W A T E V E R

The thing about life...

2009-06-30T18:52:00.011+05:30

The thing about life is that you keep trying to grasp it but it's always a step or two ahead. It lets you think you are catching up only to sweep it all away in one stroke. It took Deena an amputated leg and twenty years to accept this. He knew the truth in his heart of hearts but he never gave up the hope that someday everything would become good. Of course, some days everything had been good but good things - happy times - had a way of rapidly unravelling for him.

He sat there at the entrance to the waiting room every day, noon and night. The railway station was always busy and the waiting room was always full. He didn't really have anything of importance to do there but a then minister of the state government had winged this job for him. He was greatly thankful to the minister for this, although he was the reason Deena limped around on a single leg.

Day in and day out he checked people's tickets and decided who would be allowed in and who wouldn't. He was the master of the doorway and quite protective about it. If someone ignored his request to examine the ticket, he ensured that the evader got an ear full of his opinion on how civilization was going to the dogs.

Looking at the nose-cringed affluent in the waiting room, he often wondered how his own life would've been if not for that fateful year. He had been a better than average student made it to one of the better known "arts" colleges in his town. Deena emerged one of the finest students in his class during the first year of his bachelor's degree. He had taken up Commerce and aimed to get certified as a CA . The dream of one too many teenager in every town but even his teachers believed that he had the drive to succeed.

One fine rainy evening, on his way back home, he saw this girl at the bus stop. She had a worried look on her face and stood there alone. He stopped to ask her if she needed some help. As she explained that she had missed the last bus home and it was quite a long way off to home, he noticed the way her long braided hair reached her waist and how the droplets shone under the lamp. Prying his eyes away, he offered to wait with her until the rain stopped and take her home on his moped.

Deena had fallen for Priya that first day but he didn't tell her that until after many many chance encounters with her. All his friends in college knew, of course and they him on with their unsolicited advice and their random bantering. When he did decide to tell her, she simply said that she was already engaged to another guy. He was devastated. Now, when he thought back, he saw clearly how he wasn't even that much in love with her but it was a big blow then to his adolescent ego. If he had been that clear-headed then!!

Someone tapped on his shoulder. It was the station master. He was a kind man and brought sweets to him whenever his wife packed them in for his lunch. "Too old for sweets but can't have the missus think that, can I?", he said. Deena and the station master chatted for a while running their eyes over the people huddled inside and sighing at the monotony of it all. As he was leaving, the station master mentioned that "his" minister was scheduled to take a train that evening.

Deena saw Ravi walk down the platform with what seemed like fifty men following him. Every single one of them was dressed in the trade mark white that politicians seemed to favour. That was just to project an image of honesty, Deena thought to himself. Ravi had risen from the same background as Deena but his life had been set on a completely diferent course. He had been a shy kid in school. Deena had been a year older than him and naturally Ravi was not even a speck on his horizon. Even otherwise, Ravi was not on anyone's horizon. He was very frail and was lousy at sports. He was neither a geek nor a cool kid and he was left to his own most of the time.

After school, Ravi had managed to enrol in a college in the nearby city. He was only an average student but his father's network had ensured him a seat in the course of his choice - Literature. Less than a year into his collegiate studies, Ravi had transformed into a very popular student. He was devoted to Tamil literature and could quote from poets known and unknown. His own compositions were well regarded by his peers and his diction showed the makings of a great politician. It was a remarkable thing how Ravi discovered his abilities. He had risen like an eagle and soared through everyone's ken. He became a member of the circle of intellectuals and politics was a natural progression for him.

After being rejected by Priya, Deena had pursued her in vain. He felt humiliated and didn't want his friends to think low of him. He was miffed at Priya's rebuttal of his advances and hounded her like a maniac. Like many a spurned suitor, he tried all the classic formulas he had learnt from watching the movies. He threatened to kill himself and have her blamed her for his suicide. He wrote to her that he would kill her and for good measure, her parents too. He hunkered around her home and at night threw flowers through her window. He wrote letters after letters and got them delivered through his friends and her friends. Nothing convinced Priya. She told him to get lost.

Then one day he followed her on her way back home from the bus stop. He kept begging her to love him back and when she didn't even pretend to have heard his rage knew no bounds. He caught her by her arms and pulled her towards him.

Priya was made of stronger stuff than that. She had been a fiercely independent girl. Her father had died young and she had seen and learnt from the struggles that her mother faced. A lone woman needed grit to survive the world - a world bent on taking advantage of the unfortunate. She had been grateful to Deena for helping her that long past evening and that was the only reason she had tolerated him until then. She would've been good friends with him if he hadn't gotten smitten with her.

She pushed him way and planted a slap on his cheeks. She could see the blood rushing to Deena's face. She saw how anger soared through Deena and his entire body tightened. Deena raised his hand to strike her and that's when both of them heard and noticed Ravi running towards them. Ravi came in between them and pushed Deena away. Deena silently withdrew. As he turned away he noticed Ravi put a protective arm around Priya and they turned and left the place.

That night as he lay in his cot, a group of men had dragged him out of the house. He remembered how the sky had been bright with moonlight and the stars had seemed outshone by the moon. He remembered how he had withdrawn into himself and did not seem to feel the thuds the logs made on his body. Not a sound escaped his mouth until he saw the glint of steel slice through the air. The next moment his heart seemed to explode and his eyes bulged. He could feel a warmth in his left leg and then every nerve in his body screamed in agony. He heard himself shout out a long wail and wondered if blood spurted out of a severed leg or if it flowed like from a normal wound.

He felt a hand settle on his shoulder and he awoke from his revery. He looked up and saw Ravi's smile. They exchanged a few words and Ravi left after putting an envelope into Deena's pocket. Deena knew that it was Ravi's way of penance.

The blogdom

2009-06-15T10:45:00.003+05:30

Most often than not, I have seen bloggers ponder over their respective blog journeys. Wondering how their blogs have seen ups and downs, how for weeks or months together they don't have anything to say and how one day words come gushing out. To me what's fascinating, more than the journey of this blog, is the journeys of blogs that I happened upon and added to my growing list of reads.

Over the years - not that there were that many - I have come across numerous blogs through links and cross links. There have been blogs that were intellectual, bordering on philosophy and examining the world and its ways. There have been those that told stories - stories that kept you asking for more, stories of real people, stories of fictional folks. There have been those that saw the world through the looking glass of humour. There have been the ones that worded out what the blogger saw, how the blogger felt - an open journal laying out interesting questions, delivering possibilities.

The blogs have changed over time. Growing with the authors, is my guess. Their views may remain more or less the same but they have become tempered with experience and exude a richer aroma. Some have changed even more transforming into something that's completely different. Many of the blogs have slowed down considerably. The occasional posts on some of these are still interesting enough to warrant their presence on my RSS feed. Then there are those that have disappeared from blogdom leaving no traces behind. I haven't cleaned out my RSS feed in a long time but I don't see a need to do that.

P.S: Pondering out loud in a without-any-point-really post.

WichCraft

2009-06-10T19:45:00.003+05:30

A group of us ran a sandwich stall at work. It was a for-charity event. Our sandwiches, especially the Corn-N-Mayo, were a big hit. Sadly, the Employee Club imposed price controls after the fiasco by another team yesterday. A lot of folks were unhappy about that event. Two (yes two) potato wedges for 20 bucks was not their greatest idea. Our collections weren't anywhere near what we could've done, because of the price controls but it was totally worth it. We spent almost two non-stop hours in the kitchen, catering to the demand. Totally washed out now but Yay!!

random PJs

2009-06-09T14:20:00.004+05:30

So this friend says something to the effect - "UP was fun" and I go "UP what?" (That's a prelude of things to come).

The friend meant the new Pixar animated movie. That should get to India in a few months as long as the poor-and-need-to-loot-more-people Muxes (he he he) don't land a shouting match with Hollywood. The Muxes apparently lost crores of rupees during their stand-off with film producers. Goes on to show the amount of money they grab out of the GIMC's pockets. 200 bucks to watch a movie that will 80% percent of the time turn out lousy! Thank God for our protectors - the movie reviewers. They help me reject every single movie - "Na, that's said to be a lousy movie." All of that is thrown out the window if someone else is paying for the tickets.

In other news, someone named "Krushnaa Patil" (with the ubiquitous letter-repetition) climbed Mt. Everest. Well done, girl! Our fellow countrymen congratulated her with such gems as -

Why MHtrian going out of MH o climb.

Mt. Everest has also been declared a holy place by someone that calls himself "gg gg". This is as historical as it gets. If only this other poor dude (be warned, queasy tummy) had known that the top of a train was also a sacred place and it could take him to a more sacred place in a matter of seconds.

I have been trying to tweet but never have any interesting ways to answer the question - "What are you doing?" I can't really have people know what I am doing, can I? Or like the real deal, I could go - "I am now typing letters into the twitter box...." Anyway, tweetvalue declared that my twitter account was worth a measly 9$. Anyone wanna buy it off me? Every penny/dollar counts in this recession. (Ha, I used the in-word of the year).

Have you seen Room 401 on vh1? It's frigging awesome. The scariest part, of course, is the host himself. A man as plasticky as that has to be supernatural. I am just kidding. It is a good show. Go watch.

Band Rant

2009-05-29T20:27:00.005+05:30

Bands in India ought to wake up and smell the goddamn coffee. Most bands are musically unaccomplished and have only gimmicks up their collected sleeves - Fake accents to sound cool; Resorting to metal to cover up their inadequacies. I mean metal is energetic and everything but that doesn't mean you don't need tight music to go along. Metal is not just making some loud noises and screaming w/o the musical talent to support it.

Just happened to chance upon a show called "Launchpad" on Channel V (which is a t.v. channel I learned to avoid long ago). The finals featured a band called "Faridkot". They were perhaps the only guys that really did make music from the heart. Whilst the other bands took to gimmicks that showed none of their talents, these lads made music. Sad that they didn't win but what they do is what bands in India should learn to do - make music not sound.

Oh, and TAAQ rock solely cos they do that. They make music.

Kitchen Attempts 2: The chicken redux

2009-05-25T10:18:00.004+05:30

Yeah, yeah. It is the same grilled chicken recipe from the last post but with a brocolli sauce. Yep, you heard it right. I had once before had brocolli sauce at some restaurant and remember it being surprisingly good. Got the recipe from here and it came out decently well. Not as awesome as the restaurant sauce but doable.

The chicken came out better but I couldn't get the outside charred at all and I didn't want to over-grill at the risk of making the chicken too firm. I am still looking for the trick to get the proper brown grilled look.

Maybe I ought to get one of those charcoal compact grills.

/Been looking in vain for mushrooms for more than a week. Where do all the mushrooms go?

Kitchen Attempts: Grilled Chicken Breast with Brown Sauce

2009-05-17T20:02:00.004+05:30

The original recipe was from here. My marinade was Olive Oil, Red wine vinegar, ground pepper, coriander, shallots and a lil bit of mint. Don't ask me why though. :)
The grilled chicken turned out a bit dry. Should have used more oil.

The brown sauce recipe was from here. I tried this first but screwed it up totally. It wasn't even brown. Of course, the second attempt was only ok. At some point during the making, the sauce appeared good and very flavorsome. Then my experimentation took over and it ended up with a bit extra flour. Wasn't a total success but I was cooking for myself. :-D

The side was steamed green beans and brocolli tossed in olive oil and pepper. The brocolli could've been a little more done though.

Happy with the attempt. Probably will attempt this gain next weekend. :-) Practice makes perfect, innit?

grey-haired, balding and muscle-sprained

2009-04-20T11:35:00.003+05:30

To tell you the truth I am not that old. In times before, I would've been a mere few years over the limit. In the current state of the age-psychology I am just a few years away to the magic (and disliked for god-knows-why) number. I know you are not here interested to read this. I know that you most probably inadvertently tumbled in here for no fault of yours. So. Let me get to the point of the post, if it does have one.

I used to play tier- volley-ball in school. I was ok at it, relatively speaking. I was in a proper team and all that (It's a different matter that we didn't win much). Other than volley there was a spot of cricket (aarrghhh, I hate that game) and a bit of badminton, where some trained champs that I had for friends mercilessly smashed my egos to pieces. On a side note, there was one day when, one champ smashed another's awesomely light, all-graphite Yonex racquet that cost a small fortune even then. The owner, surprisingly, held his own and resisted smashing the breaker. Damn it, there I go off-tangent again.

So I used to do some active sporting in school. That vanished once I got into college. For one, the college team was no place for a frail, unaccomplished player like me. I don't remember any active sports/games during those four years. After that, when in my new job, a few of us got together to play weekend volleyball or cricket. That must've lasted for a few months but once again given up on. Beyond this, it was an occasional game during a team outing or such. Until this weekend that is.

Folks in my apartment community have been playing some clubhouse cricket on weekends. Our club-house is supposed to host a badminton court but right now it's just one big four-concrete-walled room. So every Saturday and Sunday a group of anywhere between 3 to 10 people gather around and play some bat and ball. After promising to join them quite a few times (and obviously not waking up before 09:00), I finally delivered on my word. This Saturday I played some no-net badminton for a half-hour. On Sunday played some cricket from 07:00 to 08:00 before totally giving up. I can't bat for someone's life or bowl for mine. Though I was in the zone for a couple of rounds, it soon became apparent that I am just not cut out for cricket. That and I was beat tired too. Thankfully no aches and bruises. I missed the touch-wood incantation and the thanked joy was short-lived. By evening I could feel my muscles pulling up tight and not the good kind of body-building tight. My back was sore, my shoulders were sorer. This is what sudden activity after a long hiatus does to you.

Anyway here I am (on Monday afternoon) boring you to death and still nursing some aches. Nursing them like a bad tumbler of blended whiskey - you don't really like it but you can't dump it. I am hoping that with continued persuasion it all becomes a nice, warming scotch on the rocks.

Quote-unquote Wassup

2009-04-07T12:09:00.005+05:30

So we moved into "our" new apartment. "Our" in air-quotes because every well-wisher reminds us of the air-quotes thanks to ICICI home finance. Remember how Matt LeBlanc used air-quotes in Friends? Hilarious within genuine quotes, I say.

Nope, to be honest, moving into our new apartment did not keep me away from blogging. Weekend mornings are spent making plans for the evening, while waiting for the god-incarnate mason/painter/plumber to turn up and fix up long pending niggles. Of course for the tasks to be long-pending, it is obvious that the god-incarnates don't turn up. Weekend evenings are spent lazing around and disposing off of any plans that were made. I just didn't blog. No reason, no "writer's" block.

Being "our" apartment, we now have the boon (or bane depending on how you look at it) of decorating it however we want. This means weekly ideas and daily vetoes. Let's paint it another colour, says missus. The off-white/cream-whatever makes the house look spacious, says I. Let's do textures, says missus. Watch for cracks and seepage, warns everyone. Let's get a used sedan, says I. "Are you mad?", asks the missus. I just had to slip in the last one :-D

For now on the backburner are the plans of a bicycle for me, a scotterette for wifey and a car for us. On the car front, I am a great admirer of the Nano. No, I wouldn't get it for myself although it's my favourite weapon to frustrate the missus. I am waiting to see how the Nano changes things on the road. There are many theories for and against the Nano. One theory that I hope turns true is that "With a large section of the two-wheelers replaced by the Nano, the average size (length, width) of vehicles on the road will become a little less skewed and ultimately mean better flow of traffic." Ah, for some inkling of road sense in our country!

On the immediate list are the rest of the furniture (I am gonna miss you, space). We've successfully bought and slightly burnt a couch already. It's a nice piece, priced double what I wanted to pay. Snooping around for furniture has brought us in contact with a lot of price ranges and one arrogant old man in FurnitureWala, Koramangala. With his octogenarian glare, the gentleman said - "All our furniture are expensive. Starting at xyz onwards." Holy, mahogany.

Both of us are hooked to "How I met your mother" and "Scrubs". "According to Jim" and "Different Strokes" (yeah that old blue series) are our not-so-bad side orders. Yep, that's what's up! Couch potatoing! And it's fun(tm)!

One small love is all it takes.. in a tired world

2009-03-05T13:41:00.003+05:30

TAAQ's single One Small Love makes it video debut. Watch on youtube. The mp3 is available for free download on their webpage. An inspiring song for the times that we are in now.

TAAQ has been around for 12 years and are one of the most mature and easy bands in India. They don't try to be hep, they don't try gimmicks. They just make music that everyone loves.

Oh rama!

2009-02-09T13:15:00.003+05:30

Bullshit me not! Culture in India is definitely going to the dogs. This was a country where mythological women gave birth to children without "doing that". All it needed was a tear drop or drop of sweat or a bit of light. Look at the country now!! People want to do it for pleasure. Not for procreation (mind you, the one thing that our culture and tradition has excelled in) but for pleasure. How horrendous!

You must stop and admire these xyz-Sene gangs. Not that they wanted to, but they are mostly staunchly celibate. For the cause of the nation and its culture, they have given up one of the most basic of human desires. Except for the occasional groping of the "pub-culture" women, there is no physical intimacy (with the opposite gender) in their lives. Poor, poor souls. Their life is more miserable than the "Big Bang" category of nerds.

You should understand that by declaring a war on Valentine's day, they are also reducing the misery of millions of wannabes (including themselves) who are alone and without "partners". What the heck will these men do if all the girls are already in love with someone else? How will they "fulfill" their own destinies? That just cannot be allowed. And why do we need a special day for showing love? For eons, men in India have been showing their love not just to their wives but to any woman that walks by them. Don't mistake their leering for leechery. They are just showing their love for all humanity.

We must applaud these brave souls and marry them off to their pet goats.

iTunes/iPod tag

2009-01-20T16:03:00.002+05:30

Picked up from Vani. Total timepass. Play your iTunes or iPod in shuffle mode and write down the songs that play under the question. I did skip a few songs that would've gotten me skinned alive by various folks :-)

1.If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say?

Jackass (Green Day)

2.How would you describe yourself?

Heaven Knows (Squeeze)

3.What do you like in a girl?

Californication (RHCP) - ok, that's wicked!

4.How do you feel today?

Doolin-Dalton (The Eagles)

5.What is your life's purpose?

Cheap 'n' Chessy (Carter TUSM)

6.What is your motto?

I Ask of You (Anastacia)

7.What do your friends think of you?

Gypsys (Cher)

8.What do you think of your parents?

If I had $1,000,000 (Barenaked Ladies)

9.What do you think about very often?

Way Down (Tori Amos)

10.What is 2 + 2?

Gin Soaked Boy (Divine Comedy) - he he he

11.What do you think of your best friend?

Duchess (The Stranglers)

12.What do you think of the person you like?

I never dreamed (Lynyrd Skynyrd) - righto!

13.What is your life story?

Children play with Earth (Arrested Development)

14.What do you want to be when you grow up?

Nice Guys Finish Last (Green Day) - yup always a nice guy

15.What do you think of when you see the person you like?

Aao Milo Chalo (Jab we met) - Come meet Go!

16.What will you dance to at your wedding?

Driving Rain (Paul McCartney)

17.What will they play at your funeral?

Have you ever really (Bryan Adams) - whatte!!

18.What is your hobby/interest?

Don't pull out on me yet (TLC)

19.What is your biggest fear?

Chains of Misery (Iron Maiden)

20.What is your biggest secret?

Bringin' on the heartache (Def Leppard)

21.What do you think of your friends?

Smells like teen spirit - right, I think my old, graying friends are still teens in spirit

The Great Indian Water Serial

2008-12-18T12:11:00.004+05:30

I couldn't come up with a humourous title, so please adjust.

It all started the day before yesterday when getting home from work, I was welcomed by a tap that started out well and within nanoseconds began producing some disgusting sounding phhssstss and what not instead of that so-called elixir - water. "Man, looks like someone forgot to fill up the overhead tank" I said to myself (not in the exact words). I walked down to catch hold of our all-in-all guy in the aparment and lo! what do I see? Clustered on the lobby floor were buckets in pink, orange and green and various other storage implements. It was starting to look ugly already. The a-i-a guy confirmed my worst nightmare. The water pump was broken! Of course, nobody knew what the heck was going on. Putting together whatever blabber I could get out of a-i-a and other residents one thing became clear - the pump won't get fixed in a jiffy. Which brought up the question of what to do? Well, it had already been answered by the bucket sammelan. Time to do what grandma was so used to doing not 10 years ago.

Carrying whatever buckets we could get hold of, wifey and I entered the arena. A kind fellow working in the construction site opposite our apartment had agreed to switch on his pump so that we could gather as much water as we could. I saw that some families had recruited a lot of help (relatives, maids, drivers, etc.) and were hoarding up buckets and buckets of water. I knew I wouldn't match any of them. Thankfully a light bulb went off in one of our heads (wifey's in most probability but still). Slogging our way across the road, we managed to fill our washing machine with water and then about four buckets of water. Thanks to wifey's over-ruling of my objection to buying new buckets, we had a couple of them extra.

As I stood waiting for the buckets to fill, I remembered how this used to be an usual occurence at grandma's place. Chennai's metro water ruled the roost then and being the unspoken emperors of everything water, Metro decided when and who should get how much water. Early in the morning or late in the night, one stubby voice hollers "Water" and a hundred different voices from up and down the streets echo the jubilant phrase. The voices are naturally not remembered in the sudden deluge that follows this chant. The army has already been on red alert and in a jiff hundreds of feet stomp out the coming of the king. No buckets, only the multi-hued plastic and metal "kodams"(pots).

I should describe the arrangement a bit. Now, there were two kinds of water taps that Metro provided - one was the community tap that stood revered at most street corners and the other installed in an individual's house. Although the latter was in an individual's house, it was sort of a given thing that they would allow the community to fill up there as well. Yet, the individual claimed ownership of the tap and therefore was its master.

The community taps would've a queue of kodams already waiting for the water. Sometimes they stand there alone like a huge battalion of soldiers. This is where the great battle for water begins. Fingers are pointed, line jumpers are called out. A fierce word duel would break out every single time. There were of course occasions when long standing rivalry egged-on by the enthusiastic crowd becomes a fist fight and much hair pulling. There is one more thing that I ought to mention. Men, being the "superior race", never bothered with such simple things as water. So it was mostly the women and the children that were entrusted with the job of filling water which is why the hair pulling.

At the latter variety of taps, a different situation would arise. The house owners were the controllers and therefore it was their right to fill as much water as they pleased. Every house used to have these "drums" - usually bought from the discarded stock of factories. Don't even ask what those drums could've stored in their original birth. The house-owner took her own sweet time to fill up one or more drums of water. The others had to wait for them to finish.

You must realise that Metro being the lord of all lords had the only say in when the water flow would stop and it was as good as anybody's guess. Hence while the house owner filled up, there would be an anxious crowd waiting for access. After about ten pots, a weak murmur would start among the crowd. People questioning the house-owner's intentions and evilness. After about fifteen pots, the crowd would become restless and a low heckling would start in the background. The house-owner would feign ignorance and continue with their priorities for some more time until someone from the crowd lets out a venomous shout. At this the owner would let drop all pretenses and in an effort to stamp their authority would say - "No water for any of " Thus another fight would break out. This wouldn't usually degrade into a dog-fight cos the house-owner is secure within their fenced out wall. With just about enough time left, some wise-one would console the house-owner and win back their chance to fetch water. In just a few hours time, you would see the house-owner and the hecklers sharing a joke across their gates or more commonly bitch about some other neighbour or even more commonly wondering when the Metro-god would bless them again.

Thus were formed many a bond and many more a lifetime enmity in these tiny little neighbourhoods.

Squeeze

2008-12-10T11:10:00.005+05:30

One of the most common things to happen to the code-churners in software companies is the "squeeze". Don't let your dirty mind wander, Mr. Sander. I talk (write) about that seemingly unimportant but exceedingly irritating phenomenon called squeeze seats. In simple words, you are rendered homeless and are living off the street. That's an exaggeration, of course, but you get my point.

This phenomenon is brought out when the company is expanding (hmm, I wonder when that word will ever come back into vogue) and runs out of locations for its employees. There are more people than the number of "actual" seats on the floor. Someone in their infinite wisdom decided long ago that all cubicles should be sufficiently spaced. Why? Don't ask me. I can only come up with some very weird-but-makes-sense possibilities that I don't want to share. Anyway, what this visionary achieved was that there was sufficient space in every 4-persion cubicle to squeeze in a fifth person. Sometimes even a sixth person.

So there is an eco system within the cubicle that established itself. All the occupants - four humans, sundry lucky bamboos, sometimes a fish or two, mugs, bottles (of water) - are in a state of equilibrium with each other. Routines get established around this ecosystem with the occasional visitor disturbing the peace by grabbing a chair. There are always chairs going missing, chairs getting switched, paper dump boundaries getting crossed, etc but the equilibrium remains. At least on the outside.

Into this eco-system, the admin team introduces a poor dunce who is usually new to the team, project or even the company. To accomodate this new addition, the current masters of the eco-system have to move around their little strewn personalizations. Then comes the power sharing agreements - which electrical socket to plug into and which network port is free. The poor addition begins to settle into his/her seat trying to not let focus wander onto the neighbours' computer screens.

Remember how when you walk down a dark street on a dark night, you get the vague feeling of being watched and of a presence? That's what a squeeze-seat feller goes through. There's always the irksome itch that makes you believe that someone is staring into your screen, that someone is watching every line of code you type or every line of chat that you send. Cross talk between the cubicle pals goes around your shoulder.

Got the idea? Ok! I was that unfortunate one for 3 months at my new workplace and fortunately for me I am out of there (I mean the squeeze seat). Got my own niche now. Ha!! My space, my stuff!

Lights Out!!

2008-11-27T21:37:00.004+05:30

Having to live up to the various sobriquets - Silicon Valley (of India, of course), Hi Tech City, etc., - Bengaluru's dear old traffic police (also known as "mamas") decided it was time to go techie. So we have traffic junction cameras, synchronized greens and many such other. It's an entirely different matter that nobody really understands these things and none definitely care about them. Given the prevelance of illiteracy even amongst the educated, the traffic lights don't serve any purpose. After all, a red could mean anything from anger to hotness to non-veg food but I digress.

As I said, the traffic police is busy installing hi-tech devices to help solve the problem. In all the hoopla, what they miss out on is the fact that most of the traffic lights don't even work properly. Take the HSR BDA Complex junction for example. If you are driving down from Agara junction towards Silk Board, you actually have to cross this signal under a red. Yes, that's true. This particular traffic light hasn't been working for weeks now, so the road-user is left to ensure that the other directions are red and then assume that s/he is good to go. Excellent road signal training it becomes for the road romeos.

A month before it was the Iblur junction signal that wasn't working for weeks. Thankfully, someone had the brains to fix it up. How difficult is it to track and maintain traffic lights? Must be awfully tough as no one seems to do it.

Then there are times when the traffic policeman takes over signalling without switching off the traffic lights. This doesn't happen too often but when it does it adds to the confusion.

One of the main segment that is conveniently ignored by our road makers and police is the pedestrian crowd. The pedestrian lights almost never work and even if they do, the traffic marshall himself ignores it and goads the vehicles to move under a red. On a regular morning visit Silk Board junction to see what difficulty the pedestrians face. There are tens of pedestrians zigging and zagging their way amidst moving vehicles. Of course, the speeding cars don't ever slow down adding to the risk that you have to take to get across a road. Busy building multi-year, multi-hundred-crore flyovers, elevated roads and grade separators, the authorities don't have the time and the inclination to put up some very basic foot bridges for the pedestrians. I would especially like it if they could build sub-ways for pedestrians but I guess that's asking for too much of our incompetent BBMP and others.

Now that's an example

2008-11-26T11:02:00.004+05:30

After failing to understand why the American firms wouldn't agree to cut compensations scales for its senior executives, I read about 3 former board-members of the Swiss UBS decided to forego part of the compensation due to them. It's absurd that the American companies, currently begging the Fed for money, still want to keep their bonus payments and compensation intact.

I mean, come on!! People are being fired to cut costs and these head-honchos continue to get paid a lot more than they deserve. Why fire people? Why not cut costs by chopping off salaries across board - starting with the chief executives?

And then there was what-should-have-been-but-was-not- embarrassing episode of the Big Three heads flying down to Washingtion in individual private jets to ask the government for money. Oh, yes, they did promise that they were looking at ways to cut costs in their respective companies. Yeah, right!

HIMYM

2008-11-24T13:42:00.002+05:30

"How I met your mother" on STAR World. Watch it!!

I am a fan of that ubiquitous sitcom - "Friends". Yeah, call me lame but I did like that. Now, once I got hooked on to HIMYM, it's move over "Friends" I've had enough of your re-runs. Agreed, HIMYM has almost the same ingredients - 5 friends and a bar (yeah, this is a grown-up version) but it's quite good all the same.

Trilogies and such

2008-10-14T15:11:00.003+05:30

I once read a seven book series called The Dark Tower and well, I liked it. Ofcourse being one of Stephen King's Constant Readers, I might have been biased towards the books. In my opinion, he did manage to keep you hooked and not unnecessarily.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to write a series of books now. What ever happened to the good old single volume novels? To me, it is nothing but a money making tactic. They know that once you start reading a story, it is not very easy to resist wanting to know how it all ends (if it ends, that is). And I always believed writing was art to the authors. Ah, just like Linus thought Miss Othmar would never accept money for teaching.

It hit me when I finished with book 3 of the Inheritance series. I had always assumed that it was a trilogy and spent a truckload of money on the books. And then I turn to the last page and there in bold letters, Paolini tells me that I will have to fork more moolah to know what the heck happens. Damn it, I was not even remotely interested in dragons and dungeons in the first place. "Why did you even bother with 3 books?", you ask? No comments!

Let me first apologise. Sorry LOTR fans. I am sure LOTR is the best magnum opus that has ever been written, typed or just read out. I am sure the history of Upper Earth, Middle Earth and Side Middle Earth (sorry, I just had to use that) is excellent reading material. Not for me though. I haven't been able to get through even the first book. Now, Hobbit. That was a fun read. Short (qualifies for a pun?) and to the point.

And then I learnt that The Hitchhiker's guide.. is now a six book series. Holy Magrathea!!

Let me apologise again. This time to my dear, dear better-half. Stephenie Meyer writes a four book series. Hold on. A four book "romantic" novel series. Of course, it is no ordinary romance. It's the love of a vampire for a mortal woman. But four books for that???

Ah ha, now I know what a Constant Reader means. I fell into the same pit long ago, didn't I? No offence, King!

For the love of god, authors. Price that one book twice or thrice its worth, but please spare your loving readers the agony of the wait and the horror of wading through some many million words. Verbal diarrhoea *is* a disease.

P.S: Flames will be left to burn untended!!

EnviroThinking

2008-09-30T11:10:00.006+05:30

Some things that I ponder about.

The glass-and-metal mammoths that are our IT campuses seem to use so much of energy. All lighting is electrical and that must eat away a lot of power. Why aren't companies and architects making conscious effort to use natural lighting to the maximum? Why does it all have to be flourescents?

Look at any board room or conference room. There are always some lights that cannot be switched off at all. Why? What's the need for that?

Why is it that a single switch very often controls a large bank of lights? Why can't the control be more granular? Is it that inconvenient to toggle a switch? Why not have the switches within each cubicle so I can switch on the one light bulb that I will need? The same applies to plug points. Why can't each switch control exactly one point?

Why can't the switches and the plug points be above the table or work area? Most times it's tucked underneath. If it were more conveniently placed, more people will take the effort to switch off completely.

There are lots of such simple things that could be done. All of the corporates speak about social responsibility and environmental awareness, but I am yet to see one corporate that puts any effort into even these small things. Can't the govt or the development authority recommend and enforce such requirements?

Why can't these large campuses have some trees planted around them? Landscaping doesn't have to be just grass. Trees even serve as a shade for the occupants when they want to stretch their legs or have a quick smoke.

------------------

What's the bit I can do to help the environmental causes that are being battled for around the world?

1) I consciously use the shower less. Yes, a shower is a shower and so I haven't given it up entirely. What I do is that I shower a bit and then use the bucket-and-mug technique to complete my bath.

2) I consciously avoid using the paper hand towels and instead rely on the good old handkerchief to dry my hands.

3) I try and switch off anything that isn't required. I walk around the house turning off lights and fans. I monitor the geyser to switch it off as soon as possible. I switch off all unused electrical points at night.

More on the carnage in the US

2008-09-30T11:00:00.003+05:30

Read how the CEO of Wachovia (the latest one to fall - as of now) had a very positive message to the investors only 2 weeks before it had to get bought up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/business/30sorkin.html?ref=business

This is the kind of ridiculous stuff that has put the whole financial jungle on the spot.

The bail-out has been rejected albeit temporarily. That should remind the Fed, the Treasury and Mr. Bush that they shouldn't rush in when dealing with so much of the taxpayer's money. Wall Street's reaction to the rejection should help push the proposal through the next time it gets tabled.

It's surprising that nobody wants to question the managements on how they screwed up so big and what they intend to do to prevent this from happening. All they want to do is give them more money. Bah!! I know nothing about business, but that sounds outright idiocy in my view.

Going broke is good for your bank balance

2008-09-23T09:38:00.003+05:30

I know - weird title. However that's what I think looking at what's going on in the U.S of the A. These shrewd investment bankers went all out to make money in every which way they could. Alas, they were shrewd but stupid at the same time. Giving out bad loans, buying out bad investments. They did everything that got them a fat paycheck and hefty bank balances. Now, when they get hit and are just about beginning to learn a well-deserved lesson the Treasury offers to pump in more money to keep them afloat. I mean what the heck. There are thousands of the common folks left with their investments lying in the drain. Their savings have been shaved off directly or indirectly by the tactics that these big firms unleashed on the markets. Yet, it is their tax dollars that is being used to bail out the villains of the story.

Maybe, I understand it wrong but it sounds like outright dumbness to me. $700 billion!!! That's a huge number of tax-payer dollars and the Treasury wants to just hand it over to these witless suits and in return for what? Bad investments? Lots and lots of them. The Treasury's claim is that once the conditions improve these investments (bad now, better later?) will bring in good returns. The catch, however, is that nobody knows exactly what these investments are worth. Yeah, that's right. Just read the articles on the web on this and you will know how confusing it is with so many under-writings, mortgages and . You will need an MBA just to understand these terms. All this complexity was put in there by these financial "institutions" to inflate their networth and their bank balances. In the end, an investment worth $1 was now valued at many many times that and these biggies refused to acnowledge their true values even when they were faced with the reality that the market was in a mess.

In effect, all the big suits can relax in their beach houses that get saved by the bailouts. They will probably buy up some more villas in a small, green island and retire with their riches.

What happens to the common man? Nothing good! He will lose his home, he will have to pay more for loans and he will end up in shambles. When has the world ever cared about the common man except when asking for his dollars.

I agree that by financing some biggie corporate there are some indirect goodness that comes out of it. Take, for example, the Karnataka govt offering land to the Tatas. Yes, it will generate more jobs and help better the economy in general. But will it be worth the 1000 acres of land that will be grabbed from the same common man? Nobody knows and nobody ever cares. So long as their banks are brimming over with money the "government" never cares.

What the hell??

2008-09-07T08:57:00.003+05:30

http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/07/stories/2008090753710600.htm
Interacting with other communities is immoral say these wretched idiots. Who the hell are these organizations - Bajrang Dal, VHP, "Social" Action Committee? Earlier such asses used to target men and women who were in a relationship. Now, they are targetting people that have friends of another community. Isn't there a law in this land to fry their asses? The police says resistance to such incidents should come from within the people. WTF? Why are you on the government's payroll?

The Daily Commute

2008-08-29T11:03:00.006+05:30

Sounds like a newspaper, doesn't it? Bright Light Flash - why not start a magazine/daily/monthly on the daily commute? Hmmm, interesting! I can get people to contribute extra-ordinary stories about their routine route to work and/or back home. Har har har!! And once it is mega successful sell of the thing to some dudes for a million or so of change. Man, I have the secret formula to becoming a millionaire. You, tata n birla boys, watch out. Hmm, that brings up the story of the Birlas. Once upon a time, Tata-Birla == mega rich. There was even a movie by that name. Actually, there are more than one movies. TB in tamil, Tata Birla Madhyalo Laila. Now the Birlas seem to be rebuilding themselves?! Ambanis has come to replace Tata-Birla. That's a good thing though cos Tata-Birla needs a bit of tongue rolling to say out loud.

Get back to the point you say? Will do, saar. The point is I was planning to write about my commute to work and the wandered off. In fact, I intended to post about a few particular commutes where I *had* to wander off.

Having moved into a new job, I lost the luxury of the spectacular BMTC (on hire, mind it) journey to office. It wasn't even one of those rickety contraptions that BMTC still runs. This bus was pretty comfy except for the narrow seats and the fact that driver's job description did not include slowing down for speed-breakers. Anyway, now I am back onto the old steed - my shiny, old motorcycle. A little while back I would've said bike but with a lot of B'Lore juntaa moving onto the other bike (cycle to you and me) that would be very confusing.

As you must already know and as proved by scientific research done by researchers - ! who else?) - rain alters human behaviour. This applies in particular to those humans that have access to and drive a motorised vehicle. The result is that if there has been the littlest bit of rain shower, the average Bangalorean turns into the mythical confused deer in front of headlights. Thus you are assured that traffic would be completely missed, if it rained the previous night. Now imagine the chaos if it rained *heavily* the previous night. Got the picture? Yeah, traffic has been at a stand still on the outer ring road the last four days.

The first day I stayed on the road and spent one whole hour fuming under the helmet. I wasn't in a hurry and the iPod was plugged in so it was slightly bearable. I watched a no. of my brethern going off the road and taking to a trail that ran alongside. "Buggers", I thought to myself. Now I am a off-road fanboy. I don't mean extreme off-roading but ever since I decided to ride my Hero Ranger over fallen lamp-poles, etc. slight-off-roading has held a strange fascination for me. Yet, I decided to stick to the tar and wait it out.

The next day I thought "To hell" to myself and jumped ship. I sped onto the trail with a gusto. It was definitely fun. The trail was just wide enough for one bike and had enough twists and dips to keep the fun alive. No near-misses. Touch wood! Everything intact except for the muck covered shoes. Been doing it for 3 days and the fun never runs out.

Yes, that's all. What else did you expect? An autobiography of the off-road commuter? Sheesh, get back to your routine now.

Be afraid, very afraid

2008-08-26T09:49:00.001+05:30

I post after so long and this has to be a crib-post. Sad state of affairs.

If you ever spot a Silver Hyundai Getz with registration plate KA 05 NC 65 (see pic below), please please move over, stop your bike and let the devil pass on. From my best guess, she drives from Bellandur (Ecospace in all possibility) and goes past Silk Board.

This cleopatra has the delusion that the road belongs to her and she cut me off twice - not once, twice - on the same day. The first time she swerved into the leftmost lane, where she had no business, *after* tail-gating a truck in the middle lane.

I have the choicest expletives reserved for her but out of self-control reserve them. Yeah, I was fuming on the road yesterday and just about contained my road-rage. Please give her my best wishes if you spot her on the road. The way she drives she'll be in jail for killing someone.

"I can't resist"

2008-05-30T16:59:00.004+05:30

What's with this need to act upon those weird requests that come in your email, wall, scrapbook and other versions of the pigeon? Why would you even believe that a "hot" girl has added you to a crush list? Even when you are of the feminine gender? Is it curiosity or is it just that abundance of time that is on our hands?

Everytime I login to Orkut (which is once in a month or more), the only message I see is something that reads "blah.. blah.. copy and paste this definitely suspicious looking javascript into your browser window. You will become a prince or princess (as the case maybe) overnight... blah blah blah." What does that tell you? Other than the fact that I am a loser with nobody bothering to scrap me! Let's leave my social (-networking) life aside for a while and examine this "I can't resist" phenomenon.

Either there is some kind of magic that is put into these silly messages that make us want to do it (like a sort of hypnosis) or we are dumb. As I am holier-than-thou, I believe it is the latter. This is where that popular theory that "education dumbs people down" plays out well. It is well educated, mostly computer savvy (sometimes computer science experts) people that fall for the stupid trick. It is a trick, if you haven't realized that yet. A trick that usually floods everyone in your buddy list with some stupid message.

Eating Out @ Mpls - Part 3

2008-05-19T23:11:00.000+05:30

Another draft from very long ago....

Continued

I have nothing better to do in the evenings so every evening I open up opentable.com and read through the list of restaurants in Downtown Minneapolis and visit them one a day. Let me list down the restaurants I have been too and what I thought of them.. I hope to update the list as the days go along. :)

15. King & I Thai

Excellent food! The flavours are perfect, the smells are just right. This is one place you must try if you like Thai/Oriental food. Be warned though - the portions are *huge*. The hostess warned me away from ordering soup and a main course. She said that the soup is large and the main course is larger. Thank god for that timely advice. Ordering just the entree, I had more than enough to eat and a lot more left to box. :( I wish they did smaller portions.

I tried the curry of the day - which was a green curry made with beans, carrots and potato strips. You can choose the meat/seafood that goes into the curry. I chose the Walleye fillet. The curry is served with white rice. The curry was flavoursome. It was a bit spicy but not overwhelmingly so. Of course, you can ask for the Thai red hot if you are spice-inclined but I am sure you will perhaps resent doing that :).

If you have a healthy appetite or if you can share a plate with someone, then head to the King & I. It's one of the best Thai food I have ever tasted. I will probably visit again but the quantity of food puts me off a little.

16. Chamber's Kitchen

The dining area is very well designed with a glass window that lets you look into the kitchen. The restaurant is popular and the noise level stands testimony to it. The food is asian inspired with a surprising and well-balanced. The food is well designed too. The coconut chicken soup was lip-smacking delicious. You will want to slurp the last drop off the bowl. For the entree, I ordered the duck in a tamarind and pear sauce. The tangy-and-sweet sauce enhanced the juiciness of the duck slices. The white chocolate pavlova was teeny-weeny and left me yearning for more of the heavenly chocolate.

The food is yummy and the ambience classy and informal at the same time.

The only gripe I have about the restaurant is the dinnerware. They awkwardly shaped with all of them sporting a deep center - even the ones that entree is served on. Eating out of them is a test of patience.

17. The Newsroom

The restaurant's decor is inspired by the news. The wallpaper is composed of large prints of newspaper sections. You have newsprint from the yesteryears to recent years looking down at you. Well actually you look up at them. My first impression was not very pleasant. The maitre d' of the moment was rude and that overshadowed the politeness of the rest of the staff.

The seared tuna that I ordered was served nicoise-style and was good. The tiramisu was not great and I think it was served toppled on its side.

18. Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant

Alright, I didn't have a proper dinner at Dakota. Frankly, you don't go to a jazz club for food. The short eat I ordered - fish trio - was a surprise. It tasted very good. If you like jazz or just want to chill to some live music, head to the Dakota. The acoustics of the place is great and the North Coast, who played that particular day, put up a great performance. The pianist/keyboardist was fast and brilliant. The trumpet and the sax, played by the lead man, was awesome. If the fish trio is anything to go by, the food in Dakota must be fabulous too.

19. Nami Sushi & Bar

Imagine awesome sushi (honestly I am not an expert to differentiate between sushi) in a chic, warm and uncluttered ambience. That's Nami. The setting's really good as opposed to the slightly cramped environs of Origami. The sushi chefs and the waiters are very friendly and put you at ease. Nami has a pretty large, spacious sushi bar with lots of space around it. Nami also features a huge dining area with well-spaced out tables.

The sushi is very good too. All the regulars are on the menu with some special rolls. The pineapple that is served at the end features a very nice sauce.

In Other News

2008-05-19T18:38:00.004+05:30

What's hot on everyone's lips and spewing smoke? Not ciggies, dudes. I am talking about that talking point that everyone is talking about when they find the need to be talking. (Note to self: Don't go overboard!!)

Well, ok, yeah. I am talking about the proposed apocalypto (that's what I am told it is) that was all set to open a no. of times in the past month. The Bengaluru Intl Airport is finally (hmmm, are you sure?) gonna open on the 23rd. (Actually it shouldn't be called the Bengaluru Intl Airport. It's more like the Miles-out-of-Bangy airport)

People have been cribbing left, right, center and through their nose. What? 2+ hours through hellish traffic to catch a plane that has a 50 minute air time? What? You expect me to pay extra for going through all this hell? Brilliant business model, you got going there dudes!!

Seriously, though, I don't mind that the airport is so far away. In kilometer terms. I don't mind that it is so far away. In hour terms. Of course, there are the bird brains that have been proposing a helicopter service from the city to the airport! What gives? Another 2000 bucks on top of all that crap.

That brings me to this. What the fish do these airline companies think of themselves. 99 bucks only for your flight ticket, sir!! Ah, but then we need to charge you this Fuel Surcharge of 1.5 K. How else do you expect us to pay for the fuel sir? Put that on the airfare, you cheating nincompoops.

Back to the airport then. As I said I don't mind that it's 40 kms out of town, but you shouldn't make travellers travel for 2 hours, then get through 3 hours of check-in+security check+waiting time, then travel in those lousy seats for hours and hours. Geez!! Couldn't you have done something about connectivity during all this time you spent building one (yes your read it right. ONE!!) runway?

Move forward a year and what do you hear. "Hello folks. This is your First Officer speaking. Due to congestion in Bengaluru, landing will be delayed by 2 hours time. Keep yourself amused. We will very soon recycle those dumbwit movies that you are watching.."

Ok, my mandatory BIAL rant is done. Now I will go and crib about to the first person that I will meet. BTW, if you are on that inaugural Indian flight to Singapore, expect some goodies. Especially if you can get to the airport before anyone else does! You just might find yourself splashed as front page news.. Awwww, no, I didn't mean you would get killed by a bird-hit.

Turns

2008-05-17T20:44:00.001+05:30

This has been a draft for a year now.. :-/
(inspired)

A spring's dream
to push back the cold
envelope that shrouds
the ragged man. his rags
don't hold
the slivers of heat.
Burning paper
in the drum. Shivering
against the gates
to a warm day, sunny
and bright. A fresh
paint brush stroke,
a canvas in a rich man's
home. Spring will clean
the air of damp lethargy -
a task of feat,
when winter clings
like a rascal kid.
Spring will cajole
life to step out.
Birthed from the womb,
A winter later.

Around Bangalore

2008-05-14T12:11:00.006+05:30

After a long time, I got to do a short but fun trip on my motorcycle. Without any confirmed plans 5 bikes and seven people met up on Bannerghatta road. We road down bannerghatta road and somewhere just before reaching the park, we turned into some untarred roads. We headed down looking for a waterwall (Swarnamukhi), but didn't find it. Instead, there was a neat water body (lake?) that we found. After some time spent there, we found our way to Horahalli on Kanakapura Road.

A short ride and breakfast later, the gang crept back to Horahalli and took some very scenic country roads to Thalli in Tamil Nadu. The roads were brilliant. Narrow, winding roads with greenery everywhere. On the way, we also discovered a reservoir whose name we don't know. :) After Thalli, we headed to Hosur and wound back towards Bangalore on the infamous Hosur Road. Lunch was at a place near Electronics City.

We must ridden for about 150 kms in total. Short but a welcome ride.Some pictures here.

Update

2008-05-06T09:57:00.003+05:30

Long time, no see..

Bangalore is swelteringly hot. Swirling in and out of the mid to high 30 deg Celsius', it's hot. Ah, I am not comparing it with Meerut where I went a week back to experience the 45's with the added wrath of really hot and very dusty winds. Not with Chennai, where the highs are now in mid 40's. I have promised my parents that the next time they will get to see my in chennai will only be after the summer simmers down.

Looks like Bangalore will see a profusion of air-conditioners by next summer adding more CFC's to the already polluted air. Step out during the day and you will feel the skin burning right off, which is why I am closeted in the house with the missus during the weekends. Thank heavens for the teeny-weeny rains last week, the nights aren't too bad.

The jacarandas have come and gone. Now, it's the gulmohar's time. Lots and lots of the cheery red flowers all over the place.

The BMTC volvos, the saviour of many a frustrated (ofcourse, well-off) road warrior, have now started spewing out smoke. I have seen at least three different examples of that. Looks like BMTC is not very enthusiastic about maintaining those red ones well.

Traffic snarls are still the talk of the town, although in the last few weeks I have noticed that my commute to the office, which by the way is now far enough to dissaude me from using the bike, has come down by about 5-10 minutes. Oh, so you think 5 minutes is nothing?! The outer ring road needs one of those magic-box crossings that the BBMP has been implementing. There are so many snarled-up junctions on this road that despite the 3 lanes, travelling is no easier.

Why can't we put down some of those automatic spikes inside of the traffic stop markers. These can be raised when the signal turns red. So if any moron tries to jump the signal, he will have a flat tyre to parade as his trophy. Interesting idea?

Tagged

2008-04-08T22:40:00.002+05:30

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER:

Race - Good twists, could've been better.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?

"Jeeves Omnibus 2 & 5" - P.G. Wodehouse, The Best of Roald Dahl

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?

Scrabble

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?

None. :-/ Used to be The Week.

5. FAVORITE SMELLS?

petrichor (thanks VJ for the enlightenment)
camphor, fresh paint, lemon

6. FAVORITE SOUND?

early mornings in a hill-station.
sound of waves

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?

helplessness

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE

how many vessels are out to wash today? :-)

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?

None

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?

hmmmm....

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D...?

buy a house in the hills (or on the sea-side) and a motorcycle and travel around India and the world.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST?

hmm.... not very.

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?

nope :) I get stuffed with food sometimes.

14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?

scary cool!!

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?

the first car I ever drove was a big white ambassador which I promptly drove up the kerb and knocked the bumper off. my friend (it was his dad's car) was cool enough to take the blame.

16. FAVORITE DRINK?

Tea!!!

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD....."

relax with a book

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?

Yes, contrary to popular belief broccoli does not taste yucky. it does not have any taste at all and I love it.

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?

White!!

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.

Chennai, Cuddalore, Bangalore

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?

Used to be F1, sometimes basketball. Not Cricket!

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.

is that there are lots and lots of nice things about her. like that infectious smile, that bright talk and more..

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?

used clothes, belts, pens, clips, etc. etc. etc.

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?

:D that question is too spacey to answer. questions of the existential nature are already crowding me.

25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL?

Morning person. hate staying up late.

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?

sunny side up

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?

under a tree or my now-unused bean bag

28. FAVORITE PIE?

apple pie. definitely not mincemeat pie

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?

none.. my teeth are too sensitive to the cold

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?

anyone wants to pick up the tag?

God!! For some peace!!

2007-12-13T09:36:00.000+05:30

I was tricked into watching the movie that I had already been dreading. The movie that features the young, super six-packed porn star in a miner's hat.. Om Shanti Om. OK? Agreed, I have never been able to comprehend what the starry-eyed women saw in Mr. Khan. He reminds me of Ben Stiller's hilariously depicted character in Zoolander, especially the one "Look" part. In an eerie similarity to Derek Z, Mr. Khan has only one "Expression", one "Patented Laugh" and one "Patented Arms-Widened-Palms-Upward Pose". Enough said about Mr. Khan. I didn't expect much out of him in the movie anyway and so he is cleared of any guilt in making the movie an unbearable torture.

Welcome Ms. Farah Khan. Oak-aged choreographer who should have stuck to her calling. She has managed to create, with god-knows-how-many crores, the perfect tool to torture our poor souls. The movie definitely has an identity-crisis. I don't think the maker, herself, could decide whether the movie was a spoof or serious or paranormal or plain-old stupid. Most of the movie should have been a five or ten minute sketch. Unfortunately the director decided that a sketch should be over a torturous 3 hours long.

During brief periods of time, the movie moves away from its spoofiness towards overt melodrama. The scenes are so well(over?) dramatised that I was laughing myself off the seat. If these segments were also designed to be spoofs that didn't register in my humour retarded brain.

All in all, this was a movie that left me groaning throughout.. Absurd storyline, pathetic characterizations, muddled sequences, unnecessary songs and a ghost to boot!! A true to the core Bollywood movie. Did I hear it mentioned somewhere this was an "industry" movie?

I could've caught some shut eye if not for the blaring music that seemed to be an integral part of the movie.

Ms. Khan, please don't make another movie!!!

howdy do?

2007-12-10T14:09:00.001+05:30

How often have you been asked "How are you?" or one of its two hundred and ninety-five million sibling queries starting from "wassa?" to Joey's "How you doing?" ? It is an accepted form of greeting and almost always follows a hi or a hello. This is especially the case when you are meeting the other after a time longer than, say, 4 hours.

How often have you answered such a question truthfully and honestly? I know it would probably be inappropriate and even irritating if I were to answer someone's "Howdy?" with a detailed summary of my current state of being, yet is it not true that a "How do you do?" is almost never answered in truth. I would venture, bravely enough, to even say that you are expected to answer it untruthfully with that blatantly colourless "Fine" and maybe add a "und Sie?" to generate the same gray-tinged "Fine" that reveals nothing and says everything. Go up to someone looking completely distressed and say a "How do you do?". You will, in all probability, be rewarded with the expected monotony.

What if, for a change, we decide to answer the question face-up. What if the next time you meet someone, at a moment when you are ecstatically stretching out on that fluffy cloud numbered nine, you give the person a run down on the exciting news that you have to share. What if you go on "... remember how I always wanted to sharpen my pencil until it could prick the boss's skin.. Well, guess what1 I did and now I am overjoyed and walking around grinning like a kid that has just cheesed a chocolate cake. So how are *you*?"

Go on. Try it. Helpless looks are guaranteed!!

P.S: I wanted to put up something on this blog. It was beginning to look exactly how my brain cells seem to - blank and deserted. It's that deadly affliction called laziness. If your sensibilities have been disturbed from their silken fine resting place my sincere appologies. :)

under/over - react

2007-10-11T11:45:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, while sipping machine-made coffee, I had a conversation about how I react to situations. Z was describing an incident that happened when we were both in school. About how I reacted (or did not react) after we caught up to two friends who had gotten lost while on a trip in Chennai. Z and I both knew the route to varying degrees but instead of splitting up to guide the gang we took off into the same auto-rickshaw. Of course, in the hope that the other auto would follow us. That, however, didn't happen. Anyway. I don't quite remember the incident but apparently I had asked my red-in-the-face-with-anger friend , "But you are here now, aren't you?"

I tend to underreact (which *is* a word) a bit sometimes - most times. I think that how I react is governed by what the situation is about. For example, if it is about something material or money - like losing money even if it's a huge wad - I don't react wildly, not outwardly at least. Of course, it hurts to be in whatever that situation may be but I strongly believe that it is not worth getting a heart-attack over.

I wouldn't be over-excited and lose sleep in anticipation of a favourite t.v. show/movie/book or the most incredible rock show. I wouldn't be inconsolable if I missed them as I did when Iron Maiden played in B'Lore (It would've been a different matter if that had been Metallica. ) Celebrities don't thrill me.

Even when people are celebrating something quite awesome, I might not show any excitement. If you jump up-down-left-right and tell me India that has won the World Cup, I would most probably ask, "So what?". No, that's not just because I don't watch cricket or any other sport for that matter. I am sure that some people sometimes find it irritating when I am all laid-back when there is humdrum and chaos around. That's me! I like being laid-back. Why waste your emotions and energy on trivial things?

There is a negative part to all this (There always is a negative). There are times - critical times- when it is absolutely essential that I do something and I don't know how to react. At crucial moments, my decision making is quite hampered. It takes me forever to reach a decision and when I do I am left wondering if it was right or close to being right.

What kind of a reactor (that's not even funny) are you? Do exaggerate and blow up simple issues? If yes, then what kind of issues makes you attain critical mass?

Gone missing..

2007-10-08T17:30:00.000+05:30

If you did notice (which you probably didn't), I haven't posted anything on the blog for a long time. I have gone missing and with good reason.

There is a remarkable difference in me from the last time I posted - which I noticed now was 3 months back. I am now what some people would like to call (often in an accusatory tone) a "family-man". The D-Day (D as in Darn-good and looked-forward-to for many many years) was on the 13th of September, 2007. In 5 days time I would've been married for a month. Wow!

Before you decide to ask the typical "How does it feel?" in Aaj-tak style, I should tell you that I don't have coherent answers to such questions as that. I have been guilty of asking such questions to other souls (who I now realize must've felt as tormented as I do now). This is a question that you *should* be able to answer but no matter how hard you try you cannot. "It feels good" sounds like the safest and all-encompassing answer to this question.

We haven't yet gotten to the "one disagreement a day" state yet. It has been pretty smooth sailing until now. I know we'll get close to that state of equilibrium some day but that's for later. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing (or quarreling). That is just the natural way of things, in my humble opinion.

Maybe I should introduce you to the one. Given that we are in blog-world, here's her blog - Preethi'ka'. Yes, she has been around for a while.

Subscribe to the airtel standing instructions facility

2007-07-12T20:41:00.000+05:30

".... let your credit card pay... no tension..."

I have been hearing this damned recording over and over again in the last few days. Airtel's system seems to have FUBARed by mobile connection. It all started on Friday (06/07/07). My bill was due and customer service told me to update my credit card details through an SMS. "You cc will be debited by tomorrow," I was told. Come Monday and Airtel disconnected me out of the blue. My card account was not debited. After frantic calls to customer care, I personally paid my bill at 9 in the night. "Four hours to reactivate your account," I was told. The next day (Tuesday) my phone was still not working and after 3 calls to customer service and an escalation to their nodal officer, my connection was restored at 4 in the evening. Sigh of relief. On Wednesday, I noticed that CLIP was not activated. Another call to customer care to raise yet another SR. That didn't bother me much.

On Thursday (today), my connection conked off again around 2 in the afternoon. I called up cust care and I was told that I will need to walk into the nearest Airtel outlet. I was pissed off. For no fault of mine, this guy was telling me to spend more time to get things fixed. The guy on the phone had only this to say, "your connection has been deactivated (as if I didn't know that). You will need to place a return request." This was, of course, peppered by the repeated question - "did you ask for reactivation?"

I sent a mail to the nodal officer and tried to follow up with a call. After 15 minutes of getting engaged tone, the phone rang but whoever was on the other end took the phone and left on the desk. I could hear noises from the other end. I decided to hold and wait. After 2 minutes, someone disconnected the line. After another 15 minutes of the busy tone, I got through to the nodal office who denied putting the phone off the hook. Anyway, the girl/woman on the other side promised that it will be rectified within an hour. Ah ha, that should've done the trick but it didnt. After 5, I called the n.o. again, who said i will get an update within the day and that the process had been initiated..

At 7:30 in the night, I had had enough. I called up customer care. The guy on the other end promised to get it fixed in half an hour. 8:15 and no good. I called up customer care again. I was on the phone and on hold for nearly 40 minutes. I have now been told that it should be done by tonight. I have told them that if it is not fixed by tonight, I will go to another service provider. I don't think they care, though the cust care rep on the other side seemed genuinely apologetic. So I am without a phone now. I am pissed. I am at office at 9 in the night trying to get this damn thing fixed. I am furious. I want to go the fubared server room that Airtel has and smash up the messed up servers.

I now know the fastest way to get into their 9845012345 customer care system. A.R. Rehman's airtel tune sounds like a death gong to me now and I can almost predict the questions that the customer care rep is going to ask. That's how messed up my state is now..

There is no escalation point listed beyond the nodal officer. I would like to see that nodal officer's ass fried. I would love to shower her with some choice names. She dared to put the phone off the hook and lie about it. That is what got to me the most. To my credit, I did not once scream or yell at the customer care reps. I never thought I could be so polite when I am so angry.

thoughts on america

2007-07-06T09:03:00.000+05:30

Actually it's more like "unsettled". Got back from Amreeka 3 weeks back and something or the other kept mPublish Poste on my toes all of these 3 weeks. Work is getting back-logged everyday. I finish one task and there is one more waiting to complete. It's crazy!! I hope to back "properly" online in a few more weeks.

People ask me if I liked Amreeka. Now, now, now. I stayed there for a mere 2 n 1/2 months. I cannot judge the place in such a short time unless you are asking it in a touristy sense. Even then, I will not be able to answer because I don't do much of touristy things. One thing I absolutely like about the u.s.a is the road network. The interstates rock. Yes, there are traffic jams and some potholes but these are usable roads and you don't find people crossing a highway like we have here. You don't have to be on the look-out for the weird apparitions that jump out of the bushes causing you to screech and halt, though there are the occasional crazy guys in cars like the one a friend and I encountered when we were driving down an interstate.

One thing I noticed about Indians living in the usa is this. Even when living away from home, people group themselves based on language and region. So you get to see isolated groups of Tamils, Keralites, Andhraites and Hindi-speaking folks at restaurants, etc. It is not as noticeable as back in India though. I guess we will never leave those shackles behind.

I miss my food outings. Being paid for by my employer, I had the chance to freak out on some fabulous food. Sushi is now officially one of my favourite food kinds. Inspite of my apprehensions, I realised that raw fish with rice is not only not bad it actually tastes very good. I miss those yummy things.

The country offers all the facilities for a comfortable life. Most things are standardised and hassle free. Owning a car is not as big a deal as here. Most things are affordable and available to you. Police don't really bother to investigate and solve petty muggings and thievery but they do respond to your call and file a report without a bribe. :) There is also the lure of the dollar.

Of course, there is a bit of anxiety/fear on the part of the citizens about foreign workers. It's quite understandable. For the record I did not face any such trouble from my co-workers. They were extremely supportive. I could however see their concern when I talked about visa issues and stuff with the Americans.

Violence in the USA means guns and shots. That's the scariest part for me about America. Crazy people have access to dangerous weapons. The USA is not as safe as it is made out to be. The citizens live in an induced denial. Each and every day there would be one or more reports about murders. People get killed walking down a road or sitting on their porch. Often by a stray bullet from someone else's fight or by a mugger who is not satisfied with just robbing the people.

Would I want to live there? I don't know.

yeah right!

2007-06-07T22:39:00.000+05:30

"She's using this time to reflect on her life, to see what she can do to make the world better and hopefully, in my opinion, to change the attitudes that exist about her among many people," Hutton said after visiting Hilton."

~ Paris Hilton's lawyer, Richard A. Hutton

What a sad state it is for the world when it needs Paris to make it better! What deplorable place have we all reached!

I don't usually give a rat's behind about these celebrity reports. Paris is different. Resembling her pet Chihuahua, she is the epitome of "ugly sells" - if you have loads of cash and can do weird(read slutty) things to get noticed. For some reason, I can't stand her. Even her not-so-bad-looking "friend", Nicole, has become an unbearable nincompoop under her influence. Alright, I don't think looks are that big a deal. Yet, to me, Paris is beyond ugliness. Everytime I see her on t.v. my skin crawls. Is she an alien? She sure does look like one. What if she is here, plotting a fear-campaign against us all? I am pretty unnerved by her. She is scary enough to give me nightmares that usually have her bearing down on me with her Chihuahua teeth flashing in the disco-lights. Of course, the nightmares are in technicolor. She is a bright red colour in most of them. Scary!!

Did you see the South Park episode featuring Paris Hilton, where the high school girls of SP want to become "sluts" cos Paris is one?? Oh man, that was one hilarious show. Of course, most little girls nowadays seem to be turning into Paris' images. Aha! That's her plot. To turn all girls and women into her replica. God help us all when that happens.

Chicago

2007-05-30T00:49:00.001+05:30

I visited my cousin in Chicago over the Memorial day weekend. Megabus agreed to take me there for about 25 dollars. This was good considering that I don't get paid in dollars for being in the US on a business visit and no matter how much I scoff the convert-into-rupees mentality that immigrants have, I am forced to perform that teraflop conversion in my mind. Yeah, I know I am bad at maths - yes, even simple multiplication and addition - so rest assured that I merely calculate with the nearest approximation involving as many zeroes at the end as possible.

Anyway, after an overnight assault on my body, especially my neck, the bus let me out at the union station a full hour before schedule, early morning on Saturday. I shudder to think the crazy driving that must have happened as I contoured and flexed my body to find some posture that wouldn't tear me into parts. Did I mention that it was raining like.. well.. er.. heavy rain? Yes, it was pouring all over the place but fortunately the bus didn't leak - ok, the bus wasn't that bad except I am sure the buses back home, which I avoid at all costs, were better. For 25 bucks (though that's a filthy 900+ rupees, approximate of course), I shouldn't have expected too much.

My cousin insisted that I should do atleast some touristy things. I decided to play along :). Saturday was washed away by the rain. It poured like crazy and so I spent the time playing with my nephew, who has begun mouthing random words. He is a typical hyperactive busybody, running around all the time and turning things over. Seeing a brief let-up in the rain, my cousin drove me to the temple in Aurora. He knows that I am not a "temple-person", but he thought I should atleast see the place. Now this temple is sent in a sprawling campus featuring a small mound. The whole place is grassed and looks like a million-buck mansion. Further proof of the God's - none other than Venkateshwara or Balaji, as he is known - wealth was found in the almonds - yes, almonds - that were served as the prasad.

Sunday, I was on a river boat on an Architecture Foundation cruise. The boat, a large boat, took people through the Chicago river with a guide describing the major buildings that marked Chicago's skyline.

I picked some interesting bits of info about downtown Chicago. It was built over a marsh. The Chicago river was classified as toxic until recently, now it is labelled highly-polluted. Just like our dear old Kooum. Trump, of the bad-hair fame, is busy building a 99 floor structure in downtown. Chicago is called the windy city not because of the uncomfortably windy weather but because of its politicians of yore who could blow more hot air than anyone else. Downtown Chicago was burned down to the ground by the Great Fire of 1871. This was a blessing in disguise because it enabled the building of a new planned city. Some parts of downtown feature two layers both above ground, so you actually have two sets of roads and pathways.

After the cruise, I waited in a 2 hour long queue to get the chance to pee on the 103th floor of what was once the world's tallest building - the Sears Tower. The peeing experience was not as exhilarating as I thought it would be but my disappointment was more than healed by the awesome view from high up there (no not the loo, I meant the skydeck). You can see miles and miles of land stretching below. Skyscrapers around the Sears tower looked like midgets from this mammoth of a building. They didn't have any open windows though. Now that would have been mind-blowing.

Next day it was time to catch the bus back to Minneapolis. With a pretty girl for company, nope I didn't even bother to talk to her:( , I spent another agonizing trip on the bus. It wasn't too bad this time because being an afternoon bus I didn't have to go to sleep. So I spent the time gaping out of the windows. The driver stopped the bus twice on the emergency lane to check on something. I have no idea what it was but the bus didn't breakdown and so I couldn't care less.

10 in the night I treated my stomach to some gobbled up fish-n-chips before crashing into bed to save my tired body.

Tagged: 8 things

2007-05-26T02:07:00.000+05:30

<<8 things about me: tagged by Sunita>

1. On some days I wake up with my tongue twisted. That whole day I would end up making incomprehensible noises in place of words. I babble.

2. I like to nap in the afternoon but anything more than 1/2 an hour to an hour will leave me groggy-headed throughout the evening.

3. I hate using the loo in an airplane or bus, especially if I am not in the aisle. :)

4. Sometimes when I become hungry, my hands start shaking like someone with substance-dependence (political correctness unintended). Even then I eat lesser than most people. Sometimes I gobble up food like a hungry hyena and yet most people finish before i can.

5. My fingers are always shaking. I inherited it from my mom.

6. I hate going to doctors. :( I am no longer too scared of being injected, though. :)

7. No one ever believes that I am a mallu by birth. Most times I like it that way cos I hate being in groups made by region/language/etc.

8. I am clumsy and I bump-n-stomp people and things quite often.

I am tagging Skely cos I know he'll have a really hilarious list of 8 things about himself

Eating Out @ Mpls - Part 2

2007-05-08T00:48:00.000+05:30

Continued

I have nothing better to do in the evenings so every evening I open up opentable.com and read through the list of restaurants in Downtown Minneapolis and visit them one a day. Let me list down the restaurants I have been to and what I thought of them.. I hope to update the list as the days go along. :)

9. Masa

This is a trendy Mexican restaurant. No, not another burritto/fajita/taco place. The ambience is chic and modern. Being right on the corner of the street, it offers a good view too. The waiter helped with recommendations and that too after asking your tastes, etc. Impressive. Standard issue torillas chips with two dips - one green tangy and one red spicy - was set on the table. The chips were actually very good and I gobbled up a lot of them.

I ordered the Roasted Pork shoulder marinated with lime, garlic, and chile ancho; cooked and served in a banana leaf (almost like the kerala dish meen pozhichathu). The pork was sprinkled with white onions and cilantro. On the side, poached pineapple and refried beans. For dessert I ordered the "Pastel de Chocolate". It's a mexican chocolate cake with a twisty, spicy undertone to it. Yes, you read it right - spicy undertone. :) It was quite different and thouroughly enjoyable.

10. Solera

A friendly neighborhood place, solera is an independent restaurant and not a franchisee of a chain. Solera serves Tapas - Spanish small plates. Food is served in small portions and thus enables you to enjoy a wide variety in a single place. This place lends itself to hanging out with friends. Staffed by ever-smiling people, Solera sets the tone right. The dining room was a little too dark and loud for me and so I shifted back into the lounge.

The menu is divided into three sections - Seasonal, Nuevas or Modern, Traditional.The food I tried: 1) Octopus Ceviche glazed with hot pepper and cumin - the octopus was cut into thin circles and was surprisingly firm, the glazing lending a great taste. 2) Roasted Chicken with potatoes and garlic - well-cooked chicken with a sauce that doesn't overwhelm. Ideally one person could consume about 3 to 4 dishes, but I wasn't up for it that day.

11. Fogo De Chão

Fogo features a "continuous service" concept. This translates into unlimited servings of various roasted meats. You use a two-sided disk to control the servings. Red means that you are on a break or are done. Green indicates to the servers to bring the meat on skewers to your table. Of course, you can choose the meats that you want. Yeah, ok. It's mostly all about meats at the Fogo. :) but did I mention the humungously varietied salad bar? You have everything from artichokes, lettuce, exotic veggies and a variety of dressing. Alright anyway, in the meat department there's sirloin - top/bottom/middle/everywhere, filet mignon, rib eye, beef ribs, pork ribs, pork sausages, pork chops, lamb chops, lamb legs, chicken legs and some more. All the meats are fire-roasted and everything I tasted was extremely juicy. For dessert, I had an incredible creme brulee.

If you have a healthy appetite, this is the place to hit. For about forty bucks, you can eat all you want. With the red-green control disk, you have the luxury of time too on your side. :)

The waiters are very polite and quite friendly. A nice place to chill, especially if you are with a group of people.

12. Rock Bottom Brewery

As the name suggests, this is a brewery. If you are a beer lover, the rock bottom features some of their own brews. I am not, so I was there solely for the food. :) Food is good, not out-of-the-world - r'ber it has brewery in its name :). I have tried the grilled mahi-mahi on one instance and "Herbed Lemon Chicken with Asparagus" on another. The fish was pretty good. The chicken was excellent, except that I didn't quite like the white-cheddar mashed potatoes - there was too much of it and frankly I didn't like the undertaste of the cheddar. By the way, I should mention that both instances were for a quick bite at lunch, so my taste-bugs could've been fuddled by my sleepiness. :D

13. Origami

This was my first attempt at sushi. The server recommended the novice's choice - the california roll, but I was feeling a little more adventurous. I ended up ordering the Regular sushi entree. It featured a miso soup, a salad, six nigiri sushis - striped sea bass, shrimp, mackerel, octopus, yellowtail and salmon, two maki sushis - cucumber and tuna. On the side was the gari (sushi ginger), soy sauce and wasabi.

First off, wasabi is pungent but not spicy. Even a large dollop of sushi merely flares up your nostrils. It is not the tongue-burning kind of spicy. :)

I was a little apprehensive of diving full length into sushi but except for the mackerel, none of the other sushis had the fishiness. Even the mackerel was not overwhelming. It could be that the rice more than compensates for the rawness of the fish or perhaps that the green goblin had subdued my taste buds. Sushi is pretty good as a dining experience. Small bites that are sufficient enough to fill.

Overall, the experience was very good. I am looking forward to the next trip to Origami, which should happen soon enough and without the green goblin. :)

14. Ichiban Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar

The pagoda-style building welcomes you into a very good setting inside. You have the option of sitting at the sushi bar, the teppanyaki or the tempura. I decided to try the teppanyaki. The chef cooks on the iron gridle or plate, right at the table. You get seated along the sides of the table with the hot plate in the center. This is also a nice way to meet people, with the drawback of a lot of ambient noise.

At my table were two families both celebrating birthdays - one of a 10 year old kid who was quite anxious to see his gift. The chef displayed some really awesome maneuvers while cooking, though he was a little subdued because this cute little girl at the table got scared of the fire. :) You can choose from a number of meal combinations that include shrimp, filet mignon, baby lobsters, scallops, chicken and vegetables. I chose the imperial dinner with fried rice. It included vegetables, filet mignon, baby lobsters and chicken. The dinner combos come with a soup and a choice of dessert.

Food isn't the centerpiece at a teppanyaki. It's the chef's skills and tricks. The showmanship is great and being a sort of communal dinner, you get to have someone or the other to talk to. A must visit. I am sure to be back for more teppanyaki and also to try the sushi.

Special Mention (Update) :-)

"The Fivers". Five awesome cooks try their hand at cooking up, delicious food. You will find them in an apartment in Franklin Avenue. The specialty I tried out was lemon rice with sambar. The unique feature of this lemon rice, of course, was that the rice and the lemon-mix are served separately. You can mix them to your taste and create the perfect tasting lemon rice.. The Fivers specialises in sambars, so much so that the menu almost always consists of different sambars. Potato sambar, radish sambar, beans sambar - the list goes on and on. You must try the food!!

empty

2007-05-02T00:52:00.000+05:30

(random)

sometimes when the eyes
close their lids
to meditate; looking for peace
that no waking moment has.
Foraging in mind's attic
for a missing piece
to set right the current puzzle.

sometimes when the senses
go dreamy, will-less
to feel the passing of time.
Wishing away all
- both pain and joy -
for a minute of stillness.

sometimes when dark
is all you want to see.
The numbing cold
is welcome to hug
To freeze the thoughts
that are running away.

sometimes when ennui
is a soothing balm.
Temporal yet divine -
a junkie's wad of weed.
bore into mind's layers
to drain out the pus.

To feel empty
is fulfillment.

Bowling for Columbine

2007-04-20T04:45:00.000+05:30

This is the country that seems to never learn from its mistakes, whether it has to do with funding future "terrorists" or the mindless gun culture. Columbine didn't wake them to the harsh reality. It is not guns that kill, it's people with guns that do and this is a country where many states give you the right to carry guns. Now, it is Virginia Tech. The NRA does not care a bit, the pro-gun supporters don't give a damn. Columbine has become a proper word in English. It has become just another trivial word.

A few days after Virginia Tech happened, the t.v. is showing Moore's "Bowling for Columbine". In the documentary, Moore walks into a bank, opens an account and walks out with a rifle. That's all it takes to procure a gun and the bullets - he got them at a barber's. Yes, that's the kind of gun-complacence this country shows. Even after many such incidents, many citizens defend their need and their right to stock hand-guns in their homes. They don't just defend it. Most of them are proud of their gun culture. Watch the documentary and you will realise that some people just don't learn.

Anyone can get angry about something. Any kid can get a gun and shoot up people. Anyone can walk into the streets with a weapon, even if it's concealed. That's the kind of country this is. The place I am in now, Minneapolis, passed laws in 2003 that allowed people to carry concealed weapons. As I walk down the street, I realise that some of the people that walk by could have a gun on him/her. I realise that one of them could very well pull out an automatic weapon and spray the place with bullets. Life is a flimsy thing, I agree, but it is doesn't help to know that you live in a place where the government works towards worsening your odds. It doesn't take a minute for a human to lose his temper. It wouldn't take a minute for a gun to take a life.

There are a million such things wrong with the land of dreams and opportunity. There are a million things wrong with India too but at least in India only the goondas carry guns. In India, I have less chances of being looked down upon. In India, kids don't go shooting up their classmates. No, I am not a patriot but I feel safer back there than in this modernised world. Like Moore says, "Watch the news every night and America is still a very scary place".

Eating Out @ Mpls - Part 1

2007-04-19T02:07:00.000+05:30

I have nothing better to do in the evenings so every evening I open up opentable.com and read through the list of restaurants in Downtown Minneapolis and visit them one a day. Let me list down the restaurants I have been to and what I thought of them.. I hope to update the list as the days go along. :)

1. Ping's Szechuan Bar and Grill

No. of visits: 2

Quaint little place. The menu is vast. I had a difficult time deciding on what to eat. Food is good, not great. The portions are a bit too large for me and they "make it only one size". The waiters are friendly and chatted with me every now and then. Some of them anyway. The entrees are served with steam rice. I tried the Szechuan Chicken, which the waiter modified a bit to make it tastier ;), and the Tiger Pork. The rice though is a little too lumpy for my taste. Overall a nice place.

2. McCormick and Schmick's

No. of visits: 1

Sea food place. A good rounded menu. The menu also features almost 20-30 fish on the fresh list. The place was busy on a weeknight so I guess it's a popular restaurant. I tried the Oyster sampler. Can't comment on the oysters cos I am no expert. I liked them :). The Swordfish preparation I tried was very good. Properly firm and a delicious tomato based sauce. I finished off with a Chocolate truffle cake. Yummy! I was too full to walk by the time I was done. The waiter was very helpful and cheerful.

3. Skywater Cuisine and Lounge

No. of visits: 1

The in-hotel restaurant at the Hilton Minneapolis. Serves American cuisine with a local mid-west touch to it. I had the Grilled Salmon from the Hilton Eat-right menu. Delicious though I keep forgetting that I don't like Salmon that much :). The sauteed mushrooms that I ordered on the side were out-of-the world. The side contained a few varieties of mushroom. The waiter was pleasant. The dining experience was good.

4. Palomino

No. of visits: 1

Serves Mediterranean cuisine. A very spacious dining room with large windows gives it a great ambience. The staff are very friendly and pleasant. The decor blends in with the room and looks nice. The food was great. I started with the Portabella Mushroom Soup. The soup was thick, tasty and quite filling. For the main course, I ordered the "Seared arctic char with Creamy Herb Sauce". (Yes, fish again. As I write I realise that I have been eating a lot of fish) The sauce was excellent and the fish very well done. I rounded it off with a Tiramisu. The tiramisu is not the best I've tasted. The coffee flavour was very subdued and quite unlike a Tiramisu. Will definitely visit the place again. The waiter was overworked being a Sunday evening and so I spent quite a bit of time waiting for the food, etc. That's a good thing if you are having a relaxed dinner with friends but when eating alone it's a bit irritating.

5. Basil's

No. of visits: 1

Upscale restaurant in the IDS center. The seat outside look down into the beautiful Crystal Court atrium and a very nice place to sit and eat. The waiters, like any upscale restaurant, weren't overtly friendly but they were very polite and helpful. The dip served with the breads was extremely yummy. The amuse bouche - a salmon with a mustard sauce - was very well made. I ordered the venison loin (well-done). The venison was very juicy and quite tasty. The sweet potato mash added the twist. For dessert I had the Apricot Layer Cake. Out of the world and very very well presented. A very good dining experience. The presentation was impeccable especially of the dessert and the food was great. A must visit place.

6. Zelo

No. of visits: 1

This restaurant serves Italian food. It is a very popular place and hence a little loud and chattery. The outdoor seating is filled to the brim when the sun is out. The menu is quite exhaustive and the fresh list menu is quite good too. Yes, I ordered the fish again. For the appetiser I ordered the Mediterranean mussels. The tomato based sauce was yummy but made the eating very messy. For the main course, I order a sea bass from the fresh list. Very fulfilling. The fish was very tasty. The wasabi mashed potatoes a little too much in quantity. The waiters seemed a trifle overworked and I had to remind my waiter to get my drink. That can be pardoned because he was otherwise quite good and helpful.

7. Bombay Bistro

No. of visits: 1

Serves Indian cuisine. A very subdued but good ambience. I ordered the madras chicken curry with white rice. My friend ordered a bhindi (okra) dish. The portions are very large and both of us could not finish our respective orders. Food is the usual Indian restaurant fare. Quite tasty. The waiters are never around. They just take the order and bring the food over. Service was fast.

8. Vincent a Restaurant

No. of visits: 1

An upscale restaurant serving French cuisine. The ambience justifies French sophistication but that doesn't stop the waiters from being warm and friendly. The serving sizes just right. I was able to go through the full 3-course meal.
I went French especially to get a taste of the escargots or snails. I was not disappointed. Escargots are a bit chewy and taste pretty good too. The escargots were served without the shell and so eating them was not a messy, tongy affair too. :) They were boiling hot though and I almost burnt my tongue. Yeah, I was warned but still. :D For the main course I ordered the Roasted duck breast. The broccoli sauce/paste in the dish was a genius idea. Added that extra flavour to the food. The duck itself was well done. For dessert, the waiter recommended the chocolate cake. Hmmmm. Yummy doesn't even begin to describe it. It was frozen and a tad difficult to cut into initially but the varied texture was well worth the effort. Presented on a frosted glass plate with poached pear slices on the side, it was a sight to behold. I am still smiling about the cake.. Ahhhhh!! I will be back at Vincent's soon, if not for anything at least for the heavenly cake.

Minneapolis FIR

2007-04-11T19:38:00.000+05:30

I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota for a short business visit. Landed here on Saturday. The plane ride was tiring. Almost 30 hours on the move is pretty irritating. Jet lag hasn't been a big deal. I do feel like napping off now and then, but even the very next day after landing I was out looking at the town :)

I'm staying in the downtown area. Skyscrapers are the norm. Roads are wiiiiiiiiide and straight. Pedestrian walks exist and are wide enough :) They have this cool skyway/skywalk system in Mpls Downtown. Most buildings are connected to each other through these skyways - essential a covered bridge on the second level of the buildings. The skyways are public-accessible so you don't even have to step out into the cold to get to some place. That's a real cool thing if you ask me. I prefer not being frozen to death, you see. My hotel is connected so all I have to do is to walk through these heated pathways to get to my office. Brilliant. Especially when it is snowing like crazy outside.

Yep, it's snowing like crazy today. Yep, my first snowfall. Took a walk in the snowfall. Feels like rainfall but you don't get wet as much. Almost like how dust swirls around back home, the snowflakes swirl around like hyperactive kids. It's a pretty sight but after a while the gloomy, dull weather gets on your nerves.

VJ lives here. So this last weekend wasn't boring. This past Sunday he took me to the Mall of America, supposedly the biggest mall in America. It's got an amusement park bang in the middle. Unfortunately, it being Easter, most places were closed down.

Some phone cam pix here: http://picasaweb.google.com/bijeshkrishnadas/Minneapolis07?authkey=n877AUwFz6w

memories

2007-03-27T12:00:00.000+05:30

(ancient)

Memories to be cherished and cuddled,
Preserved like a forever wine,
Now lay in a shoe box, touched by darkness,
Caressed by the unseeing eyes of the mind.

Memories that were once the elixir and the tonic,
Sweet medicine for the soul, when in need.
Are but their mere physical selves,
Papers written upon, roses whose scents died.

Memories that once brought an unforced smile,
Forget-me-nots that revealed hidden beauty.
They leave a scar on mind's face,
A reminder of what was not and what will not be.

requiem for a dream

2007-03-08T16:26:00.000+05:30

Astounding! Dark! I finally managed to watch this movie that I have heard about a lot.

The way the movie is stitched together is out of the world. It engrosses you while keeping you at a distance. Some frames do overwhelm you more than necessary. Some frames get a tad repetitive. On the whole, though, these imperfections lend a magical spell to the movie.

The cinematography stands out. True art.

On one level, the movie paints this soul-digging portrait of drug abuse and addiction. On another, it allows you the freedom to interpret the deeper meaning.

We talk so much about people addicted to drugs. We pity them, we hate them, we think of them as low-lifes, we cannot understand their need, we think they are cowards. Why? Why do we hold such opinions?

Aren't each one of us addicted to something or the other? Some of us are addicted to our work, some to the idea of luxury, some to the need for appreciation, some to the need to be. How are the drug users different? Of course, they are addicted to something that alters them but so is everything that we crave or want. Perhaps it will end up killing them or ruining them, but isn't that a choice that they have made.

Like the mother in the movie - wasn't her true addiction that of popularity and looking good. How did she end up dependent on her pills? It all started because she wanted to wear her pretty red dress and be on television. That would make her popular and as she puts it *liked*.

Of course, not all drug users turn addicts. Yet, most of us that can accept *occasional* drinking or smoking have a very different view about substance use. Why? How different are these habits? How different is a rare drink from a rare pill? How different is our need for luxury? How different is our craving for chocolates? How different our constant effort to get noticed? Such are the questions that the movie left in me. Nope, I don't have answers.

p.s: thanks sanchapanzo. your short, to-the-point movie reviews rock.

visual dna

2007-03-01T16:36:00.000+05:30

I am not a big fan of these widgets.. but when you are tagged, you are tagged :)
This actually was fun. thanks sunita

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Live, Leave

2007-02-27T15:12:00.000+05:30

(this has been sitting on the stove for too long. patience died. the title is no more a title.)

I sit in the bus, the sweater pulled around my shoulders. It isn't cold but I need the extra warmth. I am leaving town after all and without a good-bye wave to anyone or a polite nod that would've meant, "Until next time then". The bus would stand still for another 25 minutes. Until then I am left to ponder the cloudscape - my send off party, I presume.

I wonder if I'll miss anything or anyone. Surely, this question has been through the mind of every single person that has ever fled from his life, his town or anything else for that matter. I have walked on these roads for years, I have shopped at this convenience store, I have seen these people that I look at from behind tinted windows. I even know the names of some of those people. That's Ram, he runs the only restaurant in town - a sorry little affair with only two tables. He's a happy man though, it shows on his face even now. Oh and that woman in the red sari sitting behind that pot of buttermilk. I think her name is Lekha. She has set up shop at the same spot for over five summers now. She doesn't live here, she has to travel 10 miles everyday to get here. The ragged dog that you see hanging around Ram's restaurant, that's Tony. Tony is what all of us call him. He's ragged but always clean. I suspect that he is someone's pet but nobody owns up to being Tony's master.

I have lived in this small settlement forever. Do you see the tree that stands alone on that small path which leads into town? That's the tree I used to pelt with stones as a kid. The juicy tamarinds were every boy and girl's favourite. Not mine though. I felled the pods for my best friends - Meera and Prashant. I don't want to think about them now, but I know that my mind will wander back to them.

We grew up together - the three of us. We were friends even before we started school. Our mothers used to visit each other all the time and we would be left to play our games.

If things were different, I would have gone to college in another year. Meera wasn't too keen about college and she always dreamt about waiting, while Prashant and I worked towards a job. She always talked about the longing and the pain of the wait. She was a romantic and you didn't have to see her half-dreamy eyes to know that. Before I miss the point, I should clarify something. Meera and Prashant were in love. The whole town knew it, their parents too. When Meera spoke dreadfully mushy things it was about Prashant. Not me.

Their togetherness often annoyed me. I was happy for them and all that, but it often got weird when after talking about something for a long time I realised that they were lost in their own lovey-dovey world. They were a sweet couple - the two of them. I used to watch them walk hand-in-hand, blissfully aware of only themselves and wonder if love would strike me ever.

Prashant died last week. At my hands. It was an accident but I don't expect anyone to understand that. Noone else knows how he died, only Meera and I were present there. Meera is no longer in a position to talk about it though. She has retracted her life into some hidden corner within herself. I am leaving town because I cannot bear her lifelessness. She thinks I pushed him into the rushing train's path. I can see it in her eyes.

There he is. The driver that would drive me away in this tin-box bus. He wouldn't understand the significance of today's journey. I'm sure he doesn't find anything different from his routine. He's walking up to the same bus now, spits into the same corner and wipes the same palm across his face.

The wind feels nice. I wish it blows away all the negatives that are on my mind. The memories too, if it could. The familiar fields pass by, weaving a farewell tapestry. I can feel my heart wrenching its way away from this heartland. It's tearing away with a fleshy rip - long drawn and painful. I hope the pain is just the rite of passage to something less empty and further from the present.

Wind of change

2007-02-20T14:36:00.000+05:30

What would you do? When the pearl that's been denied you for so long is now within your reach, what do you do? When the clouds decide to sprinkle you in the midst of a long, dry desert walk. When a cold breeze flows in from the sea, spotting you with goosebumps? What do you do then?
Will you jump up and down like on a trampoline? Would you have a grin stuck to your face all the time? Would your dreams, until then gray and black, turn into technicolor fantasies? Would your days be filled with sunshine and your nights with peace?

Have you ever felt what it is to be on cloud nine? Really known that feeling?

Do you fear that the elation will fade away one day? Not because the reason to feel elated is missing, just that you have gotten used to the feeling. Do you worry about the storms that are yet to come? Or should you enjoy the glory of the moment and drown your worries in its golden glow? You have come this far and it shouldn't be more difficult to go further. Once you have experienced the cold, the river is indeed a calming balm.

Won't you let yourself float in this lovely river? Won't you let the river take away your baggage and turn you into the lightest winged fly? Come, you are worthy of it. Come, wash away your past with this cool splash. For there are miles to go on this joyride and you won't want to miss a thing.

Fly the good times...

2007-02-16T17:43:00.000+05:30

yeah. trip to chennai last friday. company sponsored. Chance to fly the good times. The air hostesses are a hype. in my humble opinion. I, perhaps, expected Yana to be on the flight. They were polite though. All of the ground staff were too. Except for the woman at the check-in counter. I should've taken the baggage on board. Sheesh!! Had to wait in the queue to check the baggage in, inspite of a web check-in and a printed boarding pass. Neat touch that - self-printed boarding pass. Do all airlines do that now with web check-in? If I had only carry-on baggage, I could've walked straight from the airport entrance to the security check and boarded the flight. Ah! That would've been so pleasant.

In-flight magazine is hundreds of page 3. Mallya is on most of them. So are a number of pretty women. Thumbed through the mag in less than 1 minute. Not my type of reading material. In-flight entertainment. the video is a mix of tv channels - ndtv, hungama, etc. The audio channels had a nice selection of rock and jazz. The headphones (which you can take away with you) were of standard issue airplane sound-quality. Should have brought my earplugs along.

Flight to chennai was a mere 30 minute affair for the jet. Dinner was three *small* aloo-masala sandwiches. You are given exactly 7 minutes to gobble it all up before the hostess is back for the tray. :) Can't blame them though. Baggage was out quick.

Return flight from chennai. Extremely polite and helpful ground staff. They are all over you. In a nice way. Infact my check-in baggage was carried across to the check-in counter by one of the ground staff. Wow!!

Plane was an ATR72. The turbo-prop toyplane (Ok, I agree it is not that small). The one with those huge exhaust fans. Well, they are not exactly exhaust fans.. Before boarding, I was wondering how the plane would even fly. After boarding, I was blown away by the interior.. Cushy, really cushy seats. fake leather, I presume.. enormous legroom. I could sit with my legs crossed. Do they fly this thing to other destinations? Both sides are two-seaters. that's all the plane can contain. Only one class. No economy/first/business. Would make it my choice of flight. :)

My window seat's window opened right out to the edge of the fan's blade. Scary to see the blade rev up and spin at those mind-numbing rpms. What the heck would I do if the fan decided to unhinge? :-O

Food was great - comparatively speaking. I don't expect much from airline food, so my opinion might be coloured. Steaming hot chicken-egg fried rice, chicken in some sauce (the menu card claimed basil-flavoured sauce), salad of corn-cucumber-peppers and rasmalai for dessert. Decent food and a very pleasant hostess.

Yeah, definitely the good times.

Heart Strums

2007-02-09T12:14:00.000+05:30

The stream of light circled the floor until it found the guitarist and flooded him with its white shine. He sat on a tall stool, his hair brushed back, one leg on the floor and the other tucked onto the stool's lower step. His face was lifted up into the glow of the light, exalted and content. The guitar stood with its side resting on his thigh. His left hand held its neck in a loving embrace as the fingers on his other hand gently caressed the wood, lightly reaching up towards the strings strung taut against the body. He was in love with his guitar and with the music that came forth from its hollow like a coin from thin air.

He sat in the front row, watching the guitarist performing a ritual so close to his heart. He closed his eyes to listen to the ecstatic cries of the strings as the guitarist moved his fingers from fret to fret. He felt the friction slide through his own body. He watched as the fingers waltzed around the sounding board, playing and cajoling the strings to dance to the rhythm, that ironically was their own. The air reverberated with the notes that flowed as part of it. He could sense the heart beats of space salute the notes that passed through it. He listened with wonder as unrelated sounds came together into an all-encompassing oneness.

He had wanted to be there. He dreamt that he could be there. Not in the limelight. Just the center of where music came from. Where the music relived its life. To swim in the fluidity of the guitar chords. To pick notes that could set pulses to dance along. To be able to slide his fingers across the fret to arouse the rose wood into a sensual rendition of its song of joy. He wished he were able to conjure order out of chaos, music out of crude sounds, joy out of thin air.

He wanted to be there but he wasn't. He called himself a loser and immersed himself into the dream that the true artist weaved for losers like himself.

Touching Lives

2007-02-05T16:44:00.000+05:30

What does it take to touch people and lives, that a foe stands by to show you his respect? What does it take to leave behind a mark? Not something that has quantity or weight. Not a statue, not an elegant tombstone. Just the thoughts that reside in a mind. Not the story of your life, not of your success. Just the remembrance of a moment. Like the softness of a rose, long withered.

Or would you rather melt away into oblivion? Ash to ash, dust to dust. Leaving behind no footprints in the sands.

Stop lookin. Start zook.in

2007-01-31T11:18:00.000+05:30

<Ziva is a mobile search company run by a talented group of folks. This mail is an announcement of their service launch. >

*Zook is going live.
*Zook is a new mobile search which helps you quickly get answers. It identifies clear answers upfront, or interactively narrows down to what you really meant to look for.

Today Zook works for

* Ringtones
* Restaurants (Bangalore)
* Movies (Bangalore)
* Events (Bangalore)

More coming soon - and to more cities too.

To start zook.in

* WAP : http://zook.in/
* SMS : "ZOOK " to 3030
[when SMSing, remember to always start with "ZOOK ... " ]

If you like what you see, please do include your friends in *groups* or as *friends*, and spread the word about Zook. Also, please send your comments/suggestions to svcfeedback@zook.com.

A short how-to guide can be found at http://www.zivasoftware.com/faq.php. More details about what Zook can do for you below.

Happy zook.in

Zook FAQts :

Whats Zook ?

Zook is the new way to use your mobile phone. Let it now be your friend which helps you find a place to eat, or catch a movie, or download fun stuff for your mobile.

Its on your WAP phone at http://zook.in

You can also send an SMS - "ZOOK " to 3030
[BTW, You can also just use "Z" instead of "ZOOK" ]

So, a local search engine on the phone? So?

Zook is not just a search engine. Zook makes sense of the data, and of what you asked. It analyzes the data, your interests and interprets the likely intent of your query.

A few examples [ Remember : on SMS start all queries with "ZOOK" , e.g. "zook chinese" !! ]

*you* : chinese
*/zook/* :1:Restaurant:Chungs Chinese Corner, Indiranagar
2:Ringtone:Theme Of China Gate, Monotone
......
7: Restaurant (31+)
8: Ringtone (19+)
9: Locality: Indiranagar (5+)
10: City: Bangalore (31+)

*you* : 7
*/zook/* :1:Magnolia, Koramangala, South Bangalore
2:Aromas Of China, Langford Town
....
6: Locality: Indiranagar (6+)
7: Locality: Church Street (4+)
8: Locality: Koramangala (7+)
9: Locality: South Bangalore (4+)
10: Locality: Palace Road (2+)
More
*you* : 6
*/zook/* :1:Wangs Place, Indiranagar
2:Chungs Pavilion, Indiranagar
3:Wan Ley, Indiranagar
4:Gokul Kuteera, Indiranagar
5:Oregano, Indiranagar
6:Vishals, Indiranagar
7:Ramya, Indiranagar
8:Bangalore Mandarin, Double Road, Off Richmond Circle,

OR

*you* : thai kgla
*/zook/* :1.Magnolia, Koramangala
2. Pan Asian Bites, Koramangala
*you* : 1
*/zook/* :Restaurant: Magnolia
Cuisine: SE Asian, Chinese, Thai
Phone: +918041102222
Address: 840, 7th Cross, 15th Main, 3rd Block Koramangala
Bangalore - India (Koramangala ) 560095
1. sms "RES 1 for 5" to 3030 to book a table for 5 at Magnolia
2. ORDER to 3030 for a callback

(these are some things you can "do" now after you find
something. We're adding lots more soon)

OR

you : guru pvr
*/zook/* : Movie: Guru (Hindi)
Theatre: PVR
Timings: 12:00pm, 12:15pm, 3:50pm, 3:30pm, 6:40pm, 6:45pm,
9:50pm, 10:00pm
Address: The Forum, 3rd Floor, Nr. Madiwala Checkpost
Koramangala Bangalore 560095
Phone: +918022067511

And Zook is not just local. Its about your leisure, your music, your
tastes, your choices, your neighbourhood, your *friends*....

Friends ?

Yes. Your friends give you the best references, and beyond a point can give you a way better answer than even we can. So if Zook cannot dig out the answer, it helps pass it on to your friends.

You can create *groups* of people you hang out with for various different things - work, bowling, golf, whatever. Your *contacts* and each set of people can be your 'expert circle' for answers and advice (and soon we'll enrich the data for the entire community based on stuff you find out and share). You can both *ASK *these contacts about choices, or information, and *TELL* them about what you like (whether or not you found it on Zook).

*you : *korean kgla
/zook /:No Matches Found
ASK your friends?
send "ASK "
*you* : ask amit, 9878709878 Is there a good Korean place in Blore ?

*amit : *Tell nopes theres a couple of good Japanese ones tho

You can ask more than one friend, and we'll summarize their responses too.

Need WAP ?

Zook works fully featured on both WAP as well as SMS!
SMS is charged at whatever your operator's premium SMS rates are.

Next time you need to look, Zook it!

Rgds,
TeamZook @ Ziva

The Return of the Horrible Voices

2007-01-19T16:45:00.000+05:30

Yes, American Idol is back. I don't like the show itself but the auditions are mindbogglingly funny. Such colourful characters, such weird confidence. If you want to laugh without restrain, there is nothing like the AI auditions. Keep away from the actual show though. That's not funny enough and not worth the hype. :)

Oh and Simon is in rocking form this time around too. Surprisingly Randy has upped his digs too. The best one so far has been this incredible guy who calls himself Red. Red considered his high pitch a masterpiece. That obviously was quite far away from the truth. Bohemian Rhapsody never sounded funnier than through his false voice.

Brilliant Stuff!!

The river says..

2007-01-05T12:02:00.000+05:30

"You asked", said the river, "why I run along these paths, twisting and turning under the sky's blue, trimmed by the forest's green. Do you want to know how I change with every moment, with every ripple? Do you wonder how I remain the same? I am kissed day after day by the sun's love. I am caressed to sleep by the moonbeam's polished silver lullaby. Leaves -brown, yellow, red and sometimes green - float into me and journey with me for a while. One day there is this one, the next there's another. Do you want to know how all of this feels? I reach my goal all the time. I reach the sea and meet old friends. I spend time with them and go to sit-down dinners. Then someday I am back at the beginning, trundling again through the same forests and past the same farms. Ah! You are perplexed by the futility in the cycle, aren't you? You might want to know why then do I not leave. There is no leaving, my friend. There is no end-station on this railroad. No, it does not get monotonous. The scene changes on every trip, though you have to look well to see the difference. Seasons change, the weather changes, the stones get smoother. Why, even the moon waxes and wanes. Do you want to know of it all? Look into me, I am a mirror."

Free Falling

2006-12-28T13:39:00.000+05:30

How would it feel to let go and fall? Plummeting down towards the ground, with no rope to hold and no cushion to break the fall. The air rushing up and left and right, pushing your body around as if it were a bag of feathers. How would those few seconds feel, when you know for sure that life as you know it will end? Will you cringe? Will you cry? Will the past flash by your mind or will the mind be too terrified to think about the past and especially the future? Sins from the past- will they haunt the final moments. Could it, otherwise, be a screenplay of happy thoughts and fond memories?

It must be bliss to know that this cycle of physicality will be done with. It must feel like heaven to be weightless and unfettered by the chains of life. Perhaps there will be a prayer said, thanking the heavens for the relief that's rushing towards you. A final sigh and a final phew, just before the wind gets blown out of your lungs for the last time. A crunching, sickening sound and you are a non-entity.

Lest you think otherwise, I ought to mention that I am not feeling suicidal :-). I do have this weird tendency to fantasize about falling down or letting things fall whenever I am looking down from a height. Fortunately I don't have that kind of tolerance for pain, so I will never try free-falling probably not even if it's bungee-jumping.

crowning glory

2006-12-19T16:52:00.000+05:30

Tricked you! The title has nothing to do with anything that I have to say. The truth is I don't have anything to say. I've been working on a couple of posts for a long time, but they don't seem to go anywhere. So, you are sort of stuck with this.

Life's moving along - tumbling, stumbling but moving. I would soon be among the many that travel an hour or more to get to office. I don't intend to drive down. Company-provided transport is the way to go. I was wondering, along with a few colleagues, if the traffic situation might benefit from employees using company transport as opposed to their cars and bikes. If workplaces can streamline their work hours and provide some kind of carrot to make the employees use company transport, it might help. I haven't done enough research to say if there's enough transportation being arranged by companies, but I think there are many that still prefer to drive/ride down by themselves. These are the ones that need to be targeted.

In my opinion, public transport is next to negligible in B'Lore. People wouldn't want to get crushed on my way to work in those dingy looking buses. Neither would people want to hop from bus to bus, in an effort to reach their work-places. Connectivity is a problem. The BMTC needs to clean up its act and get to work. I have seen a remarkable improvement in the last year, with luxury Volvo buses, Ladies' Specials, Pass Buses and even buses that are routed through major medical facilities. It's a good start.

In other news, Tata announced its 1-lakh car. Here's a take on why that is not good news. I tend to agree with the author. With the (lack of) road sense that we possess, I don't want to see every Tom, Dick and Harry driving in a four-wheeled contraption. Call me whatever but I am praying that the car doesn't take off.

That must've bored you to death. I will stop before you run screaming with your hair flying around. I am scared that your hair might get caught in the door jamb and send you sprawling on the floor. I cannot afford a lawsuit. :-D

Have fun, have a merry christmas!! And in case I don't post again, let me wish you all the best year ahead.

no title

2006-11-24T15:58:00.000+05:30

Like a mad man, he screamed at the top of his voice and jumped out of the house. The metal on his belt flashed in the crazy light from the hot sun. He ran and ran. People split to let him pass by. Some of them stood watching him run and wondered what it was that made this man look so happy. His toothy grin and his flaying hair made him look like a crazy bum. His clothes or the lack of them, for he only wore his torn jeans, made people pity him. Yet they were surprised that this poor, wretched creature seemed happy like none other. The man ran into the pier and stood at the edge of the pier. The sea gulls swooped around, looking at him with curiosity. He smelled of something nice that the birds would've liked to feed upon. They circled around for a while and then knowing that this was just another human being the gulls went on their way.

The man shouted something out to the sea. Alas, there was no one around to hear him speak. The sea boiled on without giving him another thought. He might have been speaking in a language that none knew. His monologue with the sea continued until he grew exhausted. He was vexed that nobody cared to know that he was hurt, angry and feeling miserable. The grin on his face was involuntary. He didn't know what else to do with the enormous misery coursing through his veins.

He turned away from the ocean and ran into the road, not waiting for the traffic to stop. He only wished that his death be quick. It wasn't!

Goa

2006-11-21T16:00:00.000+05:30

Yeah, had a mind-blowing birthday in Bangalore and then went to Goa for a vacation.

Four days in Goa later, I was getting a bit fed-up with beaches.. I love the ocean and all that, yet it was too much of the beach I think. The sweltering heat didn't help much either. Thank god, we were in an air-conditioned car when we travelled around Goa.

Goa, to me, was about the awesome food and travelling down the brilliant narrow roads. The roads are very scenic, with trees all over and hilly ups-and-downs. The ocean would make brief appearances and so would the rivers. The roads are also scary. They are pretty narrow and driving around Goa is a pray-that-you-miss affair. The designated driving-guys in my gang did a good job, I should say. I am still alive, aren't I?

We had a map with us for navigation but sometimes just took turns and straights for the heck of it. Thanks to the fact that we weren't looking for a specific travel itinerary, it was quite enjoyable. We usually landed up at some nice place or the other. So that was fine.

The season for Goa was just beginning and so there wasn't a huge crowd, which was good. Our resort was right next to the beach and being a little away from the main Calangute beach, it was a lot less crowded. I wasn't in Goa to party and loved the laid-back days that we had. Also tried our hands at para-gliding and this thing called banana-ride - you are made to sit on a dangerous looking buoy-like contraption, taken into the sea and tumbled into the sea (with a life-jacket on).

We stayed away from some of the Goan stuff that friends from Goa called boorish - the sunset cruises for one. No eating at beach shacks too. The loud, garish music was not to my taste. I guess all of us preferred a more relaxed and calmer setting for food. We skipped the churches too because we weren't in Goa to see sights either.

Goa was fun but a little over-hyped if you ask me. It's unreasonably expensive too, everything is sold at a premium. Prices supposedly double or triple during the peak season, which is between December and January. Like a friend said - "You pay to get sun-burnt in Goa".

Some pictures from the trip, courtesy of Rajesh.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/raajjesh81/album?.dir=3e6bscd&.src=ph

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/raajjesh81/album?.dir=2282scd&.src=ph

Just like that...

2006-10-25T10:00:00.000+05:30

You must all know, by now, that MSC has retired from F1. Like his many many fans, I am saddened a lot, especially because Schumi went out without this year's championship. Yes, Alonso deserved it and all that, but Schumi did make a huge comeback towards the end of a season. Sad that he did not win the last race either and I couldn't watch it because I was stuck in silly CAS-sed Chennai. Watched the highlights though and man o man, Schumi did prove worthy of his greatness. What a wonderful last drive!!! It doesn't matter what his critics think and it doesn't matter what his opponents think, Schumi was a great racer - the greatest that I've had the privilege to watch. I've cried with the world when he lost, I've celebrated when he won races. Michael, you were a racing god and shall remain one. Etched in our memories. You are the best that ever can be!

In other news, Simon&Schuster announced today Stephen King's newest novel "Lisey's Story". Can't wait to get my hands on the book.

Rant: Do you follow traffic rules?

2006-09-29T10:06:00.000+05:30

The scene: I was waiting at the red to take a U-Turn at the BTM (Jayadeva) Flyover to head towards the Mantri building. It's red and I've my engine killed, enjoying a short break, clearing my head, before heading to work.

Now, people have this really bad habit at this particular signal: As soon as A turns red and B turns green, traffic at C has this urge to break their red. It's weird but that how's people behave.


|      |           |
|      |           |      |
|      |           | {B}  |
|      |___________|      |
|                         |_________________________|

Jayadeva Junction        {A}
                    _________________________
|       ______       |
| {C}  (      )      |
|      |      |      |
|      |      |      |
|      |      |      |
|      |      |      |

So, while I wait, A turns red, B turns green and C, of course, is still red. This gentleman (details later) starts honking. I point out the red to him. But why should that stop him. "The signal doesn't work", says he before zooming off to take a U-turn, risking an accident in the process. He must've been a real honcho and the 2 minutes that he waits for a red could cost his company (hold on, I will tell u where he works too) a billion dollars. So he zooms off leaving me boiling. When I get a green, I take my U-turn as usual, catch up with Mr. Honcho (I wish I had learnt his name) and ask him "Can't you wait for a b****y red? Aren't you educated? You s** ...". He merely waves me off and drives on. Yes, I agree that arguing was not the way to deal with it, but my temper was ruined and my peace disturbed. With all that going on, I couldn't stop the man and have a sane discussion on traffic rules with a man like that. Imagine my plight when I had to take the elevator with him. Aaarggghhhh!!! The agony of it all.

Why can't we wait at signals? Why can't we be patient and let a vehicle take a turn? Why can't we wait for a stalled vehicle to start or drive around it or help the stalled vehicle? Why do we have to honk and shout at a stalled vehicle? Why can't we cultivate a basic road sense? Are we that hampered by our limited civic sense?

Mr. Honcho drives a golden colored Santro, wears glasses, is thin and tall. He works for Tally in the Commerce@Mantri building on the 2nd floor. I wish I had gotten his name. Oh yes, let him sue me for defamation if he can.

Firefox 2.0 RC1

2006-09-28T17:24:00.000+05:30

Yep, just downloaded it. I have been playing around with the browser. Had to mini-hack some of my favorite plug-ins to work with the new version. Everything works so far and that's good, innit? A little inconvenient but should hold me until the extensions are updated.

Some very nice additions to an awesome browser. Read the What's New section for a rundown. Don't care too much about the visual changes or the web feeds. What I liked are

The auto complete feature for search engines. Yep, the search engine plugins can provide auto-complete. It did for Google.
built-in spell checker for web forms. it's brilliant and comes spelling suggestions and a add to dictionary feature. How hot is that? Now, your web mail can be spell checked on the go. BTW, I used it during this post.
Tabbed browsing improvements. History has a separate "recently closed tabs" list.
Built-in phishing protection. That should come in handy.
Some more neat features...

On the whole it is neat and I am waiting for 2.0 to be out. Can't wait to see what more they can do.

Do check it out. But beware, this install will overwrite any previous FF installs. Of course, your data will be safe.

Hair-Raising

2006-09-11T15:38:00.000+05:30

For years, I have always sported a really short crop, so short that it always looked like I was recovering from a recent tonsure. To speak the truth, I was scared of my hair. It was harder than coir and more unwieldy than the wildest weed. The barber must have cursed his luck everytime I stepped in for a hair-cut and this was pretty often. A little more than ground-level and there I would be getting my hair cut. I made sure that the hair was cut as short as the scissors could handle - value for money was definitely not the motivation. All this was until about a few months ago, when I stopped by the limelite salon (yes, it's a salon). My hair-stylist (yes, a stylist. I don't pay 200 bucks to call him a barber) cut my hair a little lesser than what I wanted. He didn't actually have to convince me to leave it just a little bit longer, though. Thus, I sported the "medium-length" hair for a while.

The devil, then, took me and I did the unthinkable. My hair "missed" a few appointments, three and a half months worth of them. Millions of gallons of hair gel and conditioner were used up during this period (Alright, that's overtly exaggerated!!). No, I did not want a ponytail. No, I couldn't even carry off the longer-by-a-few-centimeters hair. Nevertheless, I decided to soldier on and ignore the laments of my mom, the mocks of the others, the snigger of my friends and the "is that a new hair-cut?" jokes.

It felt nice to finally feel the wind in my hair. This happened during a train trip back to Bangalore. I was at the door trying to get chennai (no offense please) out of my system with a dose of the moonlit scenery, salty air and Bob Dylan singing "Blowin in the Wind" (No, I am not sure if it was that song but it would've fit in with the scene). There was a nice wind galloping right next to the length of the train. Without much strain, the wind could find my patch of hair and rush through it cutting through them like those guys always seem to do in "Lost". I found it immensely pleasurable to notice that the wind was able to mess with my hair. Yes, it felt nice. Hell, it felt great. So what if I looked weird with all that hair! Ahh, so this is what hair in the wind felt like?

Now that I had experienced the rebellious version of my hair, I was happy to fix up an appointment for my hair. I am back at medium length now. Yes, it still looks weird, but who cares!!

P.S: Don't get the wrong idea from my exaggerated use of the word "long". The word was used in complete relativity. The word "rebellious" was however used in the true sense. My hair is rebellious.

Do you cook?

2006-09-06T12:28:00.000+05:30

That's a de-facto question when people learn that I live alone in a house equipped with a stove, LPG connection and a myriad of utensils. My reply would always be, "Na. Used to cook, then didn't one day and the next and the next...." Truth be told, I rather enjoy the cooking part. What I don't enjoy is the painstaking brutal butchery of the vegetables. If only the veggies come in shapes that are suitable for cooking. Strips of carrot, quartered potatoes, sliced tomatoes, sliced onions. I have heard you can buy pre-cut vegetables, but I didn't bother to learn more about them. The biggest excuse I had to avoid cooking was the fact that I had to cook for one and I did not have a refrigerator to stow away extra portions. I hated the smirk that invariably bejewelled the veggie-wallahs face when I asked for "50gms of onion, 1 (exactly one) chilly, 1 stalk of curry leaves, 100gms of potato and 50gms of tomato". I am sure they found it funny. I didn't.

My cooking experience ranges across a number of 1-month periods. Some excuse or the other would save me from it and there I would be, back at the take-away. What did I make during the 1-month periods? Potato sambar, potato sagu, fried potato, potato stew. Yep, you guessed it. It was almost always a starchy potato meal. Did you guess why? Bingo!! Potatoes are easier to store. No refrigeration required.

So when the new fridge arrived most of my excuses had to be binned. In a way, I was glad that I made the buy. The curries I had to have everyday were killing me with their untasteable flavours. That's one thing I hate about the food here, every flavour tends to come in the way of the other and at the end of the meal all you can taste is a certain numbness of the taste-buds.

Now my kitchen is stocked with extra-virgin olive oil, brined olives, veggies - tomatoes, green peppers, baby corn, potatoes (can't ditch them, can I?), beet-root, salad dressings, cheese (no, I don't love cheese too much), milk (good milk in carton!), frozen fish, tomato puree, penne pasta. Yep, everything you need to whip up a great salad or dish out a nice fish. Not in fist-sized portions anymore!

So do I cook? Yes, I do. I don't know for how much longer, because first-and-foremost I am pretty lazy.

Pandhikari, Coffee and Peace

2006-09-04T18:57:00.000+05:30

That's Coorg for you. Had a wonderful ride to Coorg and back. For ye B'Loreans that head towards Mysore, do try the NICE corridor from Kanakapura Road to somewhere beyond the dreaded Kengeri traffic. That is one marvellous road, smooth asphalt, trimmed in white, stretching and snaking away into the horizon. If I could, I would dedicate this entire post to the NICE corridor. Sadly, I didn't stop to take pictures of the road. I should do it someday. The route we took was B'Lore-NICE-Ranganthittu turn off-Kushal Nagar-Madikeri-Cherumbane-nice resort in a mindblowing location. Yeah, i forget the other places that came and went in between. :)

The entire stretch was quick, smooth and heavenly to ride on. Except for some sections which are being laid afresh and should be done up soon. With a start time of 6:20ish we reached our acco around 11:30ish. And what an awesome place to stay in. It is a resort that is still being developed and once it is completed, I am sure you would want to be there. The view is worth killing for and the 80 acres the resort is on is worth all the money. It's a rain forest in itself. It even has a "canopy walk", that's a wooden bridge suspended really high up and strung from tree to tree. The walkway would extend an amazing 1/2 a kilometer. Yeah, that's right!

It was festival time in Coorg. The rest-after-the-sowing festival. I forget its name. It's kayal-something. Well, it was a time of celebration and every Tom, Dick and his friend Harry was walking lop-sided, thanks to intoxication. The entire town except for the three of us (Sameer, our host Satya and I) was merrily drunk. It was pretty funny. It wasn't even lunch time, mind you.

The afternoon turned out a very adventurous outing for us. First, we saw a 4WD Mahindra use its 4WD. At one really slippery and steep part of the track, the 4WD was outdone and we had to use an additional 5 MP (that's Man-Power) to get it out of the rut.. Dirtied jeans and grinning faces! Then in the evening, we decided to eat pandhicurry by a river. Guess what? We managed to ditch another Mahindra into a hole in the ground. :D And 4MP applied, pulled it out of the hole and on the drive. :) We were drenched in the rain by then and settled down to steaming pandhi-kari inside the jeep with the river looking at us through the windshield (or the other way around, if you please).

It didn't stop there. We had a huge spread of fried chicken, chutta pork (BBQ pork marinated in a lip-smacking, hot green-chilli sauce), pork chops, mutton, roti and tomato curry. The meal was huge, I tell you. Enough to put us to sleep by 9:30.

Next morning, after a hot cuppa tea (thanks to the guy from Darjeeling) we were on our way. This time we tried a different route.

The first leg: Sad-to-leave-it-behind Resort-Somwarpet-Shanivarasanthe was at its usual brilliance. The early morning weather, the negligible traffic and tons-and-tons of twisties after twisties put us in excellent spirit. We were so floating in the air, by then, that the second leg, Shanivarasanthe-HoleNarsipur-Channarayapatna, couldn't dampen our spirits with its negliglible road and the stand-on-the-pegs dunes. Yes, the second leg was a motocross like track. Sameer and I positively love the off-roading and it was no big deal. Not for the weak-hearted though. Avoid this second leg. Instead take Shanivarpet-Sakleshpur-Hassan-Channarayapatna. Longer but a lot more roadly. The third leg was NH48. Fun, fast dear-old NH48. Until you reach Nelamangala though. Once you get there, it's good-bye sweet freedom. Welcome to the chaos of civilisation. The congress rally didn't help one bit. After a fruitless but valiant attempt to get onto the Hebbal flyover, we turned back and took a half-circle around Bangalore on the Ring Road towards Mysore Road. The best decision ever. The RR took us to Kengeri and then we decided to go a very little way down towards Mysore and take the nice NICE road again. And then at 14:00 it was sweet home, some lunch and deep slumber for two hours.

Pictures here: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2102279287&mode=invite

Hilarious Review

2006-08-23T12:31:00.000+05:30

Of yet another mushy pot-boiled movie. It's hilarious and goes exactly with how I feel about such movies.

http://greatbong.net/2006/08/20/kabhi-alvida-na-kehna-the-review/

Blub glug blub

2006-08-11T19:26:00.000+05:30

Ah, so there we are. No posts for a long time. No thoughts to pour for a longer time. At the risk of being booed, I say this again - I've been lazy. :) Like always during these inertial states, I wonder about what could have been and what couldn't have been. No, I don't lust after the could've-beens nor do I fear that couldn't-have-beens. I must sound boastful when I claim that success is not of much consequence to me - atleast not in the professional sense of the word. That doesn't mean I don't have material needs and wishes, that doesn't mean that I am completely carefree or careless. It's just that I don't have the inclination to be a part of it. Like most people, remember I said most not all, I always think I don't have enough money but at the same time I value my life and my freedom more than money. I have ignored a number of then very lucrative job offers because I was convinced that the work life would override my personal life. We can't have that, can we? What is the point in toiling the skin off for money that you don't get to enjoy?

errr ok I'll quite blubbing and leave.

Weird

2006-07-26T11:01:00.000+05:30

"What is the best thing to do when you have split with your spouse but you want to work it out?"
This search on www.ask.com brings up my blog as the first search result (before this post). How weird is that!

Let me rant

2006-07-25T16:27:00.000+05:30

Yeah, as a citizen of a supposedly-democratic nation I believe I have the right to rant. Ofcourse, I should take care as to not hurt the religious, cultural, sane or insane sentiments of the others. If my rant includes any domain that the reader may be aligned to or otherwise interested in, please excuse me. I mean no harm. I merely mean to rant. I have the time to do it and I am high on LSB (Light Simple Bore). I would recommend that you don't read the post at all. It probably wouldn't make sense. It probably would turn out to be no post at all. I use the word probably because I have no idea why or what I am posting.

Ah, so you are still reading this deadly concoction. At your own peril, I say, at your own. Nevertheless now that you are with me (on the same page like people like to say), let me see what I have to say. Alright, alright, I will start with the idiot box. I am not glued to the idiot box but I do senselessly surf the channels from the cosy confines of me bean bag. With the quality of television programming what it is, the surf is at insane speeds. Sometimes I surf merely to make a string out of the various sounds booming out of the various stations. Have u tried that? You should, you might find it fun. "Boo Caa Raa Nooo Wat Dash Splash glub blub dub wilp slip plip yeap hi no good every people.." You get the idea, don't you? These television people get one thing right - weekends should be the most boring day on television. It's a good thing, you know. It gets the people off their seat and who knows they might even venture into the sunlight. To get some calcium, like a friend inadvertently quipped the other day.

What's irritable about television - I should've said what's most irritable - is the quality of advertisements. There are some very funny and some very well-made ads, I admit. To counter that people have come up with ingenously ridiculous ads that can irritate you more than a itch can. Take the champi ad for example. For the uninitiated, it's an ad for a hair oil that has now found its way into "Lifestyle and Music Channel" VH1. Yes, you heard it right - on VH1, that glorious soldier that came to redeem us from the other cliched music channels. Anyway it has the charmingly unattractive diya mirza with the squeakiest voice ever. I attribute the squeaky voice to a well oiled voice box that I suspect has been champi-ed with parachute advansed. The pitch of her voice (voice-over?) is very acutely tuned so that the vibrations can travel into your bones, then move up the marrow and reach the brain where the vibrations jelly-up the nerves and the cells on the brain. It's a blissful feeling, I must add, to be knocked out of your mind like that. I wonder what the heck champi means. Does it mean massage? Ahh, now I realise that this was the centerpiece of my rant.

I am quite thankful that I don't suffer from Himesh Is the Devil Syndrome. Before you are lead to believe otherwise, let me state that I hate Himesh's singing like most of you do. Did I hear you say he's ok? Ok, you have the right to your opinion so go ahead and have it. Add some pepper sauce to cover up the staleness though. Getting back to the point, I don't watch MTV or Channel V. For the time, I am safe from HIDS.

I have also been lucky enough to have a proxy that meant no blogspot blocking for me. Yet, I wish to stamp my disapproval on whatever it was that happened. Censorship on any kind is deplorable, especially when it comes from our pure-souled politicians that don't have the golgappas (Thanks, Sushila) to do what they preach.

Had enough? No? Well i did, so adious amigos. Auf Wiedersehen!

Oyster

2006-07-18T10:49:00.000+05:30

Run-in Trip

2006-07-14T10:59:00.000+05:30

X-posted from Wander-Clicks.

http://wanderclicks.blogspot.com/2006/07/sameers-run-in.html

Sameer's album

http://picasaweb.google.com/get.sameer/AvengerRunInRide

Why this?

2006-07-12T12:33:00.000+05:30

Why terrorize? Why hurt? Is this the only way to get what you want? Is this the way to garner attention?

It doesn't matter who did it. It doesn't matter what the cause is. It doesn't matter if it is a wily political move. It doesn't matter if it is an attempt to make a scape-goat out of someone. What matters is the grief that has been effected! What matters is the sadness that now envelopes those that have lost so much! What matters is the shatter of lives, resounding and resonating through a city! What matters is the cruelty that we, the intellectual species, are capable of!

God help those that now suffer. God help those that made them suffer.

Utopia, where are you?

Con at petrol pumps

2006-07-11T12:51:00.000+05:30

I am sure most of you must have read/heard about the new trick up the petrol-pump-assistants' sleeve. I had too, but it happened to me nevertheless.

The fact that I have noticed it at four different pumps in B'Lore has me worried. It surely isn't an isolated incident and I am pretty sure it extends outside of B'Lore too.

The trick is to short-change you of fuel.

The players

The pump guy who pumps the fuel - PG
The cash collector who collects the cash - CC
The victim - V

Modus Operandi

V asks for, say, 4 litres of fuel. PG asks V to check zero and proceeds to pump fuel. PG pumps only 1 litre of fuel, pretending that he thought V wanted only a litre. When V clarifies, PG and CC ask him if they can fill in another 3 litres. V says alright. Meanwhile, CC distracts V with silly questions like "are u paying by card or cash?" and other such stuff. Now that V is distracted, PG does not reset the meter and in fact goes slow on the fuel filling, so that by the time V's focus is back the meter shows around 1.25 litres or so. PG fills fuel until it shows 3 litres. do the math and V (well, i was) has just been cheated of a litre. Ofcourse, both PG and CC will claim that the meter was indeed reset.

I noticed it because inspite of the billing guy making attempts to distract me, I looked at the pump counter just in time to smell something fishy. I couldn't prove them wrong and so ended up being fooled.

A similar modus operandi is applied if you ask for 400 rupees worth of fuel. In this case, you'll be cheated of not just a litre but a 100 rupees worth of fuel.

The pumps

It has happened to me at 4 different places.

1) The first was the HP petrol pump on the JP Nagar Ring Road, just before the Delmia circle when you are headed towards Bannerghatta Road. Here I was cheated and learnt my lesson.

2) The next one was the BP just after Kadrenahalli Cross, Banashankari

3) The HP near Woody's just after the ICICI atm signal

4) The BP opposite IBM, near Jalbhavan, on Bannerghatta Road.

What can u do?

1) First and foremost, be alert. Don't take your eyes off the fuel counter. Car owners are probably the most susceptible as I have seen most of them remain inside the car. You are better off getting out of the car. It'll only cost a few seconds more.

2) Fill in lesser quantities.

3) Ask them to set the pump to auto-dispensing mode.

4 Years and Going On

2006-07-03T18:52:00.000+05:30

So as of this saturday (1st July), I have completed four years in the IT industry. Like many other IT workers, I am confused about whether I like it or not. Sometimes I find myself wondering if this is what I want to do. At other times, I think I am doing pretty well so why crib. The problem is not with the industry or the company, it is mostly with me. I am not adventurous enough or courageous enough to try something new. Yes, there are times when I bemuse myself dreaming about an off-the-beaten-track career filled with adventure and a newness. No, I am sure I will never ever do something like that.

Cheers to the four and whatever else is on the way. :)

P.S: My mom had to remind me and my friends that we have managed to complete four years. So our celebrations have been delayed by a week. :) We'll miss the majority that isn't in B'Lore.

Crucifix

2006-06-19T18:12:00.000+05:30

He marvelled at the sunlight, filtering through the dense foliage. He had seen such sights before, yet the glee in his soul was as true as anything can be. He would never bask in the glorious golden shimmer. He would never feel the warmth touch down upon his spine and make the chill shiver away. He was tied, bonded to his anchor and his cocoon, also his crucifix.

lazing around

2006-06-06T15:34:00.000+05:30

Lazing around : The act of conserving energy by reducing movement and effort. :D

The idea, originally, was that we would be in Kerala to welcome the monsoon. Due inspiration was provided by the amazing book, "Chasing the Monsoon", which I have not read yet. We didn't plan to chase the monsoon but to merely be present in Kerala during the monsoon. We weren't even too hung up on the welcoming bit.

The ideal place for us, as most of you would tend to agree, would have been Kovalam. But given the choice of a lake resort, that was surprisingly truly on the banks of a lake, we were hooked to the idea. We decided to head for the KTDC Thanneer Mukkom resort. Thanneer Mukkom is close to Azhapuzha and Kumarakom, part of the backwaters belt. It's a very small village, the resort being the only marker.

We took off in a bus from Neyveli to Ernakulam and reached Ernakulam around 9am. From Ernakulam, after sifting through many conflicting routes from well-meaning people, we took a "transport" bus to Vaikkom. Some appams later, the heat became unbearable and irritating. An auto-wallah took us to the resort, which was about 15kms from Vaikkom and left us 150 bucks poorer.

The resort's location is breath-taking. Like I said before, it's on the banks of a huge lake and it adds to the charm. Actually, the location is the best thing about the resort. The rooms themselves were not too great. For 1250 bucks I guess you can't ask for anything more, given that it is a touristy spot. By afternoon, we were settled into the room and looking forward to the rains and an ayurvedic massage. The massage at 750 bucks did not do wonders. What it did do was give me a good appetite. :)

Did I tell you about the hammock by the lakeside? Well, I grabbed it as soon as I could and went into energy-conservation mode with a book in hand and a gentle breeze flowing in from over the water. Bliss!! Only a low wall stood between me and the water. I peeped out every few minutes to watch the fishermen steering their boats through the hyacinths. The resort also had a jetty and I loitered around close to the water for a long time.

The first half of day two was spent running through Azhapuzha for the return tickets to Bangalore. The situation looked bleak. So we satisfied ourselves with waitlisted train tickets from Ernakulam and went back to laze-around mode. Didn't someone say, "Cross the river when you come upon it." By afternoon we reached Kumarakom using a ferry from a place called Muhamma less than 10kms from ThanneerMukkom. After a lunch that consisted of lobster, we rented a motor boat with strict instructions to stick to the interior canal(s) and leave out the lake, that we already ferried across. Sadly, there are only motorised boats. Even the house boats are motorised. The canal cruise was extremely good.

In case you didn't notice, the rains were nowhere to be seen. Except for a very brief drizzle on day two, there was no hint of the monsoon. We prayed and hoped that the rains would come. But as luck would have it never did come. Either we missed it or we overshot it by a day or two.

On Sunday evening, as the train left Ernakulam, our disappointment was quadrapuled when the sky suddenly grew overcast with huge dark clouds and it rained. I don't know if it was a monsoon shower, but it rained very well and left us feeling more dejected. The rain-gods had mocked us and there was nothing we could do but go back empty-handed. In hindsight, it was a well spent two days, a good break from the monotony.

And there's always another chance.

Pix@Imagestation.

TAAQ in London

2006-05-24T10:07:00.000+05:30

Yes, Thermal And A Quarter are gigging in Scotland and England.... Check them out at MySpace.
All the best guys!! And go rock the world!!!

Tuck in here.

Mixed Masala

2006-05-23T19:35:00.000+05:30

Long time, no thoughts, no post. Yes, I have not given the blog a thought (is that a pun?), for sometime now. This is a mere update post. Updates about whatever fancies me in the next few minutes :)

The rain-gods are (were?) back in Bangalore. I love this place for that. Signs of excruciating heat and then relief comes pouring down. The nights are cooler nowadays.

The sunday before last, picked up some books from Landmark. Pix. Finished Murakami. Interesting author.
Now, reading The Dark Tower VII. Where will the ka-tet end up?

Culturals happening at work and I, of all people, am involved in a lot of activities. Please don't ask me what. :-D

Ahhh. This reservation thing. I am extremely hurt by whatever is going on. On one hand, we want to present India as an intellectually capable nation. On the other, we deny the intelligent a chance to hone their skills. "Reservations based on caste", says the government and the minister has the guts to claim that India is not yet a modern society. Knock, knock, knock!! Mr. Minister, Do u realize that whatever you are doing now is partly the cause?

Did you read/watch Karan Thapar's interview with the honorable Minister? It is people of this aptitude that run the government. I used to think that the likes of the PM and the Fin Minister can bring this country to the forefront. Now, I stand dismayed. I am horrified.

By the way, we won't just reserve seats in educational institutions. We will also make sure that the incapable and inept that come out these institutions will actually also have jobs waiting for them. I am not casteist. The government is.

presenting Wander-Clicks!

2006-04-15T18:05:00.000+05:30

There! I have done it. I chucked my poor old Samsung CDMA phone. Before u call me cruel, know that the phone was well past it's date and it gave up its ghost due to a fried motherboard. The obituary is on its way. He deserves a well-thought-of goodbye, that is why it's so long in coming.

Anyway let me introduce my new phone - phones, if my bro lets me share the one I bought for him. Ta-da, welcome Mr. Sony Ericsson w800i! Yes, I am a Nokia fan but the really awesome camera on the phone seduced me. The camera has even gotten an auto-focus feature :-O. A cool mp3 player and a 512MB card shipped in the package serve for good timepass. Not a great looker though and the PC software shipped with it sucks.

Now for the other phone. Technically my brother's.
Ladies and gentleman, please welcome the absolutely gorgeous Nokia 6280. I had a tough time convincing myself to take the w800 and not the nokia. It's slick, it has got a large and lucid display. The camera is almost useless but otherwise a beautiful piece of equipment. How I wish I could carry both the phones! :(

Oh yes, if you are wondering about the title of this post, it is to announce my new mobile-pix blog Wander-Clicks. Currently premiering pictures from Dubai courtesy of the SE w800i.

P.S: The pix are not posted on the go. Not yet anyway.

o white dove

2006-04-07T09:22:00.000+05:30

o white dove, basis
of all that is me.
you are untied with me,
free to follow your wish.
then why do you ask of me,
this favour that is not one.
"Let go", you said.
Surely you didn't mean that.
For the mind plays tricks
Keeping you in a haze.
What the hurt mind shows
is not reality, the reflection
of a broken mirror.
The blue sky is not freedom,
the wind is not happiness.
This shoulder you sit on,
Is not heaven.
Yet they are yours to claim,
mementoes of "you".
No, you can't give them up,
Though your delirium thinks
otherwise. No, it's not right,
as the fragmented mind says it is.
Go, if you want to, scout
the horizon for the truth,
The truth that you know,
that the sooty veil hides.
Go now, but fly back to
the shoulder that still awaits
your feathery landing.

the cry of the dying ember

2006-03-17T18:11:00.000+05:30

I lay crumpled, the innards of my soul ripped apart and strewn upon the dusty floor of memory lane. I wish I could curl up and become a child, an embryo and finally nothing. A nothingness that would be blissful.

I am like a yacht at sea, with its sails blown away. There is no drive but the shore is nowhere near and all I can do is let the ripples carry me on. The will to live is negligible but life will go on, uncaring and without stop. The sail might get patched with help from people around me, but until it does life will be a drag, weighed down by the cruelty that fate has chosen to shower.

I cringe at the hate that the world holds and the manipulation of fate. I have been singed by the fire of ignorance and burnt at the pyre of stubbornness. I have been murdered in the name of tradition, with the archaic dagger of division. My destiny has been taken away from me. Not because I didn't try. Not because I didn't crave it. It was taken away and crushed because the universe conspired against it.

It's not the world that is impure, it is not fate that's impure. It is the people that perceive the impurity and bring it into being. More's utopia is just a vision, an untouchable seductress who always shimmers tantalizingly ahead of us. What would happen to Utopia in the cradle of ignorance? Would Utopia be smothered into submission? Submission to the set view that we have made of the world.

I wish it were easier to walk away from everything. I wish it were easier to get up after the fall and limp back to normality.

What do I do when meanings dissolve into falsehood? What do I do when everything I thought life to be becomes an illusion? An illusion that has destroyed the fine mirrors of my past. An illusion that has erased what I am and what I have become. I am now undefined and unconsumed. I am left to redefine and to re-establish my spirit in this teeming world.

P.S: Ignore the relevance of the title

they are here

2006-03-14T09:58:00.000+05:30

It's that time of the year in B'Lore when those lilac-coloured flowers appear on the branches of those trees that bear them. Yeah, you guessed right. I have no clue as to what they are called, or their species or biological family or their gender. All I know is that they are some sort of avenue trees - the politically correct name for trees that have been left to tend for themselves on the sides of the road. These lilacish-coloured flowers carpet the roads in the morning and, though I have not actually seen this, I am sure they would present a very pretty sight early in the morning when the slanted rays at dawn filter through the leaves onto the ground. They are a pretty sight even when the world has awakened to chaos. The wonderful thing is that they seem to be everywhere. They are like the omnipresent song of spring and they manage to bring a smile to my yet-to-awaken face. Every single day.

There are so many such teeny-weeny little things about Bangalore. No wonder I'm so in love with this place.

the teacher

2006-03-11T18:28:00.000+05:30

It wasn't often that someone offered him a word. It had been years since anyone had spoken to him even a few sentences let alone half-hour's worth of them. His lips moved only to talk to the innate silence that was in him. He spoke to the earth, he spoke to the wind. He even spoke to the trees when they caught his fancy. He never wondered why he heard no replies. He never worried that no humans ever wished to talk to him. He liked to be his own companion in conversation. Naturally he had been caught off-guard when the man in the car addressed him out of the blue. He had looked around to be sure that it was indeed him that the man in the car had called out to. He had said, "Sir?", with the little question mark added at the end with an inflection. Sir, indeed!

The man had invited him to have coffee with him at the store across the road. He was dressed in a pair of old blue comfortable jeans and a black tee. Unlike him, the man looked perfectly in place within the coffee shop. In the last thirty minutes, the man had spoken to him and listened to the story of his life with an honest interest. The man had recognised him inspite of the shrivelled skin and the badly nicked bald head. He offered his teacher a place to live, or die when the time came, in peace. He claimed that his teacher had been the first step in his ladder. The first, sure, strong step that now defined his career, his success and his life. It was now time to ensure that this demi-god was at peace and he had come to claim his right to do that.

The teacher stared at the student he couldn't remember. His memories had long before been strangled out of existence. He wondered at the godliness of this man he had once taught. He felt proud of that. He stood up and thanked the man for his respect and his care. He took his cane and made his way out. This conversation would now enable him to sanely live with the silence for a long time to come. That was all he needed in life. That was all he wanted to be thankful for.

my experiments with the vices - 1

2006-03-06T09:22:00.000+05:30

I was out on a mission this saturday, to experience drunkenness. I don't mean to brag but I was hell bent on finding out what it felt like. As luck would have it, a friend's treat was on and nine of us headed to purple haze. I didn't like the ambience of the place, but the rock they played was good enough for my tastes. The scary thing was that inspite of this being my first time, I felt nothing even after 4 shots of scotch. Nothing, almost nothing. I guess I was an alcoholic even before I started to drink. All I felt had to do more with the music than the alcohol. With a dozen heads banging around, I just couldn't resist and got into the neck straining excercise. Now, I don't know about getting drunk but there is nothing that can beat a bit of head-banging to flush out any frustration that's coursing through you. Anyway, time was running out cos the others were already on their last few sips and gulps. I was not going to give up on my mission and as a last ditch effort, I downed a fifth whiskey in a single gulp. That did the trick and I arrived. Not piss drunk but drunk nonetheless. Strangely, except for a bit of haze, it didn't change my perception drastically. None of the lose-all-control things were happening to me. The closest thing I did was to repeat a few gems of unasked for advice a few times. I was either going about it the wrong way or I have way too much alcohol resistance for a beginner.

Footnote: "Why all this?", you ask. To spite myself and my self-righteousness. Until now, as a matter of principle, I stayed away from these vices inspite of there being ample opportunity not to. Now I realise that it is pointless to try and be self-righteous.

P.S: It is entirely my opinion that drinking is a vice and so are many other things.

shiver

2006-02-27T15:29:00.000+05:30

This might be the other, smaller side of http://bijucool.blogspot.com/2005/12/end-of-road.html

She shivered underneath her thin clothes as the moonlight chilled her with its touch. She felt betrayed. She felt unloved. Without an end in sight, she walked along the narrow streets. She wrapped her misery around her shoulders like a silken shawl. There was no reason for him to leave her. She had never given him a reason to. She had always showered him with all the love she could gather in her divided heart. Yes, her heart was divided and he didn't know of the division. Or did he? Was that why he had decided to leave her? But he couldn't have known. She had never given him a chance to know. It was no fault of hers though. She had been a little tipsy from the wine then and it wasn't until two hours later that she realised what had happened. It was too late and she hadn't known the actual consequences at that time. She had come to know of them a lot later, a few weeks before. She had been preparing herself to tell him and to omit a few truths for the benefit of their marriage. It was too late again. He was no longer with her, for her to tell him about the child that now shared her love. The child that was not his, but she didn't intend for him to know this fact.

Her feet moved of their own accord and lead her on. She passed shops that would be bustling come morning, she walked by benches that would see people sitting on them the next day. The streets that she had known for ten years now seemed an alien, abandoned movie setting. The chill tingled her spine and she cringed from the silence around her. She wondered if it would be right for her child to be born loveless and out of wedlock.

the heart or the head

2006-02-21T10:23:00.000+05:30

How many times in life have you come to cross-roads; roads dictated by the heart and the head respectively? It is such a tough decision to make. It is indeed a difficult thing to leave things behind when you don't necessarily have to. Yes, the head worries about how things can be better with change, about how change is important inspite of the risks involved. The heart meanwhile immerses in melancholy cherishing the smallest of things, the smallest of actions. The heart longs for the familiar faces, places and scents. The cubicle you sit in, the telephone that you use, the white board that you never use. The head wonders why you want to be stuck at a place while the whole world rushes past you. While everyone's making better and better futures for themselves, why are you adamant to sit upon something that you might not mean the same thing forever?
The heart says life is to do things you like to do, not things you must do.

I have gone with my heart many a times. I have ofcourse never even thought of repenting any decision that I've made. Whatever I decide, I stand by that. No matter what the consequences. But would the heart be right all the time and in all circumstances?

RDB - not again?

2006-02-17T17:25:00.000+05:30

Yeah, yeah. I finally saw the movie. But don't you worry. I am not gonna do YARORDB! I am sure there are enough well-written reviews, comments and even the plot to keep you busy :) Ok, so you are wondering what the heck this post is about. This post is about a few completely futile thoughts and opinions that occured to me during the movie. Ofcourse, these are opinions that I have formed over the years and as a friend happened to write, "the opinions are mine and I have the right to be wrong".

What if the world had been atleast partly-utopian without such boundaries as countries, culture, et al? What if the world had been such that nations do not have any need for armed forces?
What if the world had no need for wars - personal or otherwise?
What if the words "war" or "arms" or "weapons" had not made it into the dictionary?

I have immense respect for the people who are willing to risk their all to serve their nation. I do not seek to trivialise what they do. I do not wish to question their beliefs. I am only wondering how it would be if they didn't have to lay down their lives for such made-up segmentations as "countries". Call me a traitor, but I for one don't believe in such emotions as 'patriotism' and 'nationalism'. These are emotions that are forced upon us because someone decided it would be a good idea to put down boundaries and slit the world with slithering borders. We have been programmed to rejoice the victories of segments that we belong to, be it in cricket or in war. If we stop to notice it, the segmentation has no limit on its levels at all. On one hand, we celebrate India's victory over Pakistan in cricket. On the other hand, we also segment ourselves into states within India and fight over who owns the water from rivers. You would think we would stop there but no we don't. Within states, we divide ourselves into cities, towns and villages. Into urban and rural segments. Into religions, into languages, into cultures. Into castes within religions. Into dialects within languages. The segmentation is a criss-cross mesh and there are overlaps and underlaps. It is wide, it can be generic, it can be grainy. There seems to be no beginning nor an end. It is a web. A web designed to kill and bruise the world.

Ahhhh, if the world had been different.

BTW, for me RDB did not match the hype. Though the first half was incredibly entertaining, I had other things on my mind that kept me distracted. For one, I tripped when getting to the seat and accidentally clawed through the hair of a woman/girl sitting in the row ahead. I was absolutely flustered and I was convinced she hadn't understood my apology in the din of the movie. I lived in constant fear that she would corner me during the interval and bonk me on the head or something :-(
Woman/Girl, if you read this I am extremely sorry and yes, I will be careful.

YARORDB: Yet Another Review On RDB.

Mixed Doubles

2006-02-13T11:55:00.000+05:30

Double over with laughter. 2 seconds later the seriousness catches up and leaves you thinking. That's Mixed Doubles for you. I first saw Rajat Kapoor in DCH, the cool, sauve uncle. The movie didn't do much for his acting credentials but he was sort of a calming presence in the movie. Any MD is directed by Rajat Kapoor.

The movie deals with a theme that could've been turned into one of Emraan Hashmi flicks. But thankfully Rajat has given the theme a wholly different treatment. The movie is about spouse-swapping. Yeah, that's right.

The movie is made on a canvas of continuous hilarous. The undercurrent of seriousness is thus delivered in a very effective way and settles lazily and comfortably into the mind. We keep hearing about how *such things* happen in various social circles. Numerous magazines write about infidelity, spouse-swapping and everything else to do with sexual orientations/what-not.
IMHO, this is the first time that the subject has been dealt within a practical frame of reference.

People call it sexual liberation. People call it westernization. People call it awakening. The truth is that it is a breakdown. The truth is that something has gone wrong somewhere. The movie portrays this practical side of emotions. It is a natural thing for someone to feel angry and jealous if their partners were as much as to merely flirt with someone, let alone be infidel. If someone does not feel any emotion, then the relationship is probably on the rocks already.

In my opinion, if either one feels a need or desire for experimentation, then it's best to give up on the relationship and split. It's an absolutely ridiculous idea that extra-marital affairs can keep the flame going. It would merely extinguish the current flame and ignite a completely different one.

There is one phrase in the movie that caught my mind, a phrase that I'm sure people would want to use upon me. 'Broad-minded'. Ranvir asks a newspaper vendor for the ads-magazine that has 'broad-minded ads'. If you think about it, that phrase is the whole problem. It's not being narrow-minded to want your partner to be fidel. It's not being narrow-minded to be in a relationship and want to make it work without succumbing to the so-called 'broad-mindedness'. That phrase 'broad-minded' has been twisted into improbably shapes by the awakened social consiousness. It's the ultimate weapon of choice with the *broad-minded* section of people.

The movie's ending (like most gen-x movies?) is abrupt. You leave the cinema-hall a bit confused and wondering about how it would actually have ended - the couple's relationship, that is.

The movie is absolute fun to watch. You can choose to ignore the under-current and you have the perfect recipe for a couple of hours of laughter. Choose to think about the subject and you have a serious subject delivered on the hilarous-express.

On the negative, there are some seriously jarring parts in the movie. The numero uno question amongst these would be, 'How in the world did malathi actually agree to the swap inspite of her being against it?' The movie's answer is that Sunil played a trick on her, but that's an unconvincing answer. If I wanted to, I could probably project the question into the deeper recesses of the human mind and come up with the magic rabbit - 'Their relationship was doomed anyway. And Malathi thought so too.' :-)

Take it or leave it, but if you have even started to think of having an affair on the side then the best thing to do would be split with your partner and go after the affair. And worse, if you are complacent about your partner's affairs, do yourself a favour and get out as soon as you can.

Ofcourse, everything's my narrow-minded opinion :-)

new on my music horizon

2006-02-09T14:33:00.000+05:30

There are some very good singers out there. I swear there are. You just have to look beyond the moronic music that streams out of the telly and bear with them every now and then to uncover that gem. Oh, don't even get me started on the likes of backstreet-speared-careys. Can you even imagine gwen stefani and mariah carey being nominated for record and album of the year? What in the world is happening to the world? God save us all from this mess.

Anyway I've recently become fascinated by a few artists. What is crucial about these folks is that they are artists. They are not pretty boys dressed to kill nor are they almost undressed *divas*. They are artists and they can sing. Don't be surprised if most of them are based in the UK. I came across them when I was there. Okie, I'm not plugging myself. :D

Katie Melua

Yes, she's a jazz and blues singer. She has this silky jazz voice that somehow works its way into you. I liked Norah Jones, but Katie beats her hands-down with her amazing range and the surprising twists she adds to her singing. Her first debut album "Call off the search" is a wonderful collection. Apparently most of the songs are covers but the album easily showcases her many talents. Her second album "Piece by Piece" has one uniquely lyric-ed song "Nine million bicycles". Listen to it and you will know.

Awesome is the closest I can come to describe her. Oh, she is a good looker too :-).

David Gray

His debut album had been in 1993. So he is one of the grand-dads on the music scene. But I hadn't heard of him until recently. His music is simple, with the acoustic guitar bridging it across with a little help from samplers to fill the gap. The lyrics are beautifully written, an excellent
song-writer. It's the simplicity of his songs that attracted me to his music. Nowadays, Gray gets a lot of airtime on VH1 too. This I think is after his first mainstream album "Life in slow motion", which is the first of David's albums to be recorded in a 'full scale' studio environment as opposed to the 'bedroom' sized facilities favoured in the past. .

Jamie Cullum

His music is pop-jazz, a pop-ish rendition of jazz. Not always though. His songs definitely define that he is a jazz-ist first. :) He is a singer, pianist and song-writer and creates eclectic music that has caught on with a wide range of the audience. His looks are typical English shaggy teen. His music is quite refreshing and *different*.

Daniel Powter

VH1 has been playing his "Free Loop" regularly and I quite like that song. With a bit more exploring, I am sure I will come to like his music. It's catchy.

If you have an ear for good music, not technical knowledge about music mind you ;-), I'm sure you'll find these people interesting at the least.

my beautiful princess

2006-02-08T11:35:00.000+05:30

I have always thought that i am not good with kids. I have often watched them play waving with their pudgy little hands, smiling their toothed or toothless or half-toothed smiles. I have watched their eyes focussing in and out of every corner of their rooms. I adore kids. I do. But something always kept me away from them. I did not know how to react to kids. I often worried that I might make a really bad impression on them. The truth is kids often made me insecure. Yes, that's true. Though I wanted to cuddle them or play with them or just sit beside them and watch tv, I never did. I was afraid that the kids might not like me, that I might do something stupid. I have envied people that seemed so naturally gifted with handling kids. They never missed a beat striking up a conversation with children. They never had any difficulty amusing children with their antics. I knew I could do all that but just didn't have the courage to do it.

That's when she came into my life. This wonderful girl nearing two years. She was the daughter of a colleague. I met her when I was in the UK. I don't remember the first time I met her. I'm prone to forgetting a lot of these 'first', second and all other things :). She was an adorable angel. Her smile was so innocent and so endearing. I don't think I did anything more than shake her little hands the first time. On the first trip that we went on together (to Knebworth House), she sat with me in the cab. I pointed out things to her on the road, I kept speaking to her and trying to grasp her baby-talk. I couldn't believe that a kid was right there sitting with me and blissfully chattering like a humming bird. We became friends by the end of that day. Infact, my malayalam was so bad that when I spoke to her we seemed to be in perfect sync. That's what everyone told me :D

Later on, whenever we went on trips she would sit with me most of the time. When we visited her house, she would make me read out books to her. She would have me tell her stories of Nemo, Beauty and the Beast, Cim*b*erella. Sometimes we would read aloud nursery rhymes together. We watched Finding Nemo, BB and Cimberella endless number of times. Whenever the dance scene in BB came up, she would make me dance with her. She, the beauty gliding along the floor, swirling and twirling. I, the clumsy beast trying my best to keep my breath and follow her around the floor. She wouldn't let us stop even when I was breathless and panting. She would guide me through the dance like the princess she was. She was always at the center of my attention and I guess she loved it. When she was done dancing, she would step on my feet and I would have to "feet-carry" her around the house. When she was done with that, I would have to toss her up in the air. Ok, not actually toss but you should get the idea :) Whenever she was around, I always had something or the other to do. When we sat down for dinner, she would always want to eat from my plate. Her mother would have to threaten her to eat the food she was trying to feed her.

I have a lot of anecdotes to do with her. She was a very smart child. Very smart.

One day, a colleague and I ended up at the same restaurant that she and her parents were having dinner. After she finished her meal, she came over to our table and settled down on my lap. When her parents made to leave and asked her if she wanted to come she told them to go on without her but to leave her pram behind. The naughty one knew that her parents wouldn't leave without her so she refused to budge and even egged them on to leave, until her mom came to cajole her with sweet-talk.

Then on another trip her parents revealed to me that she had named me her *friend*. She had only one other *friend* at that time - her uncle. It made me mighty proud. When we teased her enquiring about who her new friend was, she turned away her face blushing. She was the perfectly angelic child at that moment. I wished that I have a child like her when I have to.

Another day, I met her at a restaurant. She sat down on the table facing me and started talking to me in her baby voice. We had quite an animated conversation, though each of us probably talked about an entirely different thing. Suddenly she put her tiny chubby hands on my cheeks and gave me the warmest hug you could possibly imagine with her face resting on my shoulder. She raised her head, her hands still on my cheeks, said something and then gave me another hug, her face resting on my other shoulder this time. I was so overwhelmed with joy. It's an unbelievable feeling to be loved by a child. The hug of a child must be the most beautiful thing in the world. It's a symphony of innocence and honesty which renders it pure beyond comparison.

Here was a child who could put up with me, a child who actually seemed to like me. A child that was now my friend. With her I lost all my inhibitions. With her I knew I was a lot better with kids than I gave myself credit for. With her I could forget everything and be a child. With her there was never a dull moment. Then, I learned that her parents are moving away out of India. I don't know for how long. I wonder if she'll ever remember me. I wonder if I am still her *friend*. Wherever she goes I wish my little princess the best of times and the loveliest of lives.

P.S.: She liked to be called 'princess', 'beautiful', etc. :) Ask her who beauty was she would point at herself. Innocent but smart!!

incoherent, incomplete, in-watever

2006-02-06T15:25:00.000+05:30

Stop reading now!!

He lay on his bed unfettered and undressed. Thirty minutes in the bath tub had a way of bringing over him a sense of serene relaxation. It must have something to do with the warmth of the hot water lapping away at the anxieties that build in over time. When he dipped his head into the water upto his ears, he could hear a wholly different world. A steady background music seemed to play, like the score for a spaceship flying across a sci fi movie. A world from another dimesion sliding past and through the realities of our world. Ofcourse that world must be camouflaged with something watery, which is why you hear the other world only when you come together with the water. The drip-drip of the water amplified into a musical arrangement worthy of a masterpiece. It was one of those things that he enjoyed. There was nothing to beat time in the bath with a book cradled in his hands.

He absolutely loved his life. Not that it was spectacular by the definitions of the everyday world. Just that he loved it, loved it for the peaks and loved it for the troughs. Not that he didn't rage and rave during the falls. Just that he was always satiated by the peaks that necessarily follow dips. He had almost everything a man could want - more than enough money, love, respect and a hold on himself. But what did he hold precious?

Sometimes when he saw the lesser endowed he felt hurt. Beggars begging for alms, children beaten up by fattened restaurant owners, the not-officially poor unfortunates who are expected to hold onto their pride despite the blatant misery, people butchered by misfortune and their mourning relatives. He wondered at the sadness flooding the world and wondered when it would come to sweep him away. He knew the floods are unavoidable. He was ready to accept that but what bothered him most was how he would react. Would he scurry like people who ran from the hurricane on the horizon? Would he scream like a drowning man? Or would he merely let go and be washed away like the stones in a brook?

Life was precious but not enough to lock himself up to live forever. Love was precious but not enough to give up his life. Money was precious but only because he needed things that earthly humans needed. The rare glimpses of the beautiful world was precious but not so much as to make him a nature lover. His freedom was precious but there was no such thing as true freedom. So what was he to hold precious?

lost and found

2006-02-02T10:10:00.000+05:30

He lay on his bed, the brown sheet lying around him in disdain. He lay distorted with his legs splayed and his hands bunched up under the pillow. He watched the darkness ooze out of the walls and embrace him with a stealthy grin. The silence of the night ricocheted off the walls and the ceiling, causing his ear-drums to quiver in anticipation. Time moved past in slow motion. It was so slow that he could see the turbulence the fan blades made as they revolved lazily. The air around him shimmered in the dark like a brilliantly cut diamond. His eyes closed to search for whatever his mind wished to see.

Through the pallid veil of his eyelids, he sensed a beacon light him up. Slowly he opened his eyes, ready to blink if need be, and saw the warm light streaming in through his window. The sun had risen and a new day was born.

off for a while

2006-01-16T16:16:00.000+05:30

While I look ahead to find out where life's going.
While I try to figure out if it is indeed going anywhere.
While I attempt to capture the essence of my destiny.
While I ponder on the illusions that I hallucinate about.
While I wonder how the world works and how fate moulds.
While I contemplate emptiness and what it means.
While I pray that the emptiness skips me.
While I hope the cup is always full.
While I fight the battles that I cannot fight.
While I battle the fate I cannot change.
While I scream blue murder at the whole world.
While I crib, hate and curse everything and myself.
While I dream of utopia.
While I oscillate between reality and the unreal.
While I hallucinate the desired and the undesired unreality.
While I do all this, do not expect a post for a while.
do not ask me any questions.
do not patronise. do not sympathise.
Just let it be!

back on the road

2006-01-09T11:31:00.000+05:30

I haven't had a chance to do some biking for over 6 months. The last trip had been way back in July 2005. Yep, that long. Naturally I was dying to swing my legs across the bike and ride, ride, ride. I posted to the group about a ride in the Jan 7-8 weekend, while I was still in the UK. After not too much deliberation, the destination was tentatively fixed as Kundapura. Subject to change, ofcourse. :-) The excuse: to treat ourselves to the Chicken Ghee Roast at Shetty's Lunch Home. Not that an excuse was actually needed. Two of us were confirmed a long, long time back - Ashok and I. Prashanth and Sampath joined in last week. Glifford needed a bit of convincing and finally agreed to a half-way trip. He decided to ride back to B'Lore on Saturday itself.

Like I said, the route and destination was subject to change and they changed numerous times throughout the trip. :-) In the end, we rode from B'Lore to Hassan to Belur to Shringeri to Agumbe to Someshwar to Kundapura. The ghee roast was on. The Belur temple is amazing. The intricacy of the sculptures awesome. We reached Kundapura around half past eight in the night. Settled down at Shetty's until about 23:30 and then rode to the Maravanthe beach for some moonlit ocean. Woke up late on Sunday. Left Kundapura around 8:30. Caught up with Vignesh at Udupi for breakfast. After that, all we did was ride: Udupi-M'Lore-Sakleshpur-Hassan-B'Lore.

Impressions

It was tiring but of the good kind. The roads stretching ahead for miles brought out a lot in me. It was peaceful. It was exhilirating. It turned off all my thoughts. It helped me think better. The people I swished past added to the feeling of being on top of the world. The kids that waved at me were a joy and when I waved back to them I gave them a bit of innocent joy and it added a little more to my stock of joy. The bewildered villagers made me smile. The world is not that bad after all. There is still a bit of innocence left in it. There is a lot more beauty left in the world. The green trees, the low mountains, the clouds, the ponds and a grey road breaking through like a ribbon.

The curves on the road were an ode to beauty. The way they gently wind made me feel overjoyed. It was exhilirating to take a curve, leaning in and wondering how it would feel to touch the road that sped by. The curves enhanced the magnificence of the things that were around me. Don't ask me how but they do. They seemed so much part of the landscape that it made me shudder to think of them missing.

There is monotony in every ride but I noticed that monotony was not really monotonous. There were subtle differences even in similarity and once I noticed these differences there was no question of being bored of the same thing. It could be a simple dip in the road, a car zooming past, an odd looking tree, a lamp-post or an unused hut.

In the morning, I watched the sun rising up in my rear-view mirror. A golden yellow disc promising much needed warmth. I willed the sun to rise up and take away the cold. Then I realised that I can't control anything. The sun has its own will. It will rise to warm you but of its own accord. The wind will blow but only as it wishes. I decided to let the world be. I didn't have to control anything.

In the evening, I rode into a setting sun. There was a glow all around me, a flaring halo surrounded the world. The glint matched my eyes twinkle with delight. Ah, the dipping of light, the beginning of an unknown darkness, the promise of moonlight and stars. Riding in the dark was a surreal experience. The darkness was split by the searing headlights only to regroup and cover realities again. The beam of light can only displace that much of the blackness. There is darkness left, there is darkness everywhere but the beam gave me hope. The beam seemed an unpenetrable truth. The beam was the path of life.

Then there was the moonlit beach. Silence all around, broken by the crashing of the waves. As I stood there on the beach lit by the moon, washed over by the sound, I wondered how it would feel to be washed away by the ocean. To be taken away like the sand and deposited elsewhere. The ocean must be one of the greatest of God's creations. It can be melancholic. It can make you overjoyed. It can numb you. It can excite you. It can be silent. It can sound musical. A mix of everything. A bouquet of beauty.

The ride back was tiring as usual. The expectation of getting back home, the dread of getting back home. The mind pulled me in two directions. The thought of a familiar bed forcing me to want to go back. The dread of getting back to life wanted to keep me away. The clash of the opposing poles.

Then, unexpectedly, I saw a rainbow. It had been ages since I had seen a rainbow. I guess the rainbow beats the ocean in its beauty. As I rode towards it, it seemed to take on an unimaginable clarity. I stared at it and watched it take shape. Now just a bit on the right. Now a quarter circle. All the while, the colours brightened and the edges grew sharper. With lots of open road to ride on, I had enough time to be fascinated by its strange beauty. The beauty of an illusion. The beauty that was immaterial. I could make out every colour in the world. Every colour that the eye was designed to see. It gave my heart the strength to sing. It gave me the power to relax and banish all signs of tire for later. I almost wept looking at it. I guess I did. It's a strange illusion. To add to all the overwhelming emotions I spotted a second bow, a mere fragment of the other. An illusion of an illusion. I felt like a child when I spotted it. The excitement was uncontrollable. I pointed it out to everyone on the road. Look, a second rainbow. Look at what the world has to offer. Look at it and fill your hearts. Then, I was asked to notice that the bow was a complete half-circle. Oh my god. Was it beautiful? It was beyond that. A lovely arch standing guard over the world. I don't think I have known such insane joy too often. It was a great prize, worth every pain in every muscle. I wanted to hold the rainbow in my hands and kiss it and carry it forever within me.

Then I got back home. To "reality". To "life".

drinking

2006-01-05T09:35:00.000+05:30

The question has always bewildered me - "Why do people like to drink?" Why is that people like alcohol? I am not necessarily talking about those that are addicted but the people that call themselves "social drinkers". What is it about alcohol or intoxication that people like?

I tried it myself. Well, not anything hardcore but what the connoisseurs would call baby-food, wine. Ok, the reasons were not scientific. They were personal.

I didn't find anything worthwhile in the experience. It was no fun at all. All that it did was take away a bit of control over yourself, which in my opinion is absolutely ridiculous to want. Is that what people like? The feeling of powerlessness. The loss of control. Do they need alcohol for that? Nobody has absolute control over anything at any point in time, then why use alcohol for something that we already have.

Or is it a way to forget things for a while? Forget the mundaneness of life and the worries that hang onto our backs. Is that what people want - a temporary suspension of practical life? I find this weird. What is the use when you will wake up back into the same practical life, unchanged. If it is an escape people want, then shouldn't they either be drunk all through life or kill themselves!

I don't believe the excuse of socialising that people give sometimes. If you cannot make friends or conversation when sober, then you just have to live with the fact. Do people actually think that relationships can be built with a platter of intoxication? Nor do I believe the "life is short; must try everything". Don't kid me with that. Nobody's ever gonna try everything in life. In my humble opinion, that mantra is nothing short of bullshit. If they really want to experiment with the psyche and stuff, they should probably do it with stuff like lsd and ecstacy. Now, that would be true experimentation. Why don't people do that?

Is it because people think it's cool and hep? If that is so, then why not smoke. Under similar terms, smoking should be way cooler than drinking. Don't kid me with the second-hand smoke scenario. You can get drunk and kill people faster than through second-hand smoke.

I wish not to judge if drinking is good or evil. I just don't get why people like something that changes them into something they are not. Something that takes away whatever control that they have. Something that ends up damaging lives most times. Something that is a cause of accidents both on the road and in life.

At that place

2006-01-04T13:00:00.000+05:30

Yet again, I find myself at that place where time stands still when you wish it gallops. Monotony settles over the mind like dust in a long-locked home. I see life move around me in slow motion, every detail crisp and yearning recognition. Words seem to have stopped as my grey cells run helter-skelter trying to process the avalanche of unnecessary stimuli. The simplest of things seems to be a himalayan task, the motives questioned for every move that needs to be made. Why do I need to stand up? Why do I need to sit? Why do I have to wake up? Why sleep?

Ahhhh, is it bliss or is it a curse to have so much time on hand and yet not have the choice of using it like you want?

end of the road

2005-12-19T14:54:00.000+05:30

Modified. Had missed the top portion of the post last time.

The car, moving smoothly until that moment, suddenly swayed and seemed to slip and slide and then stopped dead in it tracks and refused to budge. Cursing his luck he got out of the car knowing what to expect. A flat tyre is not very funny when you have unsettling thought saucers flying across the honeycombs in your mindscape. Well, it is not funny in most other circumstances too, unless you are watching a sketch with a Mr.Bean character trying to fix his flat tyre. The key there is second or third person. A whole lot of things can seem quite amusing and funny when it doesn't happen to you.

He got out the car and its cocoon into the graying reality outside. Though he cursed and fumed, the soup he was in did not do much to wet his feelings. He was getting used to the wrongs in life. Anybody would when the foundation that they perceive their life to be built on shakes and shakes, crumbling and falling apart, unseen but surely felt. The tremors had been felt and duly ignored as passing rumbles.

"Oh yes! I have realized my folly.They weren't mere rumbles, were they? And they sure as hell were not passing. Like all bad things, it's all too late."

The road was deserted. The few unbroken lights threw patches of display window light on the potholes that were the only remarkable features on the otherwise dull tar. He was smiling; at how life had turned out, at change, at the uncertainities that lay ahead. He leaned onto the bonnet of his car and stared at the moon and the emptiness of the night. The night seemed to mimic what he felt of himself - empty and dark and the only moon in his life on its way towards the other end of the world.

The spare tyre was in the back of the car but there was enough time to try and replace the tyre. "What the heck! I might as well take in some of the evening air."

A hundred yards down the road he spotted a small body of water, the leftover reminiscence of a bygone rain. Mother earth holding onto the sweet memories of a wonderful association that had been taken for granted. The memories would fade away with time, helped along by the sunlight that would shadow them into submission.

He saw the moon reflected in the still water. The water only seemed still, for right under its poker face it carried a constant turmoil that ran harsher in its deeper depths. He stepped out of the road and reached the banks of the temporary pool. The ground was dry and he sat down by the edge of the water uncaring about the dirt that stuck to his trousers. It was nothing that a washing machine couldn't handle. His eyes roved and dug into the murky pool trying to fathom the disturbances that unsettled its calm. He caught his face looking out at him. Sunken and refracted like the skulls that marked railway crossings, warning the tresspasser of the fate that would befall him if he dared to take a misguided step onto the tracks.

He sat up into a squat and began to study his reflection. He saw reflected at him a man fatigued with trying to keep himself together and his life hooked into the society that existed around him. "Happy and well-settled. Isn't that what you are? Isn't that what everyone thinks you are?"
He could see his facade even now when he was in the middle of nothingness with nobody that would notice a scar in his otherwise perfect cover. That was what he was. An actor. The true representative of Shakespeare's staged world. Yes he was an actor, an actor who never took a break from the life that was his act. Why would people want to know the real him? Of what use would his nakedness be to the people around him? He hid his life underneath an elaborate Victorian costume with all the trimmings and nobody noticed that it looked out of place.

He had agreed to marry her when she posed the question to him three years and eleven months before. "I know that you love me a lot. I know you do. I know you want to ask me to marry you. So why don't you do it. Why don't you ask me to marry you?"

He had been astonished. All he could mutter was, "Because I love you too much.. I know it doesn't make sense but it does."

"It doesn't. Can we not give it a try?" "Well, okay! So will you marry me?"

"Yes, I will. Though you will have to ask me again and not in a corridor like this."

They had married two months after. Three years and nine months of marriage. Such a long time, an eternity ticked off by the seconds on the world's timepiece. Everything had been magical then. They loved each other a lot and they were both adapted to the small imperfections that they noticed in the other. It was perfect. Well almost. She had readily come into his arms and he had opened up to her like never before. That was his undoing, though he had no clue about it then. He built his life around her love.

He was paranoid. About everything. He had been like that from the time he could remember. Worrying himself over things that would've otherwise seemed trivial and insignificant. He had seen his parents break apart without a reason that he understood. They had been perfectly happy with each other or so he had thought. Things began to change with a rapidity that surprised him. Where they had cuddled each other, they now argued. They argued in louder and louder tones.

"I hate you. Why did you do this to me?"

"I didn't mean to hurt you. I don't know how this happened. I can't change it now, can I?"

"What about our son? Do you even know how he will take this? Is he ours at all?"

"Please... don't say such hurtful things."

"Ah! So you are hurt now, are you? After all that you have done."

His mom had sobbed and his dad had pleaded. He had only been a kid then and couldn't yet comprehend words like adultery. Such words and others, mouthed by his parents hadn't brought home to him the seriousness of their fights.

In a matter of two weeks, his parents had separated and left him wrecked. The actual day of separation had been too undramatic to register in anybody's mind. He had watched his dad sitting on a chair, his face cradled in his palms. A dishevelled little man whose world had crumbled around him and yet refused to accept the truth. He watched his mom come out of the room with just a duffel bag. She walked towards his father and stood in front of him. His father did not look at her and his mother's hands stretched towards him but stopped short. No words were exchanged and no goodbyes said. His mother kissed him on his forehead before walking out the front door. He later learnt what had happened. His mother had taken a fancy for another man. He couldn't understand how that could've happened when his mother had loved his dad such a lot. But that was the truth and his disbelief didn't change it. His back had been broken and he never got rid of his distrust towards everybody and everything, especially relationships. He had lost faith. He didn't make any friends for a long time until she had come along. She had forced her friendship upon him and he had bowed.

She was the cement that held together the fragmented bricks that was him. In any construction the cement merely holds the bricks and hides the fragmentation that continues to subsist and grow into cracks that don't bother you with their baby cries or any warning until one fine day a gust of wind brings down the whole structure. On further analysis, the cracks, the always there but indiscernible cracks would plead guilty. But by then the damage was already done and nothing can put the same set of bricks back together.

She had been super-strong hold cement. That was true. She had held him in her arms with amazing strength and made him better with time. Yet all her love and all her comfort could not prevent his breaking apart. It seemed like a very natural phenomenon, something that you never get a hold on.

He knew that he depended on her a lot. Enough to make him addicted to her. His life outside of her had ceased to exist; not that he had much before anyway. But it made him feel insecure.
"Does she really love me? What if this is a game she has chosen to play with me." Maybe she was merely setting him up for a big dramatic final dumping, a throwing into the lowest pits of existence. It troubled him a lot. These fears screamed at him in his dreams trying to grab his attentions. They did get his attention hooked but he did not see the hidden meanings to them. He took his fears to face value and attempted to put them aside as fears. Just another sandman under his bed. He missed the whole point of the thing. The wrong variable in the equation was his detachment and he did not recognise it. It was himself. It was he that was pretending to be in love. He was not in love and he did not notice it. His failing had hidden itself in a play. A play within a play. An actor acting out to an actor.

He changed everything about him to make himself fit her, as they say, like a glove. Yet his facade, his poker face always remained with him. Even though she owned him in all possible ways and knew evey heartbeat that kept his cells nourished, she never could see through his veil. She remained largely unaware of the increasingly turbulent current within him. She was infact waiting for him at home as he pondered at the secrets that his face revealed to him under the dark cover of the night.

In his deepest self he did not grasp the concept of love. What was it about love that convinced people to tied themselves down? Mind you it never lasts forever. One thinks one is tied down for eternity and then the first glitch rears its head. The first doubt, the first questioning smirk makes your mind waver. Once that happens you feel let down by the whole constitution of love. What had earlier seemed like an indelible truth mastered over centuries now shows its true face. Love is nonsense. It is a buzz word that has remained in vogue for too long; just one of those fads that forgot to leave the stage on cue.

He wondered if she had ever stopped to listen to her heart and find why, if it really did, it digged him. You could learn so many things about yourself if you took the time to try. There are a million feelings that you have never felt or realised that you feel them. He was grateful to her keeping his spirits at a higher place yet he was as detached from her as he was with everything else. He liked the vantage point of looking from outside of the frame. He did not consider questioning things, he just took it for granted that whatever he felt was the truth. He did not try to find if he loved her. He just assumed he didn't.

He was sometimes proud of his mother. She had chosen to fall off the conveyor belt that most of the world was sliding upon. It must have taken a whole lot of courage. Ofcourse she had hurt many, but if they made a study of it the ones that felt hurt would see the great benefit she had made available. She had, through her act of perceived selfishness, liberated some souls to where they actually belonged, free from the shackles that binds them. Though he could've done without the ruckus, he felt that his mother had awakened him to the play that society staged. A play that is easy to live by. A play that in all its goodness hid the truth as if it were a disgrace.

For his father, he didn't feel anything, not even pity. The man had wallowed in self-pity and died trying to figure the disillusionment he felt.

He knew that if he continued the way he was now, their life would soon be at blows. He had tried hard to correct himself. He had tried it thinking of her. He had succeeded a little but not enough to make any significant change.

What would she do if he told her that he didn't think that he loved her, not then, not before? In all certainity she would have looked at him with a certain smile. "No darling. You are mistaken", she would have said. She believed in love and other undefinable things as fate. She considered their being together as the truth. The truth, as she thought, that love was indispensable and that they had an abundance of it between the two. The bliss of ignorance.

He got up and went back to his car. A wind had picked up by then and rattled an empty can of coke towards its journey through the drain. He jacked up the car and changed the flat tyre. He wondered if he could do the same with his life. Change a tyre and make a fresh start. He laughed at his ignorance. It was not a mere flat tyre that he suffered from, it was a complete breakdown of everything. Every single thing. There was no way to mend it. No matter how adept a mechanic he could find. "Life is not a broken car. Who am I trying to kid?", he laughed.

The car was on its way in less than 15 minutes. His hands were still greasy when he opened the door to the house. He knew she would be sitting in her chair, a magazine in hand. The television would be tuned into one of the soap operas that were the rage of the season. She wouldn't be watching it though. She wouldn't really be reading the magazine too. She would be waiting for him.

He knew he had to do it. Not for himself for he was beyond any hope of reclaim. He had to do it for her sake. He would yet again change his life for her. As he walked in, she put her magazine down and smiled. That irresistible smile of hers. Before she could ask him anything, before she had a chance to say anything, before she broke his resolve with her smile, he knelt down before her. The same way she had made him do those many years ago. Then he had whispered to her the question in his own clumsy way - "errr... will u marry me?" Now he whispered to her his goodbye. "I am leaving". She, innocent and unaware, asked him, "Where to, baby?" "Away from your life. To save you from myself". Before she had a chance to recover, he left in her hands a long note that threw his veil away and left through the door that he had left open.

Sameer's Golden Rules

2005-12-09T17:18:00.000+05:30

Productivity and Time Angle

A quick guide for a manager. I wonder when Managers in India will ever learn these golden rules.
Sameer, gr8 work dude.

more timepass

2005-12-06T20:31:00.000+05:30

He was caught deep
In her callous net
Yet he felt no grief.

His mind was not his
A swirl around her
But felt nothing amiss.

Drops of her smile
Dew'd upon reality
Yet he heard no chide.

Lost in the world
Unowned by himself
Like goods once sold.

And he felt no grief.