?Which brings me to voices. One of the first things after a person's appearance that makes an impression. More so if you've not seen the person before and have only heard the voice on phone, radio or any audio medium. Yeah, yeah, later on we realize that the person is not all that bad or vice versa. But the voice sketches a basic frame of impression. Amitabh Bachchan, who didn't make it in an AIR interview because of his baritone, later came to rule the roost with the very weapon, redesigned to suit his angry young man image. A voice that turns girls' knees to jelly even today.I remember speaking to a guy, a client, at my previous job over the phone for six straight months, addressing him as 'Ma'am!' But you should've seen the person's face. Veerappan would've ran away in fear. The opposite has happened as well. 'Ma'am' has had a 'Sir' voice too in another case. But I guess it's not in our hands to have a voice that we wish to have and what matters at the end of the day is what kinda person we are.

Up above the world so high....

I don't have vertigo. Of course, I've never tried my hand at bungee jumping. That would be the deciding factor. But be that as it may, I experienced my first tryst with real heights when we climbed the Qutub Minar. I was a kid back then. But I was overwhelmed with the scenery below me, spreading endlessly for as far as my eyes would go, like a gigantic carpet with magical weaves. That feeling stayed. And from then on, I was game for any place at a height. Mountain tops (Will go to the Grand Canyon some day, that's a special wish too), buildings atop mountain tops, the terrace of a multi-storeyed building, flights...even the terrace of our single storeyed house in Mysore. It's a little hard to explain, the elation. It stays for a very short time. But it inspires vivid thoughts, ideas and imagination. And I just love lying on the terrace on summer nights and watching the endless night sky, juuuusst star gazing. Another thing I like watching from atop a building are the vehicles moving at a distance, like ants, moving to their destination. And don't we all enjoy watching a fully lit city by the night? That feeling's something totally awesome. I remember the first time I saw Bangalore by night from my flight. Like somebody had spread out all the jewellery on the floor for display. I remember as a kid, a very special pastime was looking at the clouds and trying to imagine a shape, a form I recognized - anything, a horse face, a cup, a rabbit, or even a human face at times. And let me tell you, the height has to be just right to be able to spot and recognize things. Too much height also kills the landscape. And in that respect, I love driving up Chamundi Hills in Mysore and stopping at my favourite spot to gaze at the city. I have a pair of binoculars and it's real fun to go building spotting. That reminds me, I should go there this weekend when I visit my parents.

Be cool

Some guys are born cool. I mean they have this laid-back 'shit me not' aura about them that it's almost impossible to ruffle their feathers. I remember seeing John Travolta in 'Get Shorty' and think - now here's a guy I'd love to be like. Not his character of a gangster, but his personality. And that line from Rene Russo summed it all up - 'Not a worry in the world'. Having said that, I ask this of myself occasionally - Are you smart enough? Have you sometimes felt like kicking yourself for not doing the 'smart' thing? How many times have you thought of a smart retort - the next day? I guess, smartness means different things to different people. Smartness also IS different things to different people. Street smartness, sophisticated smartness, smart-ass smartness, smarting smartness...phew! When I was in college, I used to be in awe of some guys who pushed all the right buttons. They could talk about anything under the sun. They were suave, they had the right attire and they spoke in a way that made others flock to them. 'Can I become like them?' I'd constantly wonder and hope. Things aren't very different now. I still admire guys who can hold a conversation about anything. Anything at all. Politics? Oh yeah, they can write reams of email analysing, dissecting the system and even throwing in a couple of liners on how the country could be better run, for good measure. Sports? If only our sportsmen knew these guys existed, there'd be no dearth of right strategies and winning concepts. Movies? Moviemakers would stand in line to sign these guys up for a winning formula.

But it's all about the grass being greener on the other side, I guess. We feel that some guys have all the fun. They lead lives to die for, their workplace is always fun-filled. Their...well, you get the idea. But I've learned over the years that there might be others thinking the same about us. And that's comforting, isn't it?

Gratitude

Life's lessons are tough. And how. I still remember that morning like my coffee a few minutes ago. It was a Tuesday, about eight years ago. I made a beeline to a 'Darshini' near my PG accomodation. I had just moved in and was thankful the place was right around the corner from where I lived. The PG gig didn't have a kitchen and just so. I'm not a great cook either. Anyways, I got my stuff and got busy eating. As is my habit, I drifted into some thought eating. I was watching the cashier. There was something about him. His eyes, perhaps. They shone in a rare friendly light, little known in most cashiers I've seen. Most of them are just coupon dispensing machines and well, don't have the time for chitchat. Not this guy. He was treating customers like they'd come to his daughter's wedding. "Yen thogothira sir?" (And what would you like to have, sir?), "Poori try maadi ivathtu, special." (Try our poori saagu today, it's been cooked in a special way). I smiled and looked around, trying to figure if any of his warmth had rubbed off on the place. And it had. There was something different about this place. Everyone was relaxed. There were early office-goers too, who didn't seem very hard-pressed to
finish their breakfast and go. The cooks, kitchen help, everyone had a smile on their faces. And I was so pre-occupied, I never realized, my breakfast tasted good as well. It all added up.

Then from nowhere came in an old, frail tramp, clothes in tatters and stinking. He stood near the cashier and they got talking. His voice rose occasionally, while the cashier answered his queries patiently, with a quiet nod. I frowned. This was strange. It was good that the cashier was friendly but this was taking goodness a little too far. I heard the kitchen hands speak in whispers, like this was a daily affair. The tramp was demanding something now, but our man just shook his head quietly again. Then one of the guys (obviously a right hand man there) came out the kitchen, carrying some food on a plate and gently took led the tramp out by his hand. The tramp shouted in kannada. "I'll see you yet. You don't know who I am. You can't do this, you know". The cashier just smiled, a wee bit embarrassed and turned to the visitors, as if to say, "please continue eating, this is no big deal."

But I couldn't contain my curiosity. And this was a good time to make friends with him. After all I was going to be a regular here.

"Who was it, sir?"

"Ah, it's nothing." He counted my change and returned it to me. I didn't press further. Maybe now wasn't the right time to talk about the tramp.

Over the year, I saw the tramp frequently, not just in the Darshini, but also in the neighbourhood, generally shouting orders and talking to himself. Hmmm, so he was not just any tramp. He was also crazy. A few months later, as I and the cashier got to know each other better, on a weekend, he told me about the tramp.

"You wondered why I'm so patient with him, right?"

I nodded.

"You would too, with someone who offered you a job and gave you a shelter."

I was nonplussed. He chuckled and said softly. "He was my boss."

My "c'mon you must be kidding' look invited more chuckles from him. "It's true. He was my boss. And this darshini? It belonged to him once upon a time."

I was too shocked for words. He gave me some time for the truth to sink in, smiling all the while.
He asked one of his guys to take over and we held a cup of coffee each in our hands and stood outside, in the morning sun.

"I was an orphan when I moved to this city, several years ago. I had an uncle who was supposed to take care of me, but fled, leaving me and my little sister to fend for ourselves. Can you imagine how it is? Two children, without anybody, anything. I picked rag for a while. Begged even. I didn't know what to do. But my parents had taught me to live life honestly. To work hard. This tramp you saw? He used to run this place. He gave me the job of a dish-washer here. I washed dishes by the day and learned cooking the rest of the time. Well, soon I saved enough to send my sister to school. And some other guys helped me out, so I attended evening school for some time as well. They all raised me, so to say." He smiled again.

"But he was very arrogant. He ran this place like a jail. Everybody hated him. And even the customers. But, somehow he managed to keep it running for more than 10 years. I grew up dreaming of becoming someone big. I myself don't remember how all these years went by. I quit this place when I grew up. I worked at another place as a cook. Then I graduated to handling the supplies. And then managing. I would hear about my ex-boss every so often. That he'd gotten himself into serious debts, started gambling and the like. Then one day I came back. I told him I'd manage things for him. But it was too late. He had to close down shop as he couldn't handle the debts. He lost his mind. His family disowned him." he sighed.

"I did well for myself and some years ago, freed this place of all the debts and bought it. I even offered him a job here, but his arrogance hasn't left him, even if his whole family has. So I do what I can to repay the initial kindness he showed on me. After all, how can you turn away someone who fed you when you were hungry? Someone who, immaterial of how cruel a person he was, gave you shelter? So I feed him every now and then. I offered to get him a place to stay, but like I said...arrogance. He has no place to go, and no institution will take him either." His eyes moistened a bit now. I felt bad that I made him remember his painful past.

As I left that morning, I realized how important it is to remain a human at any cost. And this was gratitude unheard of. I was humbled.

Now you see it, now you don't...

Am sure most of you know, but for those who don't... every film unit has a continuity boy, who keeps tab on the costumes and props on the sets and maps the same with shooting schedules and the script. See, his job is to ensure over a one week schedule of shooting a single scene that possibly amounts to about 10 minutes onscreen, that the characters are wearing the same attire and the props have the same stuff kept at the same place for a week. Now, the continuity boy is only human and errors do happen. Some of these errors are glaring onscreen and somehow escape the editor's scissors (he's human too, you see). And thus the bloopers. You see the hero wearing blue shoes before he enters a house and when he comes out, hey presto! The shoes've become white! Or a forehead gash suddenly decides to switch places from right to left or in some cases make a hasty exit from the forehead. When I was a kid, I wouldn't notice these things a lot. Then one day, I did. I was watching this highly emotional scene of a dying hero in his mother's lap, his left hand bloody with a bullet wound. The next moment I see the same wound on his right hand. I blinked. Twice. But the wound remained in his right hand. It was interesting and funny. Then I made it a point to keep my eyes open for such bloopers and boy, movie watching was not the same anymore. On an average, every two movies out of the ten I watched were agog with such 'continuity' errors. You might see these documented in some film magazines as well. Filmfare had a column 'reader's don't digest' on similar lines.

Hmmm, this was just as rantish as it could get. *Sigh*

Monuments all...

'All Hot Chips', 'Durga Darshini', 'Ganesh chat center', 'Chamundi churmuri center'...These names ring a bell? Am sure every Bangalorean relates to these name-boards that can be seen in virtually any area in town. Come to think of it, every city has it's own list of regular eateries and goody shops that have over the years become icons of sorts. Especially when you arrive in town after a long time from a trip, early in the mornings or late at nights, and when your groggy eyes catch these familiar names, somewhere deep down you feel reassured. You sigh warmly and close your eyes again, smiling. Hmm? It's true that any place or society is made up of the people living there, but it's also true that such brands that are so unique to a city, also give it a definite shape, a dark, bold outline highlighting the specialty of that city. I've been around the last 20 years or so, and I know that even after I die, these brands will remain for many more years to come. That's the good thing about household names. They stay on and remind you of all the good times you had. In a way, they're no short of being legends. In their own rights.

It took 3 to tango!

Some time back, SwB had posted something on love and companionship and mentioned that at some point, the baby made it's entry when the couple needed to add a new color, a new angle to the relationship. He wasn't far from the truth. Aayushi was born three years into our marriage and boy, what an entry she made into this world. I still remember the loud wail at precisely 10.55 AM. Holding the newborn carefully wrapped in a sterilized towel, I can never forget the pair of tiny eyes trying to open and see a world never seen before. The first few days were nothing short of nightmarish, both I and Anu wishing when all this would finally even out - the baby's hiccups (The 2nd night she literally choked on her own saliva in the middle of the night), screaming, the colic...phew! We wondered how parents the world over coped with this kind of a thing. Time flew, there were more sleepless nights in store. The baby won't sleep so well at night, having slept at a stretch during the day. We'd take turns waking up at night to put her to sleep. Then came the crawling phase. We'd fear where she'd meet a cockroach or a lizard face to face and do some serious opera style howling. That gave way to baby-steps (We didn't need to buy a walker for the brave one, she managed to walk on her own). We began enjoying parenthood as we heard her make funny little sounds and speak in sign language. Then came the usual 'gaga, googoo, mama etc..' Oh god, when would she begin to speak, we prayed. It's quite tough communicating with a child who cannot speak back. In a way, the initial months are quite a revelation for new parents and we begin appreciating the world of the deaf and dumb. When Aayushi began speaking, walking, running, thinking...we never realized. It all happened in a flurry. And now we ask her to keep quiet many a time. Parents are funny, I tell you. We want our babies to grow up and when they do, we wish they were the same old bundles of joy in the initial months of their lives. Huh!

It's been quite a journey so far. It will be so the rest of our lives, like I've blogged about it in the past. But today is an important day for us. For Aayushi. For all the efforts of the initial days and for more to come in the years ahead...I feel it's been worth it. Every single minute of it. And I hope my li'l baby turns out to be a fine person in the end, which she'll be.

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY, MY LOVE!

listless...

Some totally, absolutely meaningless thoughts. Ummm, questions, rather.

1. How, where and when did all my milk teeth come out? How come I never realized?
2. We memorize something with our minds, right? Then why do we say 'learn by heart'?
3. Why's something that makes your car look good, called a spoiler?
4. Why does the bloody bus start precisely at the point you are about to overtake it?

On another absolutely irrelevant note, this - again from my blurty archive:

‘The Driver of this car is a sex maniac’. These were the words staring me at the face from the hind windscreen of a car. Boy, some guts this guy has, I thought, admitting what normally many of us would just dream of doing / or not doing, as the case may be. I decided to go upto him and smile an acknowledgement. But when I neared the car, my face fell. The actual words were ‘The driver of this car who belongs to the male sex drives like a maniac’. Duh! So much for the pseudo libido. The other words were in fine print, with the ‘mirage’istic words in bold. But hey, that was creative. And speaking of stickers, I have seen quite a lot of them that are funny and good time pass during the monotonous and sometimes scary ride through the city. ‘Caution: Horn doesn't work. Finger broken’. ‘Both hand drive’. ‘Power break(?)’ and oh, the sterling quotes behind auto rickshaws? Let’s keep that for a longer discussion some day. Some of those are ‘hahahaliraous’. I think I’d even scribbled about them somewhere early on in this blog. But then these stickers reflect the natures of drivers, I feel. The strong words belong to the idealistic and often cynical types. The ‘sex maniac’ kind of stickers could either be the choice of a harmless funster or maybe a ‘kinky’ kinda person who wants the eligible girls / ladies/ women..err..uh..you get my point, to contact him? But all said and done, you just can’t deny the fun value of these stickers. Maybe I should stick one on my bike – ‘The rider of this bike is a sex maniac’. Without any fine print in between. Hehehe!

Maniac's...errr...author's note: I've graduated to a car ever since, but don't get any ideas.

A moment...

It's amazing how you get recurring thoughts and experience things over and over again. Would give 'Deja Vu' a run for it's money. This thought just in...from my older blog (I love it when I don't have to do anything but just paste a thought from here!)


"Have your eyes 'met' anyone's in that 'moment'? I'm not talking about love at first sight here. I'm talking about 'everything' at first sight. You know, you see someone, an absolute stranger in an absolutely strange place and your eyes lock in an absolutely strange way that is so absolutely strange that you don't know what's happening, but something absolutely strange would have happened inside of you. Only for an absolutely strange moment. NOt more, not less. But in that moment, absolutely everything would have happened. You can't figure out what, though.How absolutely strange. Huh? Interesting."

f(axe) pas

The two kids sat glued to the computer screen, settling scores on tomb raider.

Mohit rose a few minutes later, his T-shirt sticking to his back like a wet ice-cream candy wrapper.

"Do you have something to Eat, Giri?"

"We just had dinner an hour ago, you glutton", Giri said, not taking his eyes off the screen and fingers off the keyboard.

"How long are these folks gonna take? And why do they have to go watch movies like 'Shaayad'? Sounds like the director wasn't sure he was gonna make any money out of it."

"Hmmm, but you see, it'll win some stupid award this time."

"Yeah, any movie that isn't any fun is sure to win an award."


********

"Hey, Giri, look at this."

Both the boys watched the window in the opposite apartment. Somebody was hacking someone. The fierce looking man was bringing down the axe with furious precision.

The kids stood transfixed as they saw the murderous mayhem unfold in front of their eyes. They heard a third voice talking in a lower tone. Probably the accomplice, wondering where to bury the body.

A few moments later, a dark figure walked out of the building, carrying a filled sack on his back. It was kind of dark below and the street light wasn't enough to show his face. Still, the boys couldn't believe their eyes. They had just witnessed a horrendous crime. They crouched down low and sat below the window sill. still.

Mohit switched off the lights in the room.

"You don't wanna be killed for having seen that, do you?"

Wise kid.

*********

The police officer laughed. "three murders on three continuous nights? Right in front of your apartment?"

Mohit's father shrugged. "That's what the boys say."

The cop looked at Mohit. "Listen son, this is serious. And we can't just barge into somebody's house just because..."

Giri interrupted. "No, uncle, we mean it." The look on his face, with the sweat on his forehead made the officer think. The kids did look genuinely scared. Well, he had to do what he had to do.

********

The 'axe-murderer' opened the door and looked quite puzzled to see a cop with children. "Yes, officer?"

The cop already felt this was all a big mistake and felt like walking away. The house looked quite normal as if nothing had happened. Just then they heard two men arguing inside. And one was threatening the other with his life.

"What's going on, may I ask?"

"Oh that," The killer laughed. "We're practising for our factory's anniversary celebrations. You see, sir, I used to dabble in theater earlier..."

Mohit and Giri sat, numb and dumb. Quite dumb. The hall filled with laughter as the cop and murderers shared tea and cookies. Mohit swore never to look into a neighboring window again. Giri was silent. Probably thinking the same.

"And the gunny sack? The boys positively saw someone..."

The gunny sack carrier laughed. "That was a coincidence, only that night. After the rehearsal, I had to carry home the bunch of newspapers I'd left here the day before."

More laughter filled the hall. Nobody noticed the boys sneaking out.

************

'love all'

" I've always believed in numbers. In the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, what truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me through physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. And I have made the most important discovery of my career.The most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love, that any logical reasons can be found."

- Prof. John Nash (Nobel prize winner)

A couple of years ago, I watched 'A Beautiful Mind' and this final scene, performed beautifully by Russell Crowe got a lump in my throat. And a few days back, I was again reminded of this timeless line. I've always been a bindaaz guy all my life, right through school to college. But I've also believed in all things logical. If anything defies logic, it probably shouldn't be. But then life never ceases to throw surprises. Just when you thought that this is it, it couldn't be any other way, something or someone comes your way, proving your entire theory wrong in a fraction of a second. And the only thing that can really move mountains, in my opinion, is love. If you assume that love is that which you see in mushy movies, then it's not the love I'm talking about. Love is an unconditional, unfettered connection between you and something that your heart reaches out for. Need not always be the 'man-woman' kind of love. It's a passionate longing for something, that cannot die, no matter what. All these words - faith, understanding, even anger, are different avatars of love. And if you scratch the surface deep enough, you'll realize that almost everything that we boast of today, in terms of progress and technology, has it's roots in this one emotion. Because you cannot move forward unless you have the love for it. You cannot achieve big things in love, unless you start by loving that very thought. And maybe that's why it's a good thing that love isn't measurable. Because anything measurable has a limit. An ending point. But this is the only emotion that is as immense as space. Timeless. Boundless. When my daughter says 'appa, I love you', she's just holding a tiny cup of this emotion in her hand and showing it to me. But when after a hard day's work, she comes running to me and hugs me tight, I'm literally drowned in it. When Anu asks longingly, 'when are you coming home?' I can literally swim in that sentence. When I see the objects of desire that anyone has designed, be it electronic or mechanical, I can picture the love of that designer for the product. In the intricate details of it.

Which brings to my mind another line from the movie 'Contact' where Mathew McConnaughy asks Jodie Foster, a space scientist who believes in logic and maths. 'Do you love your dead father?" She nods her head positively. And then he says, 'prove it'.

*

You know, there's a danger of isolation if you don't blog for an extended period of time. And by isolation, I don't mean from fellow-bloggers; that is a natural consequence, can't be avoided. What I meant by isolation is from one self. Especially if you're so used to penning (err...keying) your thoughts on this space every single day. Then after a while, in true 'writer's block' style, nothing comes out, or nothing feels worthwhile to be really jotted down. Well, I guess it happens. It's been happening. We're known to have those 'blank' days when we can't get any thought of ours together. Even in pre-blogging days it would happen, but then we wouldn't feel it so much because we weren't in the habit of consciously throwing up in our online 'puke-sheet'.

Oh well...

jogging my memory...

I used to be a health freak. Used to be. Ummmm..about 10 - 12 years ago. About 3 years ago, I went from being a 'freak' to 'conscious'. These days, it's turned to 'subconscious'. I better do something about it before it further gets into the health 'unconscious' mode. There was a time when I used to run (not jog, run) for about 8 kilometers every single day, come rain come shine. I was in college and yeah, Anu was already in my life. She wasn't exactly the 'swoon-over-sculpted-romans' kinds, and I never really felt inspired to take care of my fitness to fit the needs of the fairer kinds. I just felt good running. And there was the bicycle. Every other teenager in town used to have the ATBs...And boy what fun! I and another friend used to go to neighboring towns on our ATBs, early mornings.. Pure bliss! I sold the bike a year later. I graduated to much faster beasts: moped, then scooter...but hey, the running continued.

Many years later, I got married. Anu was still not the 'swoon-over-sculpted-romans' kinds, and I continued running. For a year or two. And then it stopped. Like the shower at my place. Just like that. Poof. It came limping back a few months later but then it died on me again. For good.

And what's with this 'I MUST start jogging again from this weekend' thing? I could never come up with an explanation for that one. You want to run, run, don't wait for a weekend. Right? Yeah, right. And I've been so verbal about this weekend thing that even my daughter has begun asking me whether I'd be going jogging on Saturdays. Hmphfh!!

Tomorrow's saturday; hmmmm...

Something's cookin...

Men shouldn't be allowed to shop for vegetables. As far as I'm concerned, my limited knowledge of picking 'good' vegetables is restricted to the dining table, not to the vegetable vendor. Right from my childhood to present day, I've maintained that I have two left hands when it comes to buying veggies. And despite knowing this, my wife has no other go but to send me and everytime I return, I feel like a narc smuggler waiting for the customs official to give his verdict..err...her verdict, in this case. How the hell do you make out how ripe or raw a particular veggie is, or for that matter, how 'cookable' it is? Never could figure it out. Never. If it is down-right rotten or withered, yeah, I can see that, I have that much discretion in me. The trouble is when you've to pick up a veggie that looks ok, looks good and when it lands in the kitchen, it becomes 'unfit' all of a sudden. "It's not good enough." "See? It shouldn't bend here like this." "Oh no, this one's not the right texture." Phew! Choosing a car is much easier. Speaking of which, we return to my first statement here. Because, whenever the wife sends you to buy veggies, chances are you're thinking of that brand new hotwheel you saw in a a magazine recently. Or that sleek looking electronic gizmo that you've been leching at the last century or so, all because you never seem to be having enough money to buy it. How will you, whatever short change you plan to save, goes into buying more veggies. Well, can't blame the poor little things, you've to eat something, right? Else how'll you have enough energy to think about that huge plasma you plan to buy with your retirement money?

Men should concentrate on more important things in life, such as...such as, the grand prix, or the news or...better yet, the stock exchange. But they shouldn't be allowed to buy veggies. Period.

Cover to cover

Ok, back from a loooong weekend. Phew, quite long, thursday on... :) But anyway, my daughter held her own in school, she being the most enthusiastic about it. It felt good. Thanks guys, for the moral support.

Aaand..Ash has tagged me and that's when I realized how bad my reading habits've gotten. I know, I know, you cannot possibly have any kind of excuse for a depleting book collection..not even marriage and familial responsibilities, after all reading is second nature; reading is something that comes out of passion. But sadly, that part of me has slowly taken the back-bench. Sad. There was a time when I used to devor books like idlis..

Anyway, here goes - I don't say this is a perfect projection of the 'book' side of me, but nonetheless...

Total books I own:
Approximately 100...

Last book I bought:
Chicken Soup for the writer's soul

Last book I read:
Shrink Rap

Five books that mean a lot to me:
The millionaire's secrets
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
Inventing Desire
Sherlock holmes (The complete collection)
Chicken Soup for the Writer's soul

A book that’s on its way out of your house as you write this:
Big, Bad City by Ed McBain

Ok, Ash, I've done my bit... :)

Butterflies and all that...

Though I don't exactly remember how it was for me, on the first day of school; (I'd attended play home earlier), but it's all happened so many years ago that trying to remember it, comes back to me like garbled radio signal at times. I do remember a couple of faces I saw when I first sat down on that hard wooden desk. It was pandemonium, that much I remember. Kids wailing their guts out, kids literally dragged into the classroom by their class-teacher. But I remember, I and a boy sat next to each other, smiling every so often and wondering where this whole journey called 'school' would take us. Nervousness and eager curiosity engulfed us that day. My mom tells me I didn't cry or wail. Neither did I get tears in my eyes.

The same thing repeated when they enrolled me into boarding school many years later. Only this time, I did feel a wee bit home-sick because I was thousands of kilometers away from home. But anyway, the first bout of serious home-sickness struck when I returned to school after the holidays. My, you should've seen the glum faces, as if we had been thrashed by the principal or something.

I always remember my parents talking about how much a parent also goes through along with the child on this trip called 'school/college' education. And I remember my mom telling another mom - "first day at school, we parents need all the wishes to remain calm and composed, more than our kids."

It's been a not so rough ride for me though. Like the quiet turning of each page in a book, I managed to reach the last cover and now, the book is back in the shelf.

But tomorrow, I need to take the book out again. And I, like my mom said, need all the wishes to remain calm and composed. So, wish me luck all of you, and I will be good.

My li'l Aayushi starts first day at school tomorrow. I'm all set for the roller-coaster ride again.
:)

"rain rain, don't go away..."

(Pleasant rain outside...this story just kind of sprung up in my head).


It was five in the evening and the one kilometer walk to the library was turning out to be really pleasant. It was then he felt the fat drops of water fall from the sky like these huge marbles being dropped from atop a building. He looked up, squinting his eyes and had to bring his head down the next instant. He found a shelter nearby and started to head for it.

"Hey, let me enjoy this."

His feet stopped. It had been a long time since he got drenched. The last time was when he was a small kid, returning home from school, all drenched. He'd dance and jump with glee, splash through the small puddles in the road. He always loved the rains for that and probably was the
only little Johnny who wished the rain won't go away.

Now he stood on the pavement, as amused onlookers in cars and rushing bikers looked at him. He smiled back and then turned his face to the heavens, enjoying the shower, spreading his hands, trying to take in as much as possible. And for the first time, he felt the need for his beloved to be beside him, enjoying the rain with him. Only trouble was, he didn't have a
beloved. He didn't have anybody in his life. He stood for a second mulling over that fact, as he wiped the drops of water off his face. He'd always wished he met the girl of his dreams on a rainy day like this. He ran his hands through his wavy hair and looked up again, as if reminding God about this small favor.

*******

He had barely got down from the auto when she came running from the building.

"Auto? Bus stand?"

He looked at her. She looked at him. What kind of girl was she? Can't she see he was still sitting inside? He got down and reached for his hip pocket. He could feel the girl brushing his elbow and getting inside.

"Excuse me, I'm not done yet."

She just put her hands up, not saying anything. Some thick skin, he fumed.

He started up the stairs and started planning ahead for the day, going over his schedule once again. And then it hit him. He turned back and ran down the stairs, almost running over a short, stocky old man. He muttered an apology and tore past the front gate on to the main road.

"Shit, I didn't even note the number." And why would he, the auto guy hadn't knocked him down. Well, the girl had, almost. He held his head, thinking fast.

Please, not on a Monday, he prayed the auto would return. But it didn't.

A hand on his shoulder made him turn. Anil.

"What's up?"

"Arre, I left my bag in the auto yaar. Stupid girl, rushed him off."

"Anything important in it? I notice you normally have only your lunch box and novel in that. And why did you take an auto today?"

"That's a long story. Now how do I locate this guy? I had my presentation CD in it. Owl's gonna kill me." Owl was...you know who.

It was as good as gone, they both decided. Both the bag and his promotion.

******

Later that evening. He sat at his computer, staring at the copy of the presentation. If Owl hadn't fallen sick, he would've. Saved by a rat's whiskers. He looked out the window. Dark clouds had loomed up again. He sighed at his narrow shave and nodded. His cell rang.

"Yeah?" It was an unsaved number.

"Uhh..Gautam?"

"Yeah? Who's this?"

"I think I have your bag."

Oh great. Ms. rush hour.

"Yeah, it is mine. If you'd been a little patient this morning, I won't have left it in the auto. Can I come get it?" He still wondered how she got his number.

There was a beat on the other side. He raised his eyebrow. Probably he shouldn't have said that. Oh well.

******

She'd said Coffee day. Here he was. No sign of her though. He could not forget that face in a hurry. She'd insisted on telling him how he looked but he'd had not patience. "I'll recognize you" was all he said, hoping she'd remember him too.

He paced outside impatiently. And then he saw his bag. Inside the cafe. Ah!

But...the girl wasn't her. strange, he thought and stepped inside.

She stood up. "Gautam?"

She was a different girl. "Yeah." He felt awkward. And now he bit his tongue for having said all that to her.

" I thought..."

"Yeah, that was Asha, my sister. She'd left the bag at home and gone. I guess your novel made her pick it up. I'm sorry. I saw your CD in it and thought maybe..."

"Yeah..But it's ok. Thanks." He smiled. How did she get his number?

"I got your number from the business card in your bag."

He wondered, when he'd slipped his business card inside the bag.

******

They walked out a half hour later.

"Can I drop you some place?" He volunteered. That was the most he could do.

"No, it's ok I'll walk."

He looked up.

"It might rain any moment now, are you sure?"

"I love getting wet in the rain." She smiled, looking up longingly. He smiled.

"Hey, me too."

"Really?"

He nodded, smiling. And then it poured. They were drenched in less than a minute. But neither moved. They just looked up, enjoying it. He was actually thanking someone.

untie and die...

You'd think wires and cables have lives of their own. And believe it or not, each time I have to unwind cable of any kind, my mind goes into this weird paranoic loop where I fear that I'll never be able to undo the damn thing and somehow it will end up wrapping itself around me in the process and crush my bones to powder. Ok, that was a little too much..but nonetheless that fear is always lurking at the back of my mind. Especially when I sit in the bus and take out my FM player's headphones. Somehow a knot seems to be sitting there, waiting for me to undo it, like a kid waiting on it's mom to do her shoelaces. And this, despite the fact that I'd have wound the headphone wire carefully and these days, I even retain that plastic bit that holds the whole thing together neatly. Somehow when I untie the reptilian being, there's that knot, smiling at me.

And let's not even start discussing cables behind my computer and music system/tv/dvd player.

TJ Pandu

Something I saw a few days back reminded me of this post...again, from Blurty.

The Bangalore traffic police is now trying a hand at Djing…err..TJing – meaning Traffic Jockeying. As if unruly, rash drivers and other violators weren’t enough to fill their cups of woe, these uniformed guys have to now wield the mike and announce safety rules and other stern warnings over the speaker.

‘Hey you red jeep, go back to the white line!’

‘Don’t drink and drive, it’s dangerous for you life’ etc etc..

And at the end of the day, the cheesed out cop’s voice resembles a worn out gramophone record player drawling out tired numbers. ‘dooooon’t driiiive raaashly…’ well you get my point. But I fail to see their point. Fine, educate the drivers, reach out to the 20th driver in the 4th row behind that huge bus, trying to overtake him from the left..but, who’s listening? And what can the cop do if this guy violates the rules anyway? Refuse to play his favorite song the next time he’s stopping by? Give me a break here!! Bad Traffic manners can be turned to good ones by slapping hefty fees, not lulling them to sleep with ‘friendly’ announcements. Duh!

nuts about it...

I don't mind even if our cricketers miss all the catches in a match, but if I miss one peanut falling out of my hand, then it's akin to sacrilege. I mean, come on, it's a peanut, not just any snack. But interestingly I've observed the same phenomenon all over. Nothing disappoints or frustrates more than a peanut rolling under the couch and you can see the most stoic person, on all fours, looking under the carpet, searching for that one peanut.

Me, myself and my blog...

My previous post on readers' appearances has sprung some more questions and thoughts in my mind. Writing has different meanings for different people. Some write because they like to express their thoughts in words. For others, it's a way of communicating. Some write because they...well, like to write. For peace. As therapy. For recognition (not to be confused with comments on other blogs, am talking about authors, wannabe novelists and others) and fame, for exploiting their talent of the written word and so on...bottomline, writing does wonders to the brain. It oils the brain, it helps us think better, makes us feel better and generally makes us confident. But you know I've known a lot of people in my life-time who're excellent writers but clam up the moment they're asked to talk. They just can't speak in the same lucid manner they write. And I guess that's ok, every coin has two sides. And in some cases they're also extreme introverts, but hey, seat them in front of a keyboard and they'd put Jim Carrey to shame with their flamboyance. A case in point. I used to know this one guy at work, a couple of years ago. Silent, mild...he rarely spoke and the time that we did actually bump into each other, we'd exchange the cursory raise of the eyebrow with a curved line that probably resembled a smile if stretched any further. But that's it. I even had this itchy urge to go up and ask, 'err, excuse me but are you undergoing therapy of some kind to improve your speech?' Nice guy. Around the same time I started blogging and soon got to know a lot of 'em. There was this blogger who was comparatively louder than the rest. His comments were filled with !!!! and @@@ and...well, you get the point. Just out of curiosity I sneaked into his blog one day and there you are - more !!!!s and @@##$$s..and boy was he expressive! Funny, loud and at times, excuse me - a little offensive to my taste. And surprise, surprise. Turns out to be our 'I-wanna-talk-but-my-smile-is-in-the-way' guy from my office. I couldn't 'hyde' my amazement at this jekyl. And you won't believe it if I said this, the next opportunity I got, I asked him about his blogging and he just smiled his acknowledgement nervously and the very next day - hey presto! his blog's gone. Poof! Just like that...

Now I don't mean to put off all those people who want to explore their 'other' side blogging. I mean, to each his/her own and it's only fair that they find their means of doing it. But it makes me think, not to mention feed my brain with another idea for a story, and I wonder at this wonderful machine called the 'human being'.

face-of..?

Do you imagine a face when you reply to comments? Do you visualize one when you read someone's blog? How does the mood of the writer determine one's looks? Or for that matter the general tone of one's writing. Cheeky, funny, 'sing-song' kinds, et. Some people are actually very very different outside of their blogs. They might write a certain way, humorous, serious, whatever...but their real persona in flesh and blood is pretty different. They might write very well but might not be very good speakers. And vice versa...

We all have something in common, as writers. And that is an imaginative mind. And naturally a writer has to visualize a lot. We visualize our characters, we visualize situations, things..

But come to think of it, I never really visualized any of my fellow bloggers.Never really mattered to me. Hmmm, interesting.

Death wish...

Yesterday, I watched Final Destination, a 'horror' movie...well, I won't know if you could call it that. You see it was more about dying than the 'after-death'. :) Know what I mean? Having said that it wasn't also a slasher movie. But there WERE a lot of youngsters dying all over the place. The theme was this - Death happens.No matter what, no matter where. And it's really weird how they die. It seems so...donno, justified? One is ironically killed by an air bag, another almost chokes in a dentist's chair, a third is severed from his respirator, and so on, although strange things do happen in real life, some scenes were a little hard to stomach.

We always discuss dying like it were some joy-ride all of us are gonna take one fine day. Don't know, maybe it might turn out to be just that (in case we fall off that roller-coaster), but it has been a topic that's always intrigued me. What would it really be? I've imagined the different ways in which I could die. I mean, final destination was literally a 'death catalogue' if there ever was one; left me with very few choices after I watched it. But I guess death is the only experience that we won't live to tell about. Hmmm...that brings me to the topic of 'after-death'...maybe some other day.

And the rest(room) is history...

ok, this one is below the belt; literally. We all know that some of the greatest ideas have originated from the errr..you know...the loo. So what is it that this place has? Apart from the fact that this is the only place where you are completely yourself, alone with your thoughts. Your fortress of solitude (if only in thought). And if you keep aside the other 'not-so-mentionable' characteristics of a place like this, the rest-room is actually a great case for study, (pun unintended). There've been many anecdotes written and spoken about this room. The walls of public loos are virtually history books (ok, other books too;geography, biology, language...etc.). And for us of the male species, though it's not so much a private affair, the rest-room has also doubled as a 'conference' room, a conspiracy lobby, and many more. It's really funny when we all congregate in the company rest-room, from the trainee to the MD. It kind of levels us. Standing there in deep thought, looking up, looking down (The really tall guys face many embarrassing moments...so do the really short ones), looking here and there, whistling, talking on the cell, murmuring...

And here's a loo joke that has not spared even the big B himself, you might've heard it:

Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan are waiting for their flight when the former excuses himself and heads to the restroom. A few minutes later, he returns, drenched and smelling like a restroom himself. An aghast and disgusted Jaya asks him, "What happened?!!!" And the sheepish Mr. B says, "Arre everything was ok until the moment I stepped in. Then, one guy spotted me and shouted 'Amitabh Bachchan aaya, Amitabh Bachchan aaya'! And they all turned."

Err...excuse me now...

Tee's the truth...

“Don’t just exist. Live.”

Saw this on a Tantra tee-shirt some time back. It got me thinking. I mean really hard. Until a certain point in time, during our formative years, we live. We really live life. Then begins the vicious cycle of doing something in life. Achieving something. Getting there. And doing what? After getting there I mean. And do we really get there? Cuz any goal is really the starting point for another race. Expectations rise. It’s like that mime show where these guys try to pick a hat but their foot always kicks it first, so they just keep following the hat, never really able to pick it up at all.

We work so hard to earn enough and feed our loved ones, our families. Then once we reach that financial summit, work takes another form. It becomes a journey, a kind of challenge to excel at. Ok, I made the big bucks, I have got all the materialistic comforts. I’ve worked up the ladder. Then you look down. Boy, what a ladder! You’re entire life has gone right by. Whoosh! Like that. And then you take a moment and think, ‘heck I’ve been so busy trying to earn the means by which to live, I’ve ended up just existing.” That’s when you stop existing. And start wearing tee shirts with philosophy printed on both sides.

I could go on rambling, but you see the problem is, I have a document to worry about. See you folks. And remember to wear those tee shirts. You never now, you just might inspire someone to live.

Cinema Paradiso

My love affair with the movies began very early in life; when I was a little boy of about 5 or 6. We used to live in this small colony in Bihar (that’s another story, but don’t you get images of a pan chewing, oily haired guy now. ok?) :) Yeah, we were in Bihar. I was born there (though I'm a south indian native) Anywayz, this colony was our world away from the rest of the Bihar and that was a relief, ‘cause it was a mini India and we were quite different from the average Bihari crowd outside of the colony. Since most of us had educated, well meaning parents, we were brought up with the same values.Our colony had a community club that was a favorite haunt for, among other recreational activities, the movies. The main dining / party hall opened out to a backyard that was almost as huge as a football stadium and this was MY favorite place. Come Saturday evenings, and the place would resemble an open air stadium, with steel chairs (remember, those rusty creaky things that electricians still use to fix things?) lined up neatly in rows and columns. The chairs would be evenly lined up with an aisle between them, just like in a cinema theater. When the chairs filled up (which would be around 7 pm I guess), the projector ‘uncle’ would get to business. He had this old 16 mm projector that went ‘whirrrrrrrr’ throughout the movie and added a rare ‘bioscope’ kinda experience to the whole thing. You could find a couple of rows near him empty, unless of course a young couple wanted the noise as camouflage for ‘THEIR’ movie show. ;) Well, anyways, once the projector uncle was ready, the lights would be turned off in the back porch of the dining hall and the small squarish screen in front of us would be filled with lovely images of movie gods and goddesses in their beautiful and colorful worlds. Ah! Bliss.My initiation to the movies started with the short Laurel and Hardy films, old hindi masala movies which had lots of ‘dhishum dhishum’ in it. Then my father gradually allowed me to tag along for movies like ‘The Guns of Navarone’, ‘Where Eagles dare and westerns like ‘The good bad and the ugly.’ Initially I would wonder why the hell he brought me along to such movies that had lines I could hardly understand and that at the drop of a hat the main hero would feast on the heroine’s mouth like it were a fruit to eat. Ugh! J But the raw action in these movies chilled my spines and I got hooked to them after a while. Most kids would be left at home for such shows, but not my dear ol’ man. He would take me along. I thank him for it now. From then to now, I've come a long way. It’s been more than two and a half decades of movie addiction. I can’t even begin to count on my fingers the number of films I’ve watched. And I’ve watched all sorts of movies – from li’l kiddie cartoon shows, to serious ‘off-beat’ stuff to the main stream masala to the short 50 minute movies that the Europeans are so good at making. Small wonder then that I've penned a screenplay. I was toying with this story for more than 2 years now. I’ll have to start marketing it. Know anyone? :)

filmy funda!!

Maine injection de diya hai, baaki oopar waale ki marzi (God help if the syringe wasn’t sterilized properly)

‘Tumne mujhe maara?’ (Lagtha hai phir se maarna padega)

Kutthe kamine!! (how insulting to the dog)

Purane khandahar ke peeche, paise leke aa jaana (Err, woh toota phoota sulabh shauchalay chalega? Humare shahar mein khandahar nahin hai.)

Is bandook ke saare goli (the whole of 20 bullets in a revolver) tere andar daag doonga

Aise mat karo, tujhe meri kasam (what? Awww no, u uttered THE kasam word? Now I’m chained).

Main aapko kaise yakeen dilaoon ki main hi aapka beta hoon? (birth certificate, remember?)

Ek gaana sunao beti (Lata mangeshkar ke aawaaz mein)

Main..main..main maa banne waali hoon (What?? You realized after 3 months? Whatever happened to..err..u know..that..?)

Main tumhe hospital le jaaoonga tumhe kuch nahin hoga (If he’s still talking with 4 bullets lodged in him, use sachmuch kuch nahi hoga, the bullets are fake don’t worry!)

cold milkshake

'chill dude.'

'Bhaaya, kahe ko use doodh bula rahe ho? kya usko doodh jamaane ke liye kah rahe ho?

'Tch, tch, tch..no man...it's not doodh, it's dude. Get it? D-u-d-e.

'Achcha..ab samjha..lekin yeh doodh hotha kya hai?'

'It's like..um...well...err...something like 'yaar'.

"Oh, achcha..ab samjha. To lekin usko thanda hone ko kaahe kah rahe ho? Woh kya bahut garam ho chuka hai?"

"For chrissakes..no man, it's like sayin' 'aaram se...aish kar...maze kar..'"

''To ee bolo na.. huh! chill. Ka yeh angreji bhi na..tch, tch, tch..Achcha hum chalte hain. tu bhi dahi jama lena. Aaj kal garmi bahut hai. Aur usko khaana mat bhoolna."

''huh?"

Old wine...

The old order changeth, yielding place to the new. This phrase always intrigues me. Even now. It's a universal truth and has to happen. Keeps happening. Whenever I see newcomers in any walk of life gradually gaining experience and then moving on to become old hats in that area, it feels good. I studied in a residential school for five years and now when I look back and compare my first year and final year, the changes I went through, the relationships I built over time, I feel it was all worth it. Every minute of it. The same guys who looked down on me as an outsider, never included me in their gang, are today my close friends, who discuss their problems and lives with me, write emails to me and vice versa. And this whole thing of reminiscing the past, remembering the people I met and grew comfortable with over the years, warms me up from within.

Reminds me of that line from the movie As good as it gets - "Sometimes the people we can't stand, become the people we can't do without".

Que sera sera

Aayu sat in front of the music system, punching buttons.

Anu: What'r you doing, honey?

Aayu: Shhh, don't disturb, this is ATM. I'm taking money.
(All those green and red LED numbers flickering on the console, I guess)

Anu: Really? *smiles at the li'l one's imagination and goes hugs her*

I watched them quietly from the couch.

Some day, my little one will indeed be drawing real money from a real ATM. When she was an infant, I yearned to hear her talk, walk and generally do all that a kid does. Now she talks nine to the dozen, doing things that make my teeth go all tingly with fatherly affection. Tomorrow she'll grow up to be a sensible & beautiful young woman, having her own life to lead, her own responsibilities towards the world at large. *Sigh*, she'll never be my li'l aayu again. One I used to 'see-saw' on my legs, one who used to swing on my arm, one who'd mistake me for a mountain and go climbing right atop my head (no kidding), the one I'd seat on my palms and play 'spring chair' with; one who climbed my tummy middle of the night and slept, clutching me; one who rode on my back, playing 'elfy elfy'; one whose million dollar smile would immediately make all my worries look like chicken-feed.

I think I understand grandparents a whole lot better now.

sweet nothings...

I have a sweet tooth. And back as a kid, the one thing I just loved doing is, taste a sweet when it was still in the production stage. Errr...I mean when my mom was still stirring that pan, with the intoxicating aroma of ghee, cashew and God knows what else, wafting through the whole house and finally reaching my bedroom. For instance, whenever a cake was baked in the house, I was the official licker of that heavenly concoction of egg, butter and sweet baking powder off the vessel. And hell knew no wrath like mine if somebody else would get to it before I did (mostly it used to be my sister). And in other cases, I was the official scraper. Nothing more fulfilling than scraping the last bits of a dish from the bottom. Yummy! These days, when wifey dearest makes a sweet dish, she makes sure I taste it while in production. You see, she is a great cook (and no, that's not why I married her. We fell in love even before I knew her name) :) and loves to cook. She says, it feels great to cook for someone who loves food. As the cliche goes, 'the way to a man's heart..' and all that; and what's the way to a woman's heart? There's no map there. You just start the trek and be lucky if you reach the destination.

*sniff*

Yeah, men do cry watching emotional scenes. Big deal. I've done it as well. But it all depends on the involvement and the authenticity of an enactment. It might've been a samosa-like lump in my throat, almost choking me to death or it might be tears that well up, on the brink of trickling down (Never reached the bawling limit, thankfully). But it's been a while since I watched a really well played out scene, good enough to have me all red-eyed. They don't make that kinda movies anymore, I guess. But there were a few movies which melted me. And believe me, the tears were real and they appeared with surprising speed. Here are a few that did the trick:

Mahanadhi (Tamil, Kamal Hassan)

Color Purple (English, Whoopi Goldberg)

Rainman (English, Dustin Hoffman)

Goodwill hunting (English, Robin Williams) * Yeah, according to me, this guy was the real star of the movie. I"ve blogged about this scene in blurty. Here's the link: http://www.blurty.com/users/phatichar/?skip=21

Ankahi (Hindi, Amol palekar, Deepti Naval) * A small movie, but what performances!

Masoom (The old one...)

Beladingala Baale (Kannada, Ananth Nag)

Lorenzo's Oil (English, NIck nolte). * A lesser known movie, but one helluva story. Moved me to tears. A must see.

There are some more..don't remember now.

Training day

Stuck in a training jam...will be back soon.

shoppers, please stop! And read at your own risk...

Going to work in a bus has its pluses. A few ticklers I see:

"pried rice" (pry 'em open, dissect 'em and then eat 'em)
"chenise nodules"
"ladies blows stiched here" (ouch!)
"puncher work is done here" (ouch again!)
"vegeteranian food avalibel" (wht 'bout pacific?)
"vecles of all types repairee done here"

Why me?

If most of us think 'why me?', I guess it's not only us. But we still ask that question. I guess deep down, being human and all, it's only natural that we want to be in our respective comfort zones.

But on some days (as yesterday), as if Murphy's law weren't enough, a few other such great lawmakers join hands and shower their blessings.

It's like one of my friends had once twisted this famous phrase aptly.

"Bhagwan jab bhi deta hai, thappad maarke deta hai".

How true. How true...But, why me? Oh, why only me?

:(((

pen friend

Years ago, and I mean yeeeears ago, I used to have a pen friend. Of course all of you know what a pen friend is, so I won't waste our time here. But yeah, I was chatting with another friend this morning and we suddenly remembered this person. Now, there's a funny story behind this friendship. I was in the 6th or 7th grade, don't remember which one. At home, we used to subscribe a comic book called Tinkle (again, won't waste time here). And those days, they used to publish a stamp-sized b&w photo of boys and girls who were pen friends and generally wanted their names to be known to other 'wannabe pen friends'. So, well, here was the picture of a grinning boy who struck me as pen-friend material. He liked reading comics, especially Tintin (Oh boy, tintin..evokes some strong childhood memories there. Another post, sometime...). That was enough for me. And the best part was, this guy was from a neighboring city, which I frequented. Ah, we could exchange tintin comics and I could get to read all those tintins and asterixes I'd missed. Yippee! So I shot a card and hey, what do you know, he replied! Many inland letters and postcards later, I finally got to meet him. He was quite like how I'd imagined he would be. It was great. Surprisingly, that was our first and last meeting. But our pen-friendship lasted 2 more years. And then I'd to move down south to a boarding school. Our letters came down in numbers and finally, we faded from each other's existence. I don't know what happened. It happens, I guess...

About 11 years ago, this guy surfaced in my life again, though not in person; only in name. Through a classmate of mine in college. Apparently these two guys were also pen friends and the whole connection was re-established through the mention of Tintin comics. They'd parted ways as well after a year or so of correspondence.

*Sigh*. Those were the days. Was fun, I swear!

I mean, today we have the internet, connecting literally billions across the world. I speak with you guys like we've known each other for years and it's good fun too. It feels nice to belong to a community of people. We write, connect, share feelings; it gets all mushy at times.

Pen friendship just got a step ahead. But it's not the same anymore.

amnoseia

"Can you remember a smell? Can you really really feel the smell in your nostrils and recall it on will? Ever tried it?"

Mush ado about nothing

My friends are always asking, "Why do you mostly write crime/horror stories?"

You know it's really strange, cause I'm such a different guy in real life. I like to crack jokes and generally pun any word that comes my way (I know it's an awful habit; I'm trying, I'm trying).

Well, I HAVE written a couple of other stories, but...yeah well, I like the crime genre. But I also like romantic comedies. As in movies. So I thought, 'why don't I write a romantic shortie for a change?' You know, when it comes to shorties, (I'll tell you why I call a short story that sometime later), I've always been rrreal economical with words. I don't like beating about the mulberry bush a lot. I like to eat the mulberries straight off, without further ado. And it's easy to do that in crime fiction. But romantic shorties are tough to write. But no harm trying. Let's see where this whole thing goes. And oh, if you feel I should go back to crime, just say so, huh?

I Got The Wrong Mail

"Hmm, that's funny." He picked the flat parcel up and turned it in his hand, the frown on his forehead making a 'w'.
The address was indeed misleading and obviously, Mr. postman didn't know there wasn't any 'Shilpa' in his house. But the parcel looked important and he didn't want somebody waiting eternally for it. He bent over the gate to see if the postman was still rummaging in his bag somewhere on the street, but there was no sign of him.

******

'Ding dong!'
An middle-aged person stood in front of him, with 'what-the-heck-do-you-want' written large on his pudgy face.
"Yes?"
"Uh, sir, I believe this parcel is for you. The postman dropped it at my house by mistake. I...I live four houses from here."
The man almost snatched it from his hand and looked at it. Then at him. And then back at the parcel. He raised his eyebrow slightly, as if acknowledging the act and stepped in, closing the door.
So much for playing the samaritan. If Shilpa's father was like this, he wondered how she would be. Hands in the hip pockets, he walked out.

*****

He'd been watching her ever since she walked into the library. "She's cute." And oh, she was headed this way now. She was browsing the english section, her slender fingers flicking the dvds gently. She was humming a tune. He slowly walked toward her and stood beside her, muttering some titles and flicking dvds himself. He could tell she was looking at him, but he didn't turn and continued searching. And then it happened. They reached out for the same title. The usual, 'you first, you first' later, he gave in. She smiled thankfully.
"I'll be returning it tomorrow."
He shrugged, "Oh, that's ok."
She looked at him for a fleeting second and left. Did he notice a naughty knowing smile curling at the corner or was he imagining? But no time for that...Oh no! She was leaving, she was leaving. And he was letting her go. "She gave you a chance to talk and you blew it, you idiot. You should've asked, 'when tomorrow?'"
She was climbing her two wheeler now. "Do something! Run out. Raise your hand. Something." But he stood glued.

*****

She didn't turn up the next day. He rented a dumb flick and walked out of the library.

*****

Nope. Not even the 2nd day. Forget it.

*****

He stood at his window, watching the rain. The steam from the coffee did wonders to his nostrils. He drew in the cool air and sighed loudly. He looked on in silence. Then, the gate opened. He craned his head to see. He couldn't believe his eyes. He gulped his coffee and rushed to the door.
"Hi."
"Uh, hi..."
She folded her umbrella and stood there looking at him, smiling nervously. The water vapour gushed in from behind her.
"Oh..uh, sorry. Come in. Please."
She stepped in, smiling nervously, the video title in her clenched hands. He led her to the living room. They sat down.
"Here," She held out her hand. He took the video title.
"You shouldn't have...I..I'd have picked it up from the store anyways."
"You wanted it bad, I know. You waited two days for it."
Now, wait a minute! How did she know THAT? Was she...? He opened his mouth to ask, but remained silent. "Who the hell wanted the title ?", He wanted to say. He smiled instead.
"Uh..how did you know I lived here?"
"The same way you figured out which house the parcel should go to."
It took him a moment to realize. And they both burst out laughing.
"I watched you from my window. And the parcel which came was a dvd I'd ordered online."
"Ah."
There was a moment of comfortable silence.
"So how come I've never seen you before?" Not that he was an old timer here, having moved into the locality only a year back.
"I was on an assignment abroad." She smiled. Ah, the dimples.
He settled back in the couch. This was going to be a long afternoon.

**********

Just do it...

Rerun of a thought which I posted in blurty long back:

Don’t do it. But if you do, don’t repent it. Don’t do it if you feel no matter what, you will ultimately repent for it. But if you end up repenting not doing it, then first think about the consequences that would have resulted by way of your doing it. Do it if you are absolutely sure that it wouldn’t really harm any body or you and that you might not repent it after a long time, cause time has a way of healing things. But you know deep in your heart that even if you were tempted to do it back then, you resisted doing it. And that’s a good thing. But then again, you might repent not doing it. But now it’s too late. You cannot do it. So bottomline – you wanna do it, do it.

esreveR psycology

Reverse psychology works on kids most times, has worked on my daughter on several occasions, but not always. Lessons learned over the weekend:
Me: Don't eat this one, it's not nice. *making a face* - pthoo, pthoo...yechhh!
Aayushi: why? Appa, why?
Me: It's not nice, uggh..
Aayushi: (looks at the bowl thoughtfully and my heart does a bungee jump. She's gonna eat it now. Yay!!) Give..
Me: No. Not good..not nice...don't eat.
Aayushi: I want to eat. Give.
I hand over the bowl to her and she digs in a spoon or two. My wife enters the room and stands still, looking at us with a curious expectant smile. (Ah, that smile...)
Aayu looks at us both and almost instantly, together we realize the mistake. We were smiling at each other. (Drat!)
She pushes the bowl. "Yeah, appa. Not good - yechhh!! You are right. Not nice. Uh huh..."
So much for reverse pyshology. Duh!

Kahan se kahan tak

Nothing like driving in a drizzle, listening to some great music, huh? The countryside does wonders that not even some drugs could achieve. You know, listening to music while driving is truly therapeutic. I’ve blogged about it in blurty once. I wonder when this beautiful thing was created and by whom. Speaking of which, if you guys’ve seen ‘history of the world’ by Mel Brooks, there’s a hilarious explanation to how this thing called ‘music’ came about. There are these 9 to 10 cavemen standing in a row with one of them their band-leader, or conductor…whatever. Now what this guy does is he…and yeah, all of them are holding rocks over their heads and so is this guy. And this guy drops the rock hard on his feet and cries out in pain. The others follow suit and lo and behold – a symphony, cause each has a different voice in which to yelp or howl in pain. Heh. When I write it here, might sound silly, but you’ve to watch the scene, with their facial expressions and the different pitches in which they let out the howls. But you know, comedy aside, sometimes I do get into those curious trances when I wonder how things really started, and who or what started them. Look around you. You will find a zillion things you won’t give a second thought about, but if you consciously pick ‘em up one after the other, and think of them…

Yeh post kahan se shuru hua aur kahan jaa raha hai, yaar..!

What? can't hear you...

Ever wondered how irritating it would be to have background score in real life? Imagine...

You are...?

The_hitman: Hi, gorgeous!
Rose: Hi
The_hitman: asl?
Rose: You first
The_hitman: male, 35 years
Rose: Oh..
The_hitman: Why? Am I too old for you? *wink*
Rose: NO..no, nothing. forget it.
Rose: So...what do you hit?
The_hitman: Excuse me?
Rose: Your user name...
The_hitman: oh that! :)) Yeah, I am a hitman
Rose: What is that?
The_hitman: You don't know?
Rose: Why would I ask?
The_hitman: Be prepared, you might get scared. But you should not...
Rose: Tell me first.
The_hitman: I do contract killings...
A beat
The_hitman: I told you you'd be scared.
Rose: No
The_hitman: Really?
Rose: Yeah.
The_hitman: wow, I like courageous women.
Rose: lol

A week later...

The_hitman: So, how's it like being in a travel agency?
Rose: Better than being a killer (if you are one, that is) :)
The_hitman: Lol.You know what, you are a nice girl, I'd like to meet you.
Rose: And kill me? ;)
The_hitman: Come on, be serious. Can we meet?
Rose: That depends...
The_hitman: Depends on?
Rose: On one condition. You should tell me all about your profession. I want to know more.
The_hitman: Forget it, it's not for women like you.
Rose: Look, if you want me to meet a hitman, I might as well know more about his profession, no?
The_hitman: Hmm, you have a point. Ok...

The next evening, this time face to face...

Rose (sipping coffee): You don't look like a hitman. (Giggles)
The_hitman: Well, you do look every bit like a travel agency executive.

They smile. An hour later, they're walking down the road, feeling the gentle evening breeze on their faces.
"So what are you really?"
"Huh?"
"Come on, I know when I see men. You cannot be a hitman."
"Is it written on a hitman's face that he's a hitman?" He laughs.
She laughs, but is serious the next moment. "Tell me".
He watches the traffic silently for a minute and sighs.
"Ok, I might as well tell the truth, why fib? I'm a builder."
"You could've told me that straight away, the other day."
"Yeah, I know, I should have."

They walk and talk for another half hour and walk back to the parking lot inside the empty compound. It's late in the night now.
"So being a builder is equally dangerous, hmm?"
He smiles. "It is. But we have to take our risks."
She smiles and nods in agreement.
"Do we get to meet again?" Mr builder asks.
Rose smiles. "I don't think so."
"Why?" He puts on his best smile.
She doesn't answer him. She gets on her bike.
He looks at it for a moment, unsure. "Hmmm, that's quite a ride for a travel agency executive."
"How can you be so sure I'm an executive?" She smiles mysteriously now. In fact he's a little uncomfortable with that smile.
"Yeah, but...you...you told me..." He smiles, but barely manages...

******

The little pea sized hole in his forehead looks like a third eye, written by a cartoonist. She looks around and then down at him.
"Am so sorry we cannot meet again. You were kind of cute. But you know what, I have to take my risks too."
Then she kickstarts the bike to life.

******

Cell, baat karte hain..

The other day I heard two guys talking in the loo. Yeah..I heard, didn't see, heard 'em. They were sitting in adjacent pots and went yak yak yak.."parsing, truncate, trigger..." and on they went. "Programmers. They will talk code anywhere", I thought. But then I paid a little more attention. They were talking into their cells. Because while the first guy was still talking about binaries, the second guy had started talking about some movie.

walk down memory lane

Isn't it heartening to talk about places of childhood, days at school and all our old friends? And what joy when we get the email ID or cell no. of an old chum with whom we used to climb trees and play hide and seek, hmm?

Jacked...

The other day, watching a CD-rom of nursery rhymes, my daughter asked 'but why did jack fall and jill come tumbling?' Apparently, the 'hill' in the CD didn't look very slippery so my li'l one figured they could've as well walked happily back.

Err..any answers?

Well, now...

Am not able to get myself to blog the past couple of days. I hope I'll be back on my fingers the next week. Am pasting this shortie from a past blog. Some of you might've read it, some mightn't. I wrote this at a time when I was on a 'crime-thriller-genre-spree'. My 'Tequila shot' was the first of the series. Not that I've written a great many shorties in this genre, but nonetheless...here goes.

The Mourning

She picked up the receiver on the third ring and was about to say 'hello'. Cross connection. She recognized the male voice, her husband's. The other was a female voice, unknown.
"You'll have to be patient, Priya. See..."
"Don't you priya me. You know I've waited long enough."
A pause.
"4 years, Hemant. Four long years. Isn't that enough?"
Her blood froze as she heard the two voices pulling at each other inside the instrument. Then suddenly she remembered she had to breathe. She cupped the mouth of the receiver and let out a long, shivering sigh and continued listening.
"Ok, enough of all this. When are you going to kill her?"
"Shh, Priya, not on the phone. Please don't talk..."
"ok, ok. but when?"
A long pause. Long enough for her eyes to fill.
"Don't know. I'm very busy these days. Maybe next week."
"You're lying. You can never do it."
"No, Priya..it's just that..."
"You can never do it, Hemant. Admit it."
"No. NO, I can."
"Ok, I will wait. But next thursday...I want to see myself at the mourning."
And the line died.
She had to virtually tear the receiver from her ear and replace it on the cradle. It felt like a dumb-bell.
****
The house was crowded with mourners. Some wept quietly into their handkerchiefs. Some sobbed heavily. Others looked on, gravely. Priya dabbed her bloodshot eyes and sat in a corner, looking shocked. A hand on her shoulder jolted her. She looked up.
"You are here, Priya. Mourning...and it's thursday. I hope your wish is fulfilled now. That's what you wanted, right?"
Priya sniffed and looked on in disbelief as Asha rose and walked slowly toward Hemant's large garlanded photo.

Blank.

Blank. Blank. Blank.

khallas!

Gangster flicks. Modern day cowboy logic. The one to draw first, lives. When I watched Godfather the first time, I was thrilled by the easy killing, the macho dialogue and the blood spurts. It was so easy to deliver justice. Just kill the person and 'poof'. I thought that was the coolest thing to do to someone you disliked. Thankfully there was my father to anchor me firm on ground. I had questions. My dad had answers. But some questions still lingered. Of course most of those were answered as I grew up, watching not just many other gangster movies, but also reading and learning about their lives. If you look at it, it's all got to do with our basic animal instincts. Survival of the fittest. These guys do it raw, direct - eye for an eye style. Others outside the 'underworld' do it differently. They kill souls, lives and even our morales. But there's a strange jungle rule to the way we live. Being humans, it's only natural to build it all around civilization and blame it on upbringing, culture, values etc. But bottomline. Get ahead or get killed. The moral questions about 'rights' and 'wrongs'get blurred in the underworld. There's no such thing as right or wrong. There's only this or that. Live or die. Black and white. Actually life in the underworld is much more clearer about that than in other areas where there are more colors than in a 17 inch plasma color monitor. So much that it stinks after a while, trying to assume colors that put you in a 'good' color, one that appeals.
So am I saying, be a killer? And take an eye for an eye? Well...

wha...?

You know it's funny how kids have this knack of getting back at you with your own words. Never could defend that attack. And they're real quick with it huh? Something like a samurai, up on their feet, thinking, talking and then 'zzzppp'. You won't know what hit you until later. Like that ad were this samurai brings down the blade on a scarf and it's not until it floats gently to the floor that you see it's been actually cut in half.

Phew!

Catch 22 if you can...

You earn more so can take care of your family well which in the modern world mostly comes in exchange for that green, blue, or red (whatever...) paper that gets printed in that mint called RBI, but to earn more you gotta spend a lotta time in that place called office and that means staying away from family and not being there for them but you do want to be with them and take care of them and earn more for them but then if you're not gonna be with them and earn more what are you gonna do and how're you gonna make them more comfortable, buy them things that they like and take them places they dreamed of in this life time?
So, which came first? The chicken or the egg? Whichever you ordered first.
I think I'll go vegetarian soon.

Radio rodeo

I know it's no big deal, but when it happens, it irks me no end. I take out my teeny-weeny FM player, plug the earphones to my ears and am all set, when the person sitting next to me, fishes out a mobile phone and goes 'yak, yak, yak,yak...' as though the conversation was happening in person and they had all the time in the world to decide on the color of the curtains being discussed or whether or not they should meet at the Forum or some other mall in the city to continue their conversation. Hmpf! Meanwhile, the FM guys have been benevolent enough to play that nice number I wait for once in a bluemoon between all those stupid ads (these days, FM is more an advertising station than a music station)...aaaand...'crackle, crackle, hmmmmmm...krrrr...' goes my player, like an irritation mosquito hovering around my ears. The waves from the mobile phone wrestle with its waves, making me wince in between like a referee of the WWF..
Next time somebody brings out an FM player, I must remember to call my friend in Mumbai. Haven't spoken to him in a while and have lots to catch up.

opposites...

When we say we don't have or own something in particular, the opposite holds good. I mean, the moment we don't have it, we have something else that compensates for it. Of course, you can't look too deep, then other complications arise, but more or less it holds good in any situation. It's like, when a physically different (formerly 'challenged') person doesn't have something, he or she has something we don't. It's life's balance, I guess. It all gets evened out in the end. Oh, one of those rants 'o' mine, I guess.. I was thinking about it this morning and realization dawned. Like they say, "in a crowded room, the one who's silent is heard the most". Go figure...
Have a great weekend, folks!

:|

Sometimes, I can't help but feel philosophical. I mean, I know we all have our blues and we do relate to those feelings every so often. Traveling to work this morning, something similar overcame me. A serene flow of just 'feelings'; no thoughts, just feelings.. you couldn't call it a feel good kind of a thing, just neutral, can't explain it. I was totally in peace with myself (if that's the phrase to use, cuz I can't even explain that).

Boom, Dhoom and finally...

Hmmmm, so finally what we'd been only secretly dreaming of, will materialize. Those techies who (cross your heart) sincerely stay back in office coding into the wee hours of the mornings, or those who stay back, chatting and browsing into the wee hours of morning would disagree I'm sure, but the fat pay packets that we get notwithstanding, many of us wish frequently in the middle of a project that the building got blown up or some smart psychopath (smart sycopath???) fancied the daughter of the project manager and decided to kidnap her for a project to be shelved as ransom. Well, whatever and however our individual fantasies might be, we all know that we've dreamed of several ways of letting out steam from our pressurized behinds. And now we have professional help. Just this morning, I had to rub my eyes a few more times than normal when I saw the headline playing with my senses - "LeT planned to attack Bangalore!" The New Delhi super cops've managed to lay their hands on a top secret diary belonging to a terrorist outfit that claims to have targeted 'namma bengalooru' as the next destination for their fire games. How lovely! That being the case, I work in India's silicon valley and though the superficial worry lines on my brow did their politically correct dance, deep down my heart leaped! So, finally I will indeed be freed of this necessary evil called IT and masses like me would scatter around to find a new safer profession, like say running an ISD-STD booth.
I only hope it's all a dream and when I wake up, I find my workplace intact.Remember that fat pay packet I mentioned?

Ab bus...

The good thing about riding in a bus is you rediscover your city. I sat in one today after almost..well, don't even remember the years. And boy, did I enjoy it! Buildings, streets, shops, parks and even the people looked different from that high seat. And the best part was, there was this shop I would always try and watch closely whenever I drove to work - "what brand is that? It's a factory outlet. Lemme just read it once"...err.. oops, a bus came in my way or somebody honked my ears off from behind me and I had to turn my eyes on the road again. Not now; I not only read the brand displayed in the shop, I even noted down the shop timings and contact no. and the % of discount offered, and...well, you get the idea. But that's just a small part of it. There were many more buildings I rediscovered, many landmarks I'd missed earlier. "ohhh, so THAT'S the Diamond plaza my cousin would always ask me to watch out for..". I'd driven right under that board several times, never could actually get around to seeing it.
Now that I know my city better, I'm gonna carry a novel tomorrow. (Human beings are incorrigible, ain't we?)

all that glitters...

I observed something the other day, while watching filmfare awards on the telly, donno if you guys've noticed it as well. The observation was actually at hindsight, when I was watching the Oscars a few days after. In bollywood awards night, most actresses came with minimal makeup. Yeah, some of them who had to be onstage did come decked up. But generally if you looked in the crowd, most were in plain jeans and shirts, with no or little jewellery. And then in contrast, if you watched the Oscars, you could see, whether or not the stars where onstage or off it, they were glittering. And by this I mean, literally. Some were too blinding to watch. Know why? Our heroines wear so much makeup and adornments for their 'item' nos. and screen presence that they prefer to shed it all when they appear in public. The exact opposite happens to their LA counterparts. They play some of the most non-glamorous, realistic roles that when they come in public they come dressed like mannequins (I'm never really sure of the spelling)...I guess they prefer to be recognized for their onscreen talent but like to be highly visible in awards functions. Maybe our gals can take a cue from that. This is changing lately, I think..even our girls are taking on meaningful roles (Read 'songs with more meaning than one').

life, or something like that

Fewer things in life are more comforting than your child's warm smile after a hard day at work. You forget all the headaches and tension the entire day had given you. Walking through the front door as I take my shoes off, my li'l one peeks from behind the door, covers her eyes, playing 'koo' and then shoots to my open arm.
Just thinking about her refreshes me. Ah, bliss!
In the movie 'good will hunting', Robin Williams as the psychology prof tells matt dammon that our little imperfections are the ones that make us special to our loved ones. They are something that only we know and cherish. And that's so true.