What's the point?

2011-07-12T00:33:00.000+05:00

Giving back to the internet

About over a year ago, Krishna Kumar or KK randomly lamented that we Indians are a very ungrateful and selfish digital people. He says we consume the internet, devour it day and night for hours on end. We see pictures and videos and emote accordingly. We read blogs and content sites like voyeurs. We are voyeurs because we always partake, never participate. KK says we have never been a giving kind of people. Even if it is something that the internet deeply helped you in – a class project that you needed help with, a dish that we desperately needed to know how to cook, anything…we ask and we get and we are happy. No one thinks of going back to the place and thanking the person, the site that helped you out.

I think I had that in my head all this while and it suddenly popped up when I decided to write to the person who inspired the craft of paper art in me. Six-eight months ago, I spotted a zebra that was made entirely out of black and white paper. Black paper was hand-torn into strips and pasted onto a white sheet of paper. It struck me as the easiest and simplest thing to do so I set about mimicking it with old, dusty pieces of paper I could find around office. My boss , an artist herself, was only happy to see rubble go.

So I made myself my very own paper zebra. Here’s a pic.

Ever since then, I love cutting and pasting paper. I play with newspapers too, upcycling is something that’s always been dear to me. However, the sheer charm of spotless black and white paper is just irresistible. Paperwalla was born.

I got into an exhibition too. The Bliss Quirk Festival in Versova earlier this month was a sort of coming together of quirky designers with a unique quirk sense. I did not know what to expect and did not expect anything and that’s probably why I was the happiest person there when people liked and bought three of the six pieces I had specially created for the exhibition. Cloud 9 anyone? :D

So I thought I should write to the artist who inspired me. I just found Tina Tarnoff’s email address online and wrote to her, thanking her for inspiring me and asking her not to sue me because I hadn’t intended on copying her design, I was merely an excited student!

Hope she will reply with warmth and not with an attorney’s message. :-S

2011-02-06T00:32:00.000+05:00

Poem by Kadambari Sen
Art by Jasjyot Singh Hans

My mom read this poem this morning.
She read it attentively and smiled as her eyes reached the end.
She then looked at me and saw me watch her read.
She smiled.
I smiled back, wondering what she was thinking.
Was she thinking of how her own son had gone away?
Did she think of my Sindhi girlfriend when she read ‘Now you are stuck to someone else...’?
She held the two pages out to show my dad and said, “Look, isn’t this Hari from his childhood days?”
How did the poetess Kadambari Sen know what my mom was thinking?
How did the artist Jasjyot Singh Hans know what I looked like in my childhood?
Kadambari Sen has never met my mother.
Jasjyot Singh hasn’t probably even heard of me.
In fact, even Kadambari Sen and Jasjyot Singh Hans haven’t met each other yet!
Such is the beauty of KaviKala.
People coming together to add a bit of themselves to each other.
Every piece of art in KaviKala is a bread crumb from someone’s memory.
Each poem in it tugs at a different string in you.
KaviKala. Sigh.

2011-01-21T23:28:00.000+05:00

My little bundle of joy!

No I haven’t become a father. (Consider this, if I actually had become a father, I wouldn’t have time to write this note. I would be too busy catching up on naps and changing nappies.)

My little bundle of joy is Madness Mandali’s book of visual poetry KaviKala. Holding the book in my hand, leafing gingerly through each page and taking in eyefuls of art and poetry gives me joy like nothing else before.

I had always longed to make a book of fun – something that would make me feel positive when I was down in the dumps. KaviKala does that to me. All I have to do is to read the poems and enjoy the art along with it and I am automatically elevated to a happier zone. So much so that I often catch myself smiling randomly. Mad, eh? This is not Madness. This is KaviKala. As the cover suggests, 33 artists + poets = 1 maha mashup!

Each poem in Kavikala is penned by a different poet. The artwork accompanying each poem too is custom-made by a different artist based on his/her perception of each poem. The book thus becomes one of the few attempts at creating visual poetry – poetry that you can see not just in front of your mind’s eye but also the real ones.

Being in the advertising industry, my kind is always on the look out for interesting things, things that are not the usual and things that compell you to react. I did not know the meaning of the phrase ‘jaw-dropping’ until I was asked to proof-read the manuscript of the book. My jaw dropped and stayed on the floor till I finished proof-reading. My four eyes had never seen anything this enchanting in art. My brain found it difficult to comprehend that art in black and white could look as gorgeous as it is in the book.

Self-published and arranged so as to facilitate print-on-order’ KaviKala reeks of the need to encourage young creative brains.

I won’t ask you to buy a copy but this I will definitely tell you, if you haven’t read KaviKala yet, you just missed a few hundred trains to la la land.

P.S: Dear poets and artists inside KaviKala, I am in love with your work. Thank you for letting me be a part of this awesome compilation. Hope to meet all of you in person some day.

2010-12-24T13:24:00.002+05:00

Useless
Incompetent
Limp
Lost
Wasted
I feel.

2010-08-16T22:08:00.000+05:00

Thoughts on customer service

It will soon be a year since I moved to Lower Parel to be closer to my place of work. Since cooking is neither a hobby nor an option, I’ve fluidly fluctuated between a tiffin service and the nearby hotels. Saturation of both tastes would often lead me to a stall near Lower Parel railway station that vends the most awesomest aloo parathas I have ever had in my life. Made right in front of you, these hot parathas scald your fingers as you try to break a piece of it. Accompanying the two parathas in a plate are a splash of the best thecha ever and a side-dish of the day’s special sabzi that ranges between aloo-mutter and chana with soya nuggets.

It wasn’t too long ago that the guy at the stall let loose a smile and a nod at my sight. He recognized me from the dozens of previous visits. That evening onwards, each time I showed up with my face, he would smile and promptly ask his minions to set a plate for me.

Cut to today. I reach, he smiles and nods and the intern at his stall sets a plate for me. I finish my customary number of four parathas and wash it down with lassi from his neighbour. That’s precisely the moment when it began to pour and the timing was perfect because you know…Murphy was so right!

I stood there, under a thin sheet of plastic, clutching the Prince of Ayodhya by Ashok Banker and more worried about the gift horse Corby in my front pocket, a wallet in my back pocket and a borrowed 8-GB pen drive in yet another pocket. “Did I want to wet the book? Is there a Samsung service centre nearby? Does a soaked pen-drive still work? I know it does after mine came out of the washing machine numerous number of times but then this was a borrowed drive!” My train of thought would have continued in this vein if the paratha walla hadn’t called out to me waving a plastic bag. He was offering it to me for my book. I think I gave him one of my stupid grins and too loud a thank you.

He knows how to keep his customer happy. He knows how to keep his customer happy without oral sex. He knew one tiny act of helpfulness will ensure that the customer would keep coming back to eat off his hands. I bet he hasn’t gone to college to earn a MBA degree or even touched books on entrepreneurship. He just knew what to do. That is good customer service.

That is where you come in, Mr. Pacenet Broadband ‘Service’. You need to intern at the paratha walla’s stall to learn a few things. My family opted for a 3-month unlimited internet package. More than two months of reminding your ‘helpline’ (which is actually some lady's personal phone) multiple times in a day, you sent people to fix the data cable. I wonder how a company like Pacenet can afford to act as cheap as to make lame excuses over the phone.

You gave my family a harrowing experience, you fuckall internet service providing douchebag company!

2010-04-29T18:45:00.002+05:00

Do something with your life!

I have a theory. Let’s call it the theory of my life. Theories of lives, by the way, are like chicken pox. You can only get it once…and you can only make one ‘theory of your life’. If someone insists to know if there is something that I strongly believe in, I’ll give them the theory of my life.

The core statement of my theory is – ‘Do something with your life’.

See, everyone goes to school, then college, gets a job, screws around for a while, gets married, settles down, has children, watches them go to school, then college and so on. It only depends on his lifeline then if he sticks around to watch his kids screw around, get married and produce tiny beings that look like them. All of this does not take any effort. This keeps happening like a cycle. Even if you decide not to move a finger, people around will push you and put you through all of this.

But at the end of life, when you can see the people digging up the pit for your coffin to go in while you lie swathed in the undertaker’s homemade perfume, wouldn’t you for even one second ponder what you did in your entire life that sets you apart from all the buggers lying in the nearby graves?
What good would you have done in your entire life? Would people remember you for anything other than vile words, actions? What difference would you have made to the world between the time you were born and the time you croak? Taking a tangent and borrowing a phrase…if you cannot clean a place, at least don’t leave it dirtier. If you did nothing to give back or pay forward all the favours that you are showered with…all you did in your life span was to leave a huge carbon footprint!

My point is, everyone goes through that cycle called life. Default. To complain that this cycle tires you out and leaves no time to do anything else is just lame. The fact remains that you just will not make an effort to do anyone any good because if you really want to make time for something that you believe needs to be done – you will.

What’s there to be done anyway? Look around you. What do you think needs to be changed? The system? Right, one person cannot do it. Talk to people, find out what they think about it. May be they’ll laugh, because people like stand-up comedy and are scared of whistleblowers. But the important part there is that you have waken up and are making an effort to wake others up as well.

What else? The forests and animal reserves need help. Various conservation groups need volunteers.
Street dogs need aid. Ragged children need assistance. Open your eyes and look and there are a million things you could do.

The Nature Baba campaign is something that I am proud of. It is something I’ll beam about when I talk about it to kids the same age as my grandchildren (Yeah, I’m going to live longer and try more to make this place more than just habitable!). I am glad I’m making efforts to talk to people around in my tiny town about the drastic change in climate lately and what we could all do to make our world more beautiful.

I’m sure I’ll cherish my photo album titled ‘My trip to Planet Earth’ published by Heaven Inc.

2010-02-09T09:49:00.000+05:00

A bedbug in my asshole

It wriggles. It tickles.

The annual social media plan for the entire year for a brand of phenyl is being worked out in front of me. The boss stands at the white board explaining the different kinds of things that needs to be done for the brand. It is a Friday, which means people who usually wear boring formal clothes can relax and wear t-shirts and jeans. A client servicing person looks attentively at the white board wondering where he could pipe in and add value to what the boss is saying. The boss, as he talks, looks at everyone seated inside the conference room one by one. He looks at the client servicing person next to me and then turns his eyes towards me. It wriggles.
For the last few days, I feel a few pairs of tiny feet amble up and down the hairy terrains of my thighs. How do I know it’s an insect? You know that feeling when a drop of sweat finds a way from your armpit to the waist? This is the same feeling, only upwards. I know it is a bedbug for sure because where I come from, there are plenty. Get where I am coming from? As I sleep at night, I feel a family of bedbugs faithfully perched on each of my limbs. It is after much deliberation that I have arrived at the conclusion that it is one of them that has found its way up my asshole, making it a temporary abode. It wriggles every now and then tickling the folds that cover the orifice.
How did they come home? They came home in an old sleeping bag that one of my roommates brought along with him. Apparently he hadn’t opened the bag for five years. It had also been given to him by his grandmother who had no use for it either.
It’s funny when I spank myself in the middle of the road. It’s a desperate way to say, “Shut the fuck up!” in the bedbug language. It seems to understand for soon enough, I feel it on the expressway between my buttocks and my knee. It is all the more funny when I am on my bike. To motorists passing by, I seem to be rubbing my thigh relentlessly. The worst of my fears is that the policemen patrolling near the Haji Ali dargah would see my actions as suspicious and open fire at me. My thighs are its playgrounds.
When at my desk in the office, I sit stiffly with a pained expression on my face. I learnt it from George on the Seinfeld show. He says, “If you want to seem busy, always look hassled.” But my stiffness had more to do with the fact that I was hosting another living creature. When the bedbug senses that my body doesn’t seem to be making much movement, it gingerly ventures out of its enclosure, its movements reminding me of how, in the olden ages, young men would venture out of their homes to faraway countries hoping to make their fortune. It takes a fast train from wherever it is to the front, only to get entangled in the much denser foliage.
I would only be too happy to play Noah and host as many creatures as possible, if only their movement didn’t cause me that itch.
Cut to the conference room where I am at the white board with the black marker in my hand when it moves across one of the most sensitive parts of the human body. The brain calls for an itch. With 12 eyeballs watching you with rapt attention and not even blinking, there is not much you can do other than what Sachin Tendulkar does before he settles down at the crease. The rest of what I talk is a blur. I write myself a mental note. Pull undies down tonight and check.
I reach home. Turn on all the lights, disrobe and bend down. I could imagine the way I looked from behind. Little Johhny once told a friend that he thought of a sun rising over two hills when he saw his father bend down to pick up a bar of soap on the bathroom floor. Over thirty minutes of careful, bent-over scrutiny revealed that I must deforest the region if I had to teach the encroacher a lesson.
My girlfriend is coming home this weekend. I must ask the visitor to kindly get out before that. I don’t want her to be interrupted in anything important by a pair of complex eyes staring at her, you see? It would be alright if she screams but it won’t be too pleasant if she bites down hard.

Grim, eh?

Atithi tum kab jaoge?

2010-02-01T09:47:00.000+05:00

Honk Car Why?

Scenario 1:

A middle class settlement anywhere in Mumbai. It’s about thirty minutes past ten in the morning. Middle-aged men with original Reegok bags slinging on their shoulders walk with a dejected look on their faces. Something about their expression tells you they are going to their place of work and are suddenly missing home. Their wives hang clothes onto the insulated wire cum clothes line tied outside their balcony. Behind most of them is a blue oil drum with a half cut lid that they use to store water in, backup, you see. They yell out customarily, occasionally either to their children or to the fish monger with the tiny sarees folds tucked between their buttocks. The women in the balcony want to know what fresh catch the fishy women can offer. This activity is an exercise for their vocal chords. Their hands work mechanically, dipping into the cracked plastic bucket, wringing the water onto the vehicle parked underneath, opening up the folds, jerking it out to send a soapy dew into the air that feels like the rose water they sprinkle on you when you enter a marriage hall. A few dogs laze around, dreamily looking at what doesn’t seem to concern them. Occasionally they bite their coats on the back, that perennial itch, hmph! Pause. Everything is about to change. Why? You’ll see.
Enter the bangarwalla. He is the hero. Not only because he facilitates recycling of recyclable objects but also because he brings about a drastic change to the perfect doggy dream sequence. So much so that the canines would’ve gone off to sleep if he had not arrived right then. They sprang to their feet, ready for some action. They exchange looks at each other making it look like an unbarken signal to gherao the suspicious stranger. They bare all their teeth while they bark, which works the same way as the intimidation techniques used by martial art enthusiasts. The bangarwalla surprisingly walks unperturbed. He is used to this kind of attention. He walks as if in a trance but has a tiny smile on his face. He bends down suddenly to pick up a stone, which explains the smile a few seconds ago. The dogs scoot a few feet away from their original positions but intensify their barks. A few girls with tightly-tied pony tails run from behind the distracted dogs with heavy schools bags but no uniforms. They must be running late for tuitions. Walking briskly, the bangarwalla vanishes into the building to fleece a few seemingly gullible women with his broken weighing scale. The dogs continue to bark for a few more minutes, like a parting gift, lest the bangarwalla has only gone into the building to protect himself from the dangerous creatures that they are in their vicious doggy minds!

Scenario 2:

It’s evening. There is considerable traffic on the roads. The men with dejected faces must now be at home or at least reaching home with a flat bottle wrapped in the previous week’s newspaper in their bag but mind you, not in the same compartment where they keep the prayer books and pictures of sai baba which also act as a calendar. Care is taken to keep considerable distance between God and sin. A constable in a white shirt and khaki pants waves at random people but the people simply ignore him and walk or drive on. He waves a flood of taxis to a halt. There are 6 taxis one after the other. The red signal must indeed feel powerful. A huge white car – the kind they don’t seem to make anymore, comes to a halt right behind the sixth taxi. A pizza delivery boy ekes out a little space between the white car and the sixth taxi. An impatient looking man with his wife and child on a scooter follow suit. Another taxi joins in. two tiny cars come to pause next to each other, both are being driven by women, their respective children secured to the next seat. Both of them have up to their wrists inside a cardboard box of popcorn – the kind they keep at the movies. The third taximan leans out of his window to check the signal. It’s still red. He spits out a jet of red liquid, wipes his lips on the maroon duster that hangs on his rear-view mirror and shakes his head. Suddenly there is activity. The huge white car hears four of the six taxis honking. The huge white car honks. The pizza delivery boy who doesn’t want to pay out of his own pockets beeps along with the man on the scooter. The two tiny cars honk. Everybody behind them honks. The signal is now green. The huge white car honks to remind the six taxis that they are drivers and must take the taxis forward. Each of the vehicles behind the white car has taken it upon himself to wake the one in front from a dreamy stupor that he may have fallen into by honking incessantly. It is their intimidation technique that wants to say, “You better take your vehicle ahead or else…” They continue honking till each of them reach the signal post and make sure that the ones in front of them are not sleepy but are in fact active and even faster than them. But we honked…you know…just in case…they don’t nod off again because these vehicles are very dangerous, vicious selves, well, at least in their own minds.

2009-05-25T15:05:00.001+06:00

North East is so cute yaa!

I have said this before and I say it again that for now, I am glad to be back from the land where everything is “so cute yaa”. “Hey, look at that kid, he’s so cute ya!” “That dog is so cute yaa!” (The localites would surely find this amazing – people from Mumbai calling their breakfast cute.) It wouldn’t have been long before every hill, every tree, every fern and every sparrow began to look cute.

Imagine a father sparrow coming home one evening and telling his kids, “You %$@^%!! How many times have I told you not to drop your droppings all over the floor of the nest? And you have the cheek to do this on the very day when some stupid tourists call me cute, you…”

Every place we went to had a sinister cuteness hovering about it. All of a typical Mizo village in Aizawl was cute, including where the head tribesman kept his water bottles, where he shat, where he kept his women and chicken and the names of each of these abodes. One of them read Lal In – which an ignorant Malayalee would think is the abode of Mohanlal.

Well, despite the excessive use of the word ‘cute’, everything in the North East was cute in a way. There were many things that one couldn’t imagine seeing like trees laden with purple flowers. There were amusing sounds to hear and giggle. Then there were amusing names of people and of places.

Mizoram, it seems, holds an unofficial record for the maximum number of funny-sounding names. So it wouldn’t be surprising to run into people named ‘Everfriendly’. A weary member of the trip lamented that she would love to marry someone named ‘Never Walk’.

The term Mao means stone. So there are these triplets intellectually named Mao, Patthar and Stone. What is more interesting is that these names often come from random English words they caught from someone’s conversation or some English word they caught in a film, that they liked the sound of. (Which takes me back to a show by Russel Peters who once wondered how to react if someone called you ‘a fuckin’ blowjob’) So, there are funny names like Stormy Weather and Bhavya.

With due respect to the sentiments of my North Eastern brethren, I add that the names of places in that part of the country sound like they are filled with phlegm, like comedian Jeff Dunham's dead puppet terrorist Achmed. There are places named Hmawngzawi and Khliehriat. Wonder if they colloquially use abbreviations for these names. “Hey, where you off to?” “Aw, me…ah…no…awww…ya…go to…aww…ya…K.” Or “Hey, you wanna run me down to the H-Wi?”

Name, place, animal, thing just got more exciting. String a few letters together to make a completely random word that remotely sounds like an organ off the human anatomy and you are in a village in the North East! No kidding. Get a map of the region and catch Pynursla, Lakadong, Lumding and Lungding (could be distant cousins), Haflong and Longpi.

Meanwhile, in other news, dhinchak dhinchak has become a standard entity on treks small and big alike. For those who came in late, or never came in, dhinchak dhinchak is the story of how some guy called Shivaji gatecrashes a party being hosted at the Le Malvan (the only underwater hotel in India) – used as a teaser to dedicate a song to a person, situation or an object.

And it so happened that these dedications last only for 15-20 seconds and then fizzle out to make way for the next dedication. The game never ends as ceremoniously as it begins. It only fades out when the people who know the lyrics come to know of their might and pull out or drop asleep. The alternative is that something interesting happens right when a dedication is happening, like a flat tyre or an accident.

These so called dedications are also sung as stand-alone songs in antakshari style and rapid fire style for approximately six hundred and seventy two times. Remember that if you change vehicles…you’ll also have to sing those very songs in the other vehicle…that will make it one thousand three hundred and forty times! Then you go about humming all of these songs to yourself for the next fortnight. Bah! Whoever thought of making these songs so catchy surely knew what he was doing.

I might sound like I have had enough of the northeastern states but I am going back there to steal their folk songs. I think they are cool with their throaty + nasal vocals, earthy beats and homemade stringed instruments. Think I’ll make that my mission number two.

Hey, this article is so cute yaa!

2009-05-25T15:03:00.000+06:00

Mumbai Guhwahati Express S7 31 - All Alone

I had the opportunity of travelling alone from Mumbai to almost Guwahati, baby sitting a seat, protecting it from 500 others who would kill to sit were I sat. I was amidst strangers who did not seem to like the fact that I wanted to sit with a little space around me. So, there I was baby-sitting my luggage like mother sheep guarding her lambs from the very bad wolf.

I spent a good half of the first day cribbing to myself through clenched teeth about the lousy situation and why I couldn’t be part of a group that would crack up at my wisecracks and not so wise cracks and play OHNO with me. Why did I have to be stuck up with a bunch of losers so bored that all of them watched goggle-eyed as another guy stood up on his seat and placed three very interesting guavas into his bag on the upper berth in slow motion – one by one? Each movement of the man was like breaking news. “Dekhiye kis tarah ek aadmi NE apne seat par chadhkar ek nahi, do nahi, balki teen amrood apne bag ke andar ghusaaye…”

The TTC, I bet, feels more important than Pratibha Patil feels inside the Rastrapati Bhavan. This lanky guy wearing black clothes is suddenly God for my fellow travelers. They want their tickets confirmed and give him looks that range from pious-innocent to smug-bribey.

And thus, interesting traits of people around me began to ooze out, which is when I decided to stop cribbing and make the most of the situation. Who knows, one of these could be characters in my first film.

A couple sat to my left. The man spoke a mix of what seemed to be a mix of Bengali, Hindi and Awadhi. His female partner looked obviously Nepali and even spoke like Bollywood’s caricatures of Gorkha watchmen. Though not too much into PDA, I was of the opinion that they were all set to star in the next controversial mobile clip that people around the world would download for $ 50. What the woman had to tell the man had to be very important stuff because she yelled every word of it. I wonder why the guy wanted to know about how the woman had hit another woman (who was washing utensils) for staring at her. The man kept chewing sachet after sachet of Kolhapuri gutkha and the woman kept pulling at his hair for this habit. Wonder if the man was putting up with all this because he thought she would make up for all of this later? (Wink wink).

Their eating habits psyched me out. The food from the railway pantry car is akin to the food Raveena Tandon feeds her pets. Ya, so there are a couple of things in the dal that you cannot really eat like long pieces of fried chilly, pieces of the foil etc. so the couple took out all of this and placed them on the seat while they devoured their food with all possible limbs. Post lunch the woman raked off the residue from the seat with those very hands, leaving dal tracks all over the seat. Aur phir Bhagwan Ramchandra ne us nanhi gilahri ko apne haathon mein uthaayi… aur apni ungliyon se uske peeth par teen reshayen banayi… The guy then wiped the wet dal with a gammchha (towel) and proceeded to sit on it.

Remnants of the dal could still be seen on the woman’s saree a day after that particular lunch session. The man switched from Kolhapuri to another locally available gutkha brand. He also developed a rare mental condition where he would get down and run to the water faucet with at every possible railway station.
On my right sat a bouncer in a dark blue Sando vest. He could give Yoko Zuna a few tips on muscle toning. Besides entertaining the broom that grew out of his armpits, his occupation throughout the day was to rile salesman, interrogating them with pointed questions about the price, quality and quality of their wares. He even volunteered to sit on a plastic torch after its salesman claimed that it was unbreakable. When he wasn’t playing CID with them, he would squeeze out his mobile phone out of his tight pants and make calls to people inquiring about the number of sacks of cement they used to build their new house and the shampoo they put on their head.

A whiny kid sat in front with his mom who looked so much like Shashikala that I almost asked her for an autograph. The 8-year old whined for everything from his toothpaste to his right to sit at the window. The whining was beginning to get to my nerves and I would’ve stuck my only black pen into the imp’s ear if it wasn’t for redemption that came in the form of Anish who asked me to join the rest of the gang in a compartment across seven seas.

Not that the rest of the journey was uneventful…but all of that is another story.

2009-02-24T18:05:00.000+05:00

I am tired of the cwap people adorn their Orkut profile names and status messages with. One I recently read reads – Life is a virtue. Earn it. It is all the more irritating when people who have such profile names scrap you on Orkut. The email notification in your inbox in such cases reads ‘WHO LET THE DOGS OUT has sent you a scrap’ or ‘BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMZ has thrown a Huckleberry Fig at you.’
The next half an hour is spent in identifying the owner of the dogs and calling up a dream analyst. Now this is another wild goose chase because where I expect to see the face of the person who scrapped me, I see the picture of a semi-nude John Abraham or a depressing image of a blade inserted into the tongue. So much for the warnings Orkut gives you before you upload pictures. It’s proven. No one really reads the T&C while signing up.

(Oh and among my other friends are R. Madhavan, Eisha Koppikar, Raj Thackeray, Anil Ambani, Rani Mukherjee, Brett Lee, poster babies, the Khan khaandaan, the Bachchan family including the downloaded Tulu codec and Baba Ramdev. Don’t believe me? Take a look at my friends’ list.)

I admit that I don’t know the exact purpose of status messages. The ideal purpose would be to put in something that you think is amusing out in everybody’s face so they could have a chuckle. But I am sure about one thing and that is that using the status message space to put up stuff like – ‘Enjoy life today yesterday is gone, Tomorrow may never come’ is a heinous crime. People doing this must be sentenced to three months in jail and/or fined with three thousand rupees or at least tattooed with such a warning.

Another punishable offence reads – ‘Life is an ice-cream, enjoy it before it melts.’ Someone else’s status message tells me he is ‘enjoying the nuances of life’. The same someone was yelling “Life is a play and I am an extra” last week. When will life cease to be such a STMC (Shit Status Message Creator)? Life this, life that. It’s either life or the other extreme.

‘Till death do us apart’ has asked you to kindly fill in your personal details including credit car number and DOB so she could buy you a birthday gift using your own money!

‘Death is a calamity’. Dude. *Looks for the number of the local asylum*

‘Death is a catastrophe’. Ya, you go with that guy. *Points at calamity*

‘I’ll die in my love for you’ You sure will, especially if you say that to more girls.

2009-02-24T18:04:00.000+05:00

Bag(h)ban

People who travel in trains have a platonic relationship with their bags. There are people who love their bags a little more than their spouse.
This species gets into the train, hands you the bag and waits till “the guy in the ugly black t-shirt” has kept my bag safely on the shelf.” It is this species that asks for the bag to be placed on his lap, when he sits, so he could take ample care of it himself.

This species has a strain of creatures that are a bit superior to it. These creatures keep the bag with them, come what may. “Darling, take your most precious thing and rush out! It’s an earthquake!” *rumble rumble* *CRASH* “Well, well, let’s see, I got my bag. Honey, the kids are with you right?” Get the drift? Somehow, I think I fit into this species. I like to keep my bag to myself.

Then there are those with an obsessive-compulsive disorderly behaviour. They prefer their bag to slant at an angle of 67.85 degrees- nothing less or more. These people often ask others to maintain the perfect tilt of their bag or give up their seat so they could do it themselves with a pocket protractor.

There are a few others, who would rather leave their bags in the train and tell their wives how the Al Qaeda stole it during a mock hold up session at the office. This tribe of people likes to stand 50 feet away from the luggage rack and throw their bag making sure that it hits the guy in the window seat and gives him a spondilytis of the neck. One would think it is an accident, considering the profuse way he apologises after the fiasco, every time. But the number of times I have been witness to this game of basket-bag tells me that this is the kind of story he would tell his grandchildren. “…and then I aimed the javelin at the lion and broke his neck!”

Some people are strict parents, even to their bags. Wherever they go, their bags need to follow them. They let their bag rest on the first empty spot in sight. Then the guy thinks, “There’s another spot there. May be my bag’s future will be more secure if I put it there.” The bag is moved from here to there. But then the guy has to get down soon and the previous spot was closer to the door. So the bag is moved back to the previous spot.

So which one of these is you?

2009-02-07T11:39:00.002+05:00

A supernatural drama in the building

I won’t claim to have seen all possible events that are disturbing for mankind but I think I considered myself a little stronger than most when it came to feathers of the supernatural kind. The idea could have been ‘seeing is believing.’ Have I been a witness to an incident of the supernatural kind recently?
I don’t know. I have been witness to a disturbing incident but would ponder over it for a long time to come before I would term it ‘from outside the world’ or otherwise.
A young neighbour’s wife eight months knocked up has been trying to run away from home at odd times – in the middle of the night, in the dead of the afternoon and so on. Her husband and her father in law tried to restrain her but she objected with such frenzy that according to me, an average human is incapable of. She pulled herself and her two supporters down the set of stairs screaming her lungs out, flailing her arms, kicking her feet back and forth, hitting her engorged tummy with her hands and banging herself on the walls. She managed to get her mouth bleeding somehow- whether she bit herself or if it was the result of some impact on the walls, is still unknown.
Somehow she was pinned down on the floor in the middle of the staircase. ‘Holy water’ from a durgah was brought (they had a stock of it at home) and poured into her mouth and sprinkled over her head. The frenzy ceased. I put it off as rehydration, she was possibly thirsty from all the effort she had put into screaming. But her arms and feet were still alive and kicking, literally.
Incidentally, a family on the floor where this person now lay believe in the miraculous powers of the Son of God. They swiftly brought out the Hindi translation of the Holy Bible and placed it gently under the moaner’s head. Surprise, she was quiet but still moaned and muttered.
Considering that she was now fine, her relatives tried to pull her back to her feet but the power was back again. They let her lie there making way for people to pass by over her legs.
The head of the believing family meanwhile propounded the theory that this phenomenon was nothing but ‘hawa’. The ‘patient’ had recently got back from her native village and surely might have gone to a nearby water body where the ‘evil hawa’ had gotten into her. (It seems, it’s inadvisable for pregnant women to venture anywhere near water bodies even when remotely pregnant.) And according to him, the only way to field this hawa was to call ‘Uncle and Aunty’.
I wondered if this pair was Bunty & Bubli. Uncle and Aunty soon arrived. Uncle looked like a darker version of Alan Tudyk and Aunty looked like the caretaker of a rural church in Kerala. Everyone stood up in reverence of the holy couple. They themselves stood looking at the patient, probably trying to judge her symptoms. They let out a disclaimer that they have been doing this for the past 10-12 years and that they only pray for the interference of the Son into matters of evil activities.
Uncle and Aunty soon began to call upon their deities with such fervor that I couldn’t help but record a part of it. The patient who by had found some peace lying on a mat in the believer’s flat, suddenly found it impossible to lie in such noisy surroundings and sprang up. Everyone gasped. The evil spirit is trying to get out because of the power of the prayers! A few curses and spits later, the patient lay down again to be fed a little more of the water- this time from some other place.
She slept again, giving in to exhaustion (or exorcism as many others would like to believe). Now it was time to talk about why the Son of God was more powerful than the others and how he had miraculous powers. The others in the room were requested not to feel offended, for Aunty was talking from experience. They asked the patient to be brought to their place the next day, where a powerful pastor was coming to preach and assured that he would surely relieve the patient of all her qualms.
What brought relief to the half dozen people in the small flat was that the patient was now responding to whoever talked to her instead of the curdling swears and gibberish that she spewed earlier.
What is wrong with her? I don’t know. What I gather is that she is a patient suffering of severe depression and might also be delusional. She has attempted suicide a few times including one recently when her family found her on top of the building’s water tank considering a leap a 100 feet downwards. I also understand that things like this happen to people when being pregnant.
Why am I writing this? I seem to think this will help me get rid of the habit of re-enacting the violent scenes in my head. I don’t know what to make of this. I don’t know yet if prayers help achieve anything. I don’t know…

2008-11-12T11:06:00.001+05:00

Tujhjyakade stumps aahet ka re?

Watching gully cricket in Ambarnath is a wonderful experience. I am not really sports-friendly and I mean this in a gentlemanly sort of way. I don’t hate sports or cricket for that matter. It’s just that my ideas of fun are books, movies and the like. I am the kind of person who would rather wait for the football to come to him and then kick it than run after it in a huddle of other sweaty males.
Thanks to an evening work plan that got cancelled, I got to visit an old friend of mine who was recuperating from a serious leg injury. Now this friend of mine is a die-hard cricket fan, so even as the doctor advised him complete rest and a routine exercise regime to get his leg back in shape, this guy goes to play cricket. Well, he has a runner to run for him. So all he has to do is stand like a batsman and hit the ball when it comes to him and the runner will run. Fair enough. It’s doable for an injured batsman. There were more amusing moments in the game session that I saw which I will now delve into.
Gully cricket here is a funny affair. Funny because all you need are a bat and a ball. Of course there will be a batsman and another guy who needs to stand near the bowler who will switch sides with the batsman when they have taken a run or when the over is over, if you get what I mean. (Look, this is exactly why I said I am not into sports, so you could spare me the agony of those ‘Why can’t you use proper cricketing jargon’ looks.) The funny part here is that, the guy on the other side won’t have a bat, because like I said there’s only one bat. So the other guy has a stick in hand broken from the branch that hung lowest that evening.
Then there are the spots that are ‘declared’. My acute observation tells me that if the ball that you hit goes into these declared zones, you get a number of runs that has been pre-stipulated. For example, if your ball goes into the 2D zone, he gets 2 runs and 1d begets one run, of course! Hit me on my head if I even think of animation. These regions are mostly chosen because of their inaccessibility. Like today, the D zones were the insides of a scarcely used-but-filled-with-slimy water- swimming pool- a place that a fielder can’t jump to catch a ball or anything for that matter. The ball that goes into such zones usually comes out looking a bit different. Suppose it went into a thorny thicket, it would have scratches. If a red ball went into a slightly wet swimming pool with blue-green water, it will come out as a wet red ball.
There is a serious dearth of umpires on the field. Imagine a cricket scene that has no umpires. The players have to undergo the rigorous task of decision-making even while they are concentrating on the barrage of obscene words from the other side. The first batsman to lose his wickets makes all the players in the gully happy because he is the new umpire who is expected to suddenly turn objective and give unbiased decisions and not to make your team win even if you can.
Gully cricket is gully cricket because it is played in the gully. So obviously there are no selectors. The players just select themselves and count themselves in. Halfway through the game, one can expect a switch of loyalty and one can’t point anything at him – anyone would want to join a winning team, after all. Each time would have an equal number of players, strictly. If team A has 6 members, team B needs to have 6 members too, not less, not more.
Rules exist in the unwritten, unspoken and seldom-mentioned bye-laws of gully cricket for a stray extra member. In regular cases as such, the stray extra member could either bat for both the teams or one member from the team with one member less can bat twice, but only after everyone else gets a chance to bat. The stray extra also needs to field (run after balls with the idea to get hold of it and to throw it on time onto either of the stumps that is convenient.) twice. Fielding twice is just too much effort, which is a good reason not to be late for the match.
The bye-law also restricts players from using their mobile-phones during the match. The match often requires to be cut short for bad light because the bowler got a phone call to which he replied something akin to “Arre me khaali aahot, kheltoy (pause to hear the other side)…kay? (Something interesting!) Aalo thaamb.” Then the bowler bowls the ball and the batsman hits it towards the fielder who has right then yelled that he was not ready because he got an important call. No points to guess the caller from the leering smile on the fielder’s face.
The lack of space and growth in the number of glass panes that have popped up in recent times, simpler methods of getting out have been invented. One of them is one-tappa or ek-tappi. You have been caught out if the ball that you hit bounces once on the ground and lands in the hands of the fielder. In such a case, the fielder will also throw the ball back in the air with his hands up in the air in mock joy/ amok with joy.
There can be as many matches in a day as you wish. There can be 10-over matches, 5-over matches, 2-over matches and single-over matches. The evening play session is started with a match with the biggest number of overs. The number of overs is cut down as the sun begins to set. So while the sun is almost kissing the horizon, our teams are battling it out in a one-over test match, complete with two angry fielders who yelled at each other for no reason and a guy who tried to catch a ball between his chest and chin.

Too dark to play, the players say goodnight to each other and skittle off home- back to MBA study books an engineering assignments after an enriching evening game.

2008-08-25T00:59:00.000+06:00

Govinda came. He saw. He scampered.

I have a thing against loud things. Loud people are also things. I agree, this is a difficult way to live, considering we live in a place where a festival means Nasik dhol and 125 speakers waala deck that go woof woof with Koni kutra sodla re?
So yesterday was Govinda. What they used to call dahi handi when I was in school. Dahi handi means, you make a potful of milk, honey, coconut pieces, jaggery, sugar, sugarcane pieces, loose change and top it up with water (no dahi, mind you!) seal it with cloth and then hang this up between two buildings or streetlamp poles or anything high enough, drink a few pails of ale and make others drink too and then clamber onto each other to try and reach the pot first. The first few attempts look a bit structured. But then you know how ale is. It makes you see things. So then the young Govindas put their feet where there is no shoulder and down they come like a pack of cards soaked in Khajuraho beer. All this while, the DJ is showing off his collection of triple mix songs and beams everytime the glitchik-blitchik-glitchik happens between tracks. (and somewhere in Jupiter, a volcano erupts. It can’t help it. The DJ’s system is so loud. It’s no wonder Sabu decided to stay back on Earth!)
One must think that Devki and Vasudev needed a home theatre system inside their prison cell in order to have sound sleep and a quick roll in the hay before that- quickie because they couldn’t let the chowkidaars outside their cell become voyeurs.
And then Krishna came. After a premature birth and moving homes at midnight, during a heavy downpour and water-logging at Milan Subway. The point is, he came in the morning. Not came as in “Aaah, aah, I’m coming!” But, came as in ‘was born.’ So, he was born in the morning, around midnight? But people at news channels are so active and zestful, they could be called Bean Bags. So they tell these Govinda organizers, “You want us to cover your dahi handi fest, do it in the evening, so we could get up at noon, run a few errands for home, lie in the bath tub for a while, make a few STD and ISD calls and then leave for work.” The organizers have no option. Ramaize Bhai needs the coverage to show that he is the only big man in the locality. The channel had promised to show him (and his obese boobytrap) dancing at his balcony every 15 minutes!
So, for all of us here, that naughty prankster-who accidently fell into the navy blue acrylic colour vat when he visited the Camel factory, was born in the evening. Wow, press power!
Ya so, the high decibels of sound waves go on through the evening. But for the only time in the history of mankind has the timing of a power-cut been so well-appreciated. Power gone, DJ popat! All he can do is tinker around with his wires and cables. This spells a three-hour break for our high Govindas. No song-no game! More ale, more Keshtos.
In the end, the Govindas were so tired, that someone suggested that they cheat a bit. So what they finally did is, they stood with their mouths open under the hanging pot and struck it with a really really long piece of bamboo. Yay! Govinda aala re and all that…
So such are festivities now. Another piece of disjoint, useless news. It seems people in Kerala are now celebrating sarvajanik ganeshotsav. Hey, aint that kewl, man? That is cool alright, what is wrong with worshipping the elephant god like we do it here? Well, nothing really. I’m just a little concerned about the tourism department and the numbers that haunt Kerala for its wonderful backwaters…sarvajanik ganeshotsav, idol immersion...get it?

2008-07-24T19:35:00.001+06:00

Kaanz International

Ears stuck with earphones makes man a denigrated entity. It's almost as if saying “Let me put these earphones into my ears and become deaf, stupid and clumsy.” The freshman batch of college now filling the trains thinks it's cool to ignore frantic suggestions to not 'throw their weight around.' This obliviously ignorant species often walks backwards to bump into already irate ladies or dabbawallas and then the expression of apology that leaves the conscience decides to not cross the LOC of the lips.
Ears shut, the anatomical system is devoid of any sounds from the outside world, resulting in polite admonitions from taxi drivers which would go something like, “Baghoon chal re #$%^#$^$%, marsheel ekda tya mobilechya naadaat.” Unaware of the flurry of warnings flying his way, our DJ will only smile back, forever apologetic. He would be apologetic all his life, saying sorry and maaf karo to every person he bumps into, which is like a quarter of the over all population.
Reminds me of a joke. There's this crazy scientist who is researching frogs. Placing a specimen on the desk, the scientist orders it to jump which it dutifully does. Pinning it down, the weirdass cuts off one of its four legs and orders it to jump. It does. He proceeds to extract another leg and asks it to jump. It still does manage to do it with the help of its remaing two limbs. Off with the third leg along with an order to jump. With one leg remaining, the frog makes a moving effort to jump and manages to raise itself for the scientist's happiness. The scalpel severs the last limb. "Jump," yells the scientist. The frog only stares at the scientist, but doesn't move. After a few failed attempts at making the frog jump, the scientist observes into his log book, "If you cut off all four limbs of a frog, it becomes deaf."
Why do I mention this amphibian relative of ours now? Well, it's because I have seen a few of our brethren turn into them even as they think they are head-banging to some super rock music when they really are making faces akin to a cross between a pig and a bullfrog.
But I would hand the award to them for at least getting their own earphones instead of waiting for me to offer them a brand new one irked by them using the speakers. But these advancements in science and technology is getting worse day by day, what with the music from the earphones blaring like the loud speakers themselves? Passive music. Much like AIR's style of news rendering. "Aap sun rahe hain All India Radio. Ab aap Kungfu Pandey se samachaar suniye." (Compulsory hai).
They stand on the middle of the road thinking they are unobtrusive to the movement of the world, riding a tricycle on the fast lane. Wonder if they kow that their reflexes are completely sloshed, cut short to a speed of 25 miles per year. When inside trains, they move unwittingly, their elbows pressing spectacles into eyes or grazing people's nipples as they reach into the farthest corner of their pockets to coax out their band-baaja phones. Eyes doped with music and leftover sleep, they step on shoes and hems of trousers evoking mixed emotions.
Scene change. I am being interviewed. The interviewer asks me, "Sir..."
I say, "Err, don't call me Sir, call me Hari." (Cool trend to be called by the first name, not that it aches to be called Sir.)
"Oh, ok, (faking hesitation) Hari, what message would you like to give to the society?"
Thoughtful face. "Hmmm, I think mobile phone companies should start making earphones for only one ear, so the sound from the outside world would reach the person, like hands free sets. But may be people would get two of those kinds and use them on each ear and continue being compulsively irritating, in which case other people should be given permission to carry poison darts. My message to the society is that they should stop being so reclusive and should start behaving like the social animals that Dr. Bhatavdekar says we are. People could start reading in the train like all those cool people who read books from the bestseller lists only. They could also solve crossword puzzles and then tuck the paper under the bum and leave it there, to wipe seats during the monsoons…

Camera zooms out to show interviewer snoring.

2008-07-14T23:09:00.006+06:00

false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

MaHATEmatics

A visit to my ~~little~~ big younger sister’s school on the occasion of a parents’ teachers’ meet brought in a rush of mixed emotions. The main topic of discussion was to discuss and decide the Education Board’s decision to initiate a lower level of Mathematics into the students’ curriculum intended at slashing the rate of failure of students in Math, because they are not “cope-upping” with the current level of the subject called regular Mathematics.

The PT meeting was to begin at 7.30 in the morning, about the time when joggers hit the road on Marine Drive passing by people from the suburbs, who are on their way to their offices in South Mumbai. But thirty minutes past seven is still an ominous hour to wake up on a Saturday. But many parents did and brought themselves to the school at around 8 only to be standing at the door, wide-eyed, peeping into the classroom to find familiar faces and empty seta to go and sit when they would be allowed to.

Much to their chagrin, the principal even announced that it’s no wonder that they kids come late to school. Students attending extra classes for the drawing intermediate exam were instructed to usher extra benches to accommodate the latecomers, now to be seated three on a bench pushing as if aboard a train!

After their students’ parents were uncomfortably seated, the much-awaited debate began with a teacher talking about what Math was and now what Math is, while the other teacher in the classroom passed on an attendance sheet for parents to sign. It will be, but my folly, to tell you that the double sheet of paper was getting more attention than what the teacher was saying “something” about “Yuck Maths” and their kids’ future.

The teacher talked about the Board’s idea of introducing the a lower level of the subject which would be called General Mathematics I & II instead of Regular Mathematics – Algebra and Geometry.

Feeding myself from the circular that the Board sent the school, I understand that students who now opt for the lower level of Mathematics would not be able to take up Math for higher education in the technical field which would require the base provided in 9^th and 10^th classes, which means they will stand to forfeit a career in engineering and just about anything that includes math, because their study combination of PCM (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics) would not be complete. The teacher, however, told the confused, bickering lot of parents told the parents that a kid who takes up the lower level of Math would not be able to appear for opt for Science or Commerce because even CA requires Math.

Coming back to the genres of parents that had accumulated in the tiny cowshed, oh classroom, there was a boisterous loud-mouth who thought aloud that the school should reject the Board’s idea because if the kids take up the lower level of Math, their future will be of no use. A ring tone rings somewhere and the parents, teachers and principal look around to spot the melody. I had half a mind to stand up and act Aamir Khan in TZP and say “Ajeeb aadmi hain aap.”

Teachers cry hoarse in the classroom telling the children to shut up and not make noise and “stop talking” and “Put fingers on their lips” (which my father used to parody as Fingers in your mouth.) It is only during these parent teacher meetings that they understand the rule of heredity. The kids talk so much because their parents talk so much!

The meeting ended unofficially as parents began to leave the classroom without being requested to even as the teacher was telling parents how students should be wearing proper uniforms and how girl students should not wear huge ear-rings and should plait their hair. The few who waited back formed a hive around the teacher, much like the way the teacher’s favourite students do right after class.

We waited till the very end, to tell the teacher that we would like to see what the new syllabus is like, since my sister seems to have made up her mind not to take up engineering or any other technical field. So we tell the teacher that the sister finds it really tough to understand Mathematics. And she goes, “Oh, is it? No problem, what are we teachers for? We’ll make Maths easy for her. Plus she has to work very hard…”

If that is what teachers are for, then where is the need for a lower level, me asks.

2008-07-13T20:24:00.002+06:00

Two goldfish were in their tank. One turns to the other and says…

Honey, I’m home!

You man the guns, I'll drive.

Hey, I didn’t know you were here too!

Don’t stay in water for too long or you’ll catch the flu.

How is your bubble larger than mine?

You blow bubble, I blow bubble, we blow bubble. You blow two bubble, I blow two bubble, we blow two bubble. When we blow many many bubble, we take nice bubble bath.

…and then he popped my cherry!

Dadda always wanted to oppose what mamma said so he set me up with a blowfish the day mamma told me not to talk to strangers.

How many times I have told you not to make that stupid sound when you blow bubbles?

And then he went on to tell me that I had a “bubble face”. May be he meant to say BUBBLY FACE. And then he had the cheek to add me as a friend on Orkut!

2008-04-25T21:59:00.002+05:00

A wannabe voice artist speaks…

I’ve been looking out for something to write and continue the writing practice. And now when I have something to write about, I write more from the need to structure the din in my head.

Ever since I finished standard twelve, I’ve been harbouring a wish to become a VO artist, aided by the ability to imitate voices, which I realised along the way, was not something everybody can do. I took pride in imitating voices in small groups- mostly my comfort zones. Even one step out of the comfort zones would land my foot in my mouth. Not literally, but it was enough to stunt my progress beyond level one in multiple RJ auditions, voice tests for production houses and auditions for stand-up comedy shows. Each time, the auditioners would be nastily patient (just doing their job!) and give me feedback- “You need energy, dude. What you are saying is all cool, but you lack energy.”

I did not hear that for sometime. I think it is because I went on to do other things and did average but satisfactory work in them. Months later, it has come back. Now, the word has changed. It is ‘punch’ now. Well-meaningly and encouragingly put in- “Hari, punch nahi aa raha hai.”

Another thing that despairs me no end is the inadvertent pronounciation of syllables which let out the cat and announce that I come from the south of India. It is not that I am ashamed of being a south-indian. In fact, I am quite proud of it. It is just that it sounds disgusting to my own ears, to hear a character suddenly turning into the caricature of a south-Indian in a Bollywood film. Wonder how much it would poke others. For eq. Imagine Sherlock Holmes saying, “Elementary, my dear Watson. Now, let’s dring up the tea and do some investigation.”

Ears that would gleefully point out phonetic errors, have now, stopped reacting to mistakes adding to this irritation. It scares me that I’ll carry this on and ruin chances of aa shining career as a voice artist.

There is another thing that pleases me and pulls me down equally. I can do a clear male voice that could go well with footage of a Nat Geo documentary show. What is wrong is that it has now become a favourite and every other voice I do is adulterated with this voice. The result is that how many ever voices I do, they sound sinisterly similar to each other- the same rate, the same pitch and the same ‘fade out’ in the end.

I feel a strange desperation. Helplessness. How do I do this? What do I need to do? Talk more? Hit the gym for the energy? Get drunk to let go of my inhibitions, whatever they are? Have more fun? Read the newspaper aloud? What new style do I try? How? What about the accent? How do I work on it? Will I ever be cured of it? Can I be conscious of what I’m saying and how I’m saying it? Will this ever end? Will I do better as a voice artist? Will I be a voice artist at all, or is this energy level be best for a newspaper sub editor?

I need a game plan. Badly. Suggestions welcome.

2008-03-28T14:34:00.000+05:00

Reality murder shows

All of us would agree that Television has become a part of the Indian culture. Housewives time household chores according to the relay time of their favourite soap operas. There used to be a time when a whole neighbourhood would throng to one particular house – most probably the only one in the locality to own a television set – to watch Mahabharat. Children ape their cartoon characters. A neighbour of mine- a few years older than me, broke his right arm trying to swing on a thread, trying to be ‘our friendly neighbourhood spidey’. Women rush to garment shops to invest in a saree exactly like the one a woman wore in a particular serial.

The point is – television affects us. They way we think. They way we react to situations. The way we spend, on what we spend too, thanks to advertising. And the way we talk.

Thanks to the success of the Indian Idol, ‘inspired by American Idol, Kerala has been at the receiving end of an endless string of reality shows. So much so that, people who have earlier worked on family dramas and other stories find themselves suddenly jobless. They should have seen it coming, such are trends! Scriptwriters, producers and a lot many production and post-production artists find themselves at the mercy of talent hunt shows. To name a few- Star Singer on Asianet, which is doing well, is popular and is watched not only in Kerala but all over India as well as overseas.

Then there is another show called Gandharva Sangeetam on a competing channel, which seems to be cutting production costs by compromising on sets, lights and show anchor. Star Wars, is yet another music show but with a twist- it’s a war between colleges. All three of the above are shows to find the best singing voice.
Taka Dhimi, again on Asianet aims at finding the best dancer.

What bothers me about these shows is the quality of content. The ‘content’ that I mention here includes everything that the viewer sees as the final product- everything from where the anchor starts talking to the credits. It also includes the judges’ comments.

The judges that are brought to judge the talent of the young artists are all experienced and have made their bones in their respective industry. Using that as an excuse of speaking broken, incomplete English is sheer shamelessness. We understand if you cannot speak the language properly, you can speak in the language you are most comfortable in, but to mouth English only to appear sophisticated is a cause of irritation for many.

Mistakes are allowed when performing or giving a verdict live. Television shows are pre-recorded, edited, spliced together with music and glitz and then relayed on to the box. There is a chance to rectify what wrong has been done. Either it is the laziness or failure to differentiate between the right and the wrong.

Imagine a playback singer of many years commenting on an artist’s performance. “You sang beautifully, but expression in the song was a lot of lacking.”

What a way to encourage young artists! Is that what parents want their children to hear and emulate? Doesn’t anyone think it wrong that these children would go on to do private MBA courses and corrupt the corporate world and society at large with “What you doing?” and “Where you going?”

The biggies must understand what they are saying. They must act more responsibly. Care must be taken to stop and re-shoot what has gone wrong. It will not mar the dignity of the judge to admit the wrong, apologise for it and continue with the comment nonchalantly, candidly.

One of the three judges on Taka Dhimi is Lakshmi Gopalasami, a Telugu actress who has also acted in Malayalam films. When she talks, one feels like getting an involuntary tour of South India. Gopalaswami talks in English, Tamil, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu and Malayalam- all at once. However, one cannot be rude about it, considering the effort she is taking to learn the languages that are not native to her.

Star Singer, by far has been impressive throughout. Ranjini Haridas- a former miss Kerala, is a good anchor, even though Wikipedia.com says that she has mispronounced Malayalam words now and then.

As I write this, I keep thinking of one statement that hit me. Recently, the judge for the college talent hunt show Star Wars was a famous film choreographer. She had just seen the performance of a group that performed fairly well. When asked to comment on it, the judge picked up the microphone and said, “All of you were good, but you need to be more perfection.”

2008-03-20T21:22:00.000+05:00

i put off the lights

when i don’t need ‘em.

that doesn’t mean

i ain’t online all night.

i use mugs of water

to bathe and to wash

my arse.

i don’t have a bicycle,

let alone a car – to hose.

my family flushes the loo

with water left from laundry.

i guess am good.

i don’t smoke,

i drink only water,

cold drinks are fine by me,

tea and coffee is cool.

i am not fussy.

i guess am good.

i use sheets of paper twice

both sides.

i can recycle paper.

i hate what plastic does.

i love animals.

i hate the big cats’

going away.

i guess am good.

i am good to people.

i hate to lie.

i love to smile.

i like laughing.

i guess am good.

i don’t cheat

on my girl,

i have only one girl,

i am loyal to her.

i believe in her.

i don’t sleep with other girls.

i don’t mind going slow,

cos there’s no hurry,

no one’s leaving.

i am glad.

i don’t sleep with sluts.

i guess am good.

2008-03-14T21:06:00.001+05:00

Love for reading DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to advent of exams

I love reading. More so when the final university exams begin on the 7^th day from today. I am sitting up on my bed staring at my notes. From the corner of my right eye, I see my mom standing at the kitchen door, acting as if she’s looking at the calendar on the wall behind me. Who is she kidding? Muahahaha.

My breathing eases as I see her go back to talk to the stove. I think of what is going to be there for lunch. I think what I’m going to get my girlfriend for our first anniversary. I hear my neighbour’s door shut. Then their scooter starts. May be the’s going to the market. I finished reading Pillars of the Earth last. Ken Follett’s wonderful work. It must be used as a texbook of creative writing. After it, I had picked up the Fountainhead. I look around, trying to remember where I had kept it after my last reading session.

I see it ogling at me from atop the TV, as if singing, “Come on baby, light my fire.” I look in the direction of the kitchen. Mum ain’t lookin’. Surely one or two pages won’t hurt. I reach for it.

Angel: What are you doing?

Me: (shrugs) Huh? What?!

Angel: You’ve got exams coming up!

Me: Wow, are you a mom too?

Angel: Oh no, I’m only a figment of your imagination.

Me: (Yawn) At least try to convince me with some originality! That line is from Ratatouille!

Angel: Oh, so you saw it recently?

Me: You bet! Yesterday night. Along with Memoirs of a geisha. Off with you now!

(Waves his hand across the air, trying to hit the angel.)

Mom comes in.

Mom: Whom were you talking to? Phone rang?

She looks behind me to see what I am hiding from her.

Mom: What are you hiding? Show me.

She sees the big paperback and looks into my eyes. I brace myself. I know the lyrics by heart. It’s all about how I already lost a year and how I had to undergo four years of BMM, when the course itself is only three years. I hate this part. It sucks off whatever little wish/ will there is to study for the exams. I mean, wasn’t I going to go back to my notes after only2-3 pages of the book? Okay, may be five. So what? I know my exams are coming up! Damn! It’s like being in a Pepsodent ad!

Mom’s saying something. It’s strange. I hear everything she says, still I don’t hear anything. I drop the book where I found it. “Sorry Fountain, later ok?”

I begin staring at the notes again. It says something about the Press Control of India being defunct. It calls it a toothless tiger. Hey! Isn’t that aapro Ball Thokre?

2008-02-13T22:32:00.000+05:00

Do you have the Balls in you?

Once upon a time in a place called Hamarshastra, there lived many peace-loving people. But there cannot be all goodness around. There has to be some badness around so people would know what goodness exactly is, see?

Ya, so this vacuum for badness was filled in by the Thokre clan. The patriarch of the family, Chendu Thokre used to work in a British-run newspaper as a peon. The Englishmen had named him Ball Thokre, because of his rotund shape. But as soon as the British bid adieu to the Indian soil, Ball changed his name to Chendu, which would still mean the same thing but was nevertheless in his own language.

Now, the Thokres had got their surname from the fact that they loved to visit infamous red light areas. Anyone familiar with the Mumbai lingo would understand the connection between rolling in the hay and ‘thok’re.

What was special about the clan was its unique naming ceremony. As opposed to popular belief that traditional Indians shy away from open talks about sexual intercourse, this family named its offsprings according to the sexual tendencies and fetishes that they developed. To perpetuate this, the young nameless children would be allowed to do whatever they wished to do.

So once, Ball and his youngest son went to Cum-Hatti-pura to check out some new flesh. Since Ball wanted the young one to have his own unique experience, he left him alone with 5-6 people willing to entertain him and himself knocked on the doors of middle-aged damn-sells.

Ball couldn’t sustain himself for much time. He was done quickly. After all, how much could a toothless tiger hunt? He paid his due and peeped into his son’s enclosure and to his amazement, saw the young one diving in and out of his entertainers, like Jonty Rhodes would do on many a cricket field, many years later. And thus, Ball’s youngest son came to be known as U-dive Thokre!

U-dive had a cousin. A child born to his uncle out of wedlock, generally a subject of taboo to the rest of the Indian community, but a matter of pride for the Thokre clan. This chap was a few years younger to U-dive but was smart. He looked handsome, was a more prolific speaker and was known to motivate people at a very young age. But what worried Ball was that this chap was yet to be named.

So one night, Ball peeped into the guy’s bedroom and was immediately glad that he had decided to peep. He saw the guy jerking off into a jar through a hole in the lid, the hole snug enough to simulate a sexual encounter. There! The guy had a name. Jar! Someone who made sweet love to a jar should be called just that. Jar Thokre.

Jar is just born and thinks he can take on the world. Too bad. Tch tch.

2008-01-17T18:28:00.000+05:00

Toy joy

I keep revisiting my childhood every now and then. My classmates tell me I should’ve been in the kindergarten. Not that they think I am that dumb, I hope. Frankly, I myself would prefer a kindergarten class. But my school won’t take me back. The principal thinks I am too pervert and could elope with the class teacher who was apparently my junior in school!

I had toys of many kinds. No no, not those white candle-like things lined up on the stalls at Flora Fountain market! I speak of real toys as in the khilauna from the film khilauna. Real toys that people play with…when they are kids of course! Ya so, I had these Lego blocks with which one can build all kinds of things and even the ‘bunglow’ that the cover talks about. It has a story behind it, connected to it. It seems I was down with measles and was coming back from a shot in my buttocks when I pointed at this thing in the glass case of a toyshop and my dad got it for me, not wanting to deny the wishes of his ill son probably because I got almost all of the stuff I played with when I fell ill!

Many of those tiny building bricks, I chewed away into oblivion. The remnant, debris I would like to call it, were given away to a charity cum nursery school in the neighbourhood. But as luck would have it, we feel in the sudden need for the blocks again and the school having grown rich with donation funds and other moneys, I was left nowhere, marooned alone in a heartless land where no one could lend me their building blocks even for a day! Boo hoo!

So there I was, looking up the shelves of toyshops and asking them if they have that kind of games in stock anymore. May be advanced versions, costlier of course, but the same kind. I had this mental picture of them thanks to my taste buds.

Two shops were utter disappointments. I asked to see an apple, they got me a watermelon! Bah! But I wouldn’t let go of it that easily. I just had to have it. My building blocks.

The third shop. I tell them what I want. They go inside, turn shelves like those goons do in Don, the older one and get an armful of game sets coated with a thin cake of dusty. As he reaches me, the guy plunks a heavy duster onto the topmost set sending me rubbing my eyes and sneezing like I had just sniffed some snuff.

When my head was back onto my shoulders, I looked through the pile. No, this one I saw there. Damn. Ok, not this. Oh…naah, too much for this little. And then…there it was!

My building blocks! The cove said, Baby Play Town- For creative and imaginative building play. Thinking of ginger, I reached out to touch it. It wasn’t born out of wishful thinking. It really was there!

I lifted the lid. There they were. Chintu. All small. All coloured, multi-coloured. Three set of wheel, a few doors and windows. I called out to mom to come and see my blocks. Amma…I said. Ew, would I cry? Did I cry? I don’t know. But I paid, got out and walked back home happier, much happier than I had left home for it. I got my building blocks. I was happy. Perhaps happier than a kid would be to have those tiny little building blocks.

2008-01-05T00:55:00.000+05:00

A sopping ishtory

Girlie took me shopping today. I thought I would look up stuff for myself while she was getting quality threads for herself, but as it turned out…Bandra’s Link Road only had bales and spools for the fairer sex. Hence, here I was in a shop that deals exclusively in women’s fancy western wear like many other shops in our island city.

Over-powered by the urge to sit, I posted myself on a chair, which actually turned out to be a vantage point from where I could just see things, as they were heppening oh, happening.

A huge punjabun rolled in with her two daughters – both past marriageable age, but still in dainty frills. They seemed to be looking for something, their eyes flying all over the shop like flying saucers in the Praire skies. The elder daughter was saying that she had liked something that she had seen here earlier and couldn’t remember what it was and couldn’t sight it now. They buzzed behind the stool I was perched on, even as I saw the shopkeeper look mouth wide upon as big as a yawning hippopotamus’ look at the India SA match. The younger one was prying into a pile of clothes a little away but soon cam prancing by holding something smaller than the half of a normal-sized dupatta and almost as sheer. “Mumma…mummy.” Probably taking her selection to the Home Fashion Inspector and moral conduct supervisor for approval. The elder one was still looking for that something. The mother, now concerned that her daughter had fallen victim to some obsessive compulsive shopping disorder tried to help by saying, “You saw here?” (Kindly note that ‘here’ sounded more like ‘hey-err’ the Punjabi way of saying ‘here’. I would love to attend a fun fay-err in Punjab!)

Other wannabe participants from ghoulish beauty pageants sashayed in and out all the time that I was seated on that stool. They wanted this and that and the salesmen were patiently tugging at the products from the shelves behind them and spreading them onto the table in front of the customers who looked and pointed more at the shelf rather than checking out what the salesman had laid out for them! “Woh dikhaana, woh…nahi nahi…uske upar waala, haan wahi.” Lips pouted, eyes prowling, some ruminating chewing gum.

Enthusiastic shopping partners had their arms akimbo with an eyebrow stuck up at the North Pole…”Ya, this one’s better (giggle) that one made you look a little fat.”

Suddenly another sound invaded the air. “Mera black sweater uske paas kaise aaya?” Madam, who identical piece hai.

A team of huge ladies was on their way out. They thought it was funny to mutter allowed that the cricket-loving shopkeeper was growing kanjoos because he wouldn’t give them a discount. One of them was floating a desire to gain tips to hide fat, when another one said, “Jo chhupaane ki koshish karte ho, who hamesha dikh jaata hai. Well, that’s one wise quip that even applies to real life and not just to extra tyres around the tummy.

And then there was this forty-something aunty who was trying a noodle-strap top over her spotless white shirt. She poked both her arms throw the gaping holes for the arms, drew the material over her head, thrust her breasts in front, almost poking the mirror. (Shit, why can’t she use the trial-room?) Finally when the top was in place, she started checking herself out in the mirror as if posing for retro-style photographs the first one with her chin up, then chin down, then to the left and then to the right. All of them straight out of a primary school PT exercise drill.

Bird watching is otherwise such a pleasurable activity. But this was different. It felt like being stranded in a I^st class ladies compartment! It’s like being inside a library of bestsellers. There’s so much of it together, in one place that you don’t know which one to read first. Saturation point?

Girlie, who initially thought it very uncouth of me not to help her make her decisions about the jeans, has decided that she would take me shopping again apparently because I patiently waited through the entire selection and trial process without major fuss.

In all, it was a great experience (THE right way to end essays according to English subject teachers in school).

2007-12-28T21:44:00.000+05:00

Twinkle twinkle little star

Ishan Awasthi is a dude. He knows how to have fun. He doesn’t mind dipping into the gutter and fishing out ugly Guppy babies. He loves to play Superman with his head sticking out of the front window of the upper deck of a double-decker BEST.

He is the kid in every one of us. The atom that wants to get out and explore, that wants to feel free, wants to fly but fears what the world will think. The kid is trapped within the grown-up, in the pincushion of the adult’s apprehensions, his prejudices, and the pictures in his head.

Left to his own, he’s a happy soul, painting pictures of his dreams and with nothing to worry about.

He is not scared. He pumps his fist in a “Yes” when thrown out of class, moonwalks in the corridor, feeds his exam papers to the dogs and also cleans their ears for free!

Wouldn’t all of us want to be a little destructive when really pissed at something? Little Inu does exactly what Jim Carrey says about impulses in the Living Colour, “Why can’t I just stick my fingers into that table fan?” or “Hey, there’s Jerry. What if I just kick him in his balls and say hi instead of shaking his hand?”

Ishan couldn’t stand the sight of cute, dainty, neat, potted plants at the door of his enemy. He makes them look un-cute, un-dainty, un-neat and non-potty.

It is important to have fun in whatever one does. I don’t know who said it but I go it from a professor in college. He says there’s nothing more important in life than having fun.

The idea of ‘fun’ is also so very subjective. It can’t be copied like trigonometric calculations or complex chemical processes from a book to a journal. It is not the same for everyone. One needs to ask the baccha inside what it is actually seeking- his/her idea of fun.

Aamir Khan surely had lots of fun making the film. And it shows. (His kids must’ve loved it.) The otherwise reclusive personality is so much in touch with the child that it is tough not to crack up at his antics.

Whether truth or fiction, the potshot at Abhishek Bachchan was hilarious!

I don’t know intricate details of the feud between Amole and Aamir but I’m glad Aamir potted the clay into a shining taara.

P.S: The post-film visit to the loo revealed quite a few damp eyes and sniffles.

2007-12-17T02:06:00.000+05:00

On the path of self-actualisation

I had lost a very valuable part of my attitude. One of the few things I shared with my former classmates is a generous amount of something that would generally be termed as a ‘lackadaisical attitude’; so much so that, all of these classmates were labelled into a group called ‘Chaltaye’ in my yahoo chat list.

SSR has been quite effective in moulding this ‘Chaltaye’ attitude, his train of thought being that one must let nothing affect one’s mood, creative process et al, that there’s nothing more important to grow while having fun, not to let anything bother you. It is but a totally tangent story that he himself would get irked by too much of ‘chaltaye’.

I was a big believer of this theory. I would seldom get angry. It wasn’t like salt in my curries like it is now. Not that I wouldn’t sulk then. Now, sulking is like breakfast, a routine that I must do for the poor sun to set in the west. My mood swings could easily conquer any lady’s monthly 3,4-day depressions. Generally, a verbal tiff with someone who means the world to me would mean that my day has gone for a toss, nothing would go right then onwards and I would be data-transferred from whatever mood I’m in at that moment to Sulkland. I turn into that 35-year old grump Facebook said I am. ‘Have fun’ adieus sound like curses. When in a crowd, I suddenly duck to avoid meeting recognizable faces, who, I’m sure would stop to ask me the customary queries of what I’m doing nowadays and how come I’m still in my last year of graduation etc. And the number of taxis that want to run me down on such days! My my!

Today was different. We had had an exchange of simmering words in the morning. Even as I hung up abruptly, I was thinking what would become of my day. Would all the effort from the day and the previous one go into the crushed aluminium foil of sulk sulk?

But it didn’t! Today was one of my most memorable days in college. It was Bazaar Day and the theme was ‘South India.’ Despite the confusion between medu wada and batata wada, everything was just perfect. Elephants and kathakali dancers in place, cutouts of course. Others had got leaf decorations and plantain leaves. A pookalam was designed with flowers. We were selling idlis, wadas and rasam. And…we won it! We bagged the first prize for the stall, first for the decorations and stood second in the food section. And how we squealed and rejoiced and hugged and danced when we won! And I had just had the time of my life, dancing away, getting people to buy our items- ‘kaanvaasing’ I called it…all of this while dressed in perfect ethnic costume.

So I guess, ‘chaltaye’ is back or am I sulking right now? I just want it to stay, now that it is here and help me mend things that have gone wrong and go on and be that happy ‘chaltaye’ Hari I used to be, for I care and I love. Her.

2007-12-16T08:20:00.000+05:00

'Redding karte hain'

A hairy Hari Chakyar gains a very valuable gender reality experience at the barbershop

I got a haircut today, a close-to-the-scalp-cut that most people would associate with Akshay Khanna. Not that it is much of a deal, but the whole experience came with another free experience. Towards the end of the trimming process, realization struck. All the effort women take to look good and the pain they undergo suddenly dawned upon me.

The haircut was done, but I wasn’t satisfied. I could see jagged ends and unfinished poky cuticles sticking out here and there. I told the razor-wielder to shave ‘em off, so the new haircut would look less like a shaved moth. He dutifully whipped out his razor, but after a few miniscule strokes here and there, he said, “Redding karte hain.”

It was incomprehensible…I did not get what he said and impulsively responded, “ain?” “Dhaaga chalate hain,” he said. *A moonbeam suddenly made its way to earth* “Ah, he means threading,” I thought.

“Hey, wait a second, ain’t that what girls get done to their eyebrows just in time for a function or boyfriend-meeting ceremony?” *Head whirls*

By the time my pea-sized brain had reached this point of thought, the barber had a spool of string in his hand, like glass-dipped maanja. He held one bit of the thread between his teeth and held two other parts in his two hands and went at the remaining hairs.

The thread made a trayon trayon trayon trayon sound as it went as I held my eyes shut tight and cringed and cursed myself as to why I had to put on my spectacles and catch those errant strands, when I could have just avoided this painful humiliation! I seem to have this kinky fixation for pain, but this was ridiculous!

I bet there weren’t as many hairs there on my cheekbone and on my temple as that guy made them out to be! When wielding the all-powerful thread he just went berserk, ‘redding’ imaginary hair while I said “yeow yeow” and thought to myself, “F***, this hurts!”

But the end result is kinda good, so I think the effort was worth it. Precisely why I think women go for it. What the heck, it looks good! Don’t get me wrong; for I say this only in jest…I think now I’m a little more aware and sensitive about women’s issues!

2007-12-07T21:08:00.000+05:00

Piggy on the railway, gone to commit suicide

Resilient and compliant that I am, like all my fellow pigs, it has been quite a few years that we’ve adapted ourselves to the perennial no-power situation. We have been convinced that there’s acute shortage of power in the state and that we would have to part with power for a considerable number of hours every day, so that our richer brethren in the city can relish their afternoon siesta peacefully in their air-conditioned bedrooms.

As for us- pigs, we don’t really mind not having electricity in our homes for anything between six and nine hours. Our television sets have become showpieces and we’ve been busy trying to find things to do when blessed with the lovely power cuts.

Recently heard, there are going to be power cuts in the New Bombay region too, which had somehow managed to hide behind the CIDCO building, when they were making the erratic timetable to fatefully deprive the Central suburbs of power.

Wasn’t that region supposed to be the next region to be ultra-developed after areas like Andheri? Weren’t major business and service industry offices planning to move base from the present congested Mumbai town to Vashi and Nerul? How then will those regions undergo power cuts?

I think I know how. Don’t label me as cynical. All of us have risen to a level higher than that and have attained something called nirvana of patience.

Look at this, the way I look at this. They continue with their plan of moving their offices to New Bombay, Indian Express and Loksatta being one of them. But then, they’ll meet the power cuts. But they are not flustered by it. The state will have a solution. “Central suburbs are only subjected to six hours of power cuts,” the state would say, “They still have eighteen hours of power, we can borrow some more.” Thus, the little what we have now will go on to ‘save the world’. Oh and then they’ll have explanations. ‘You know there used to be this power-source that recently shutdown and the others are all being renovated and will be ready within 2 months.’ And all that.

But then the suburbs will be given incentives to take up small scale industries like candle making and production of storable biogas made out of human excreta. The candles will keep us people busy all day and give us light at night. The rest of the time, we’ll be asleep, so we will not need any light. Hey, cardboard covers of notebooks are great to swish swash for breezes. And the candles, if smoothly made, can be used to make excellent dildoes. But then, they’ll have to be really strong or else, they’ll break inside the orifices and cause trouble later. Imagine the ecstasy of making love in candlelight after a candle light dinner! Perfect, ain’t it?

And the biogas fuel is the best incentive ever. It seems it is the second best energy-efficient fuel after LPG. Sure drives the point home that we are actually gaonwaalas. Shit and make gas out of it. Did I mention we are pigs?

2007-11-28T01:16:00.000+05:00

A man boards the train from Ulhasnagar, has a very obvious Sindhi accent even while he talks Hindi. He is one of the lucky ones among members of ‘train groups’ to have a culturally diverse group of people travelling together to their different places of work. He spouts quite a few Malayalam words, which to the surprise of the Malayalis in the group, sound very much like how a purebred Malayali would talk! It is revealed, now, that this gentleman has been undertaking the annual sabari mala trip without a break for quite some years. The few words that he knows stand testimony to all those devotional trips. What more, he relishes south-indian food and says there’s nothing in the world like the yummy food in Udipis!

Mollywood now has a new actress. The 22year-old is named Roma. She is settled in Chennai and speaks Tamil as fluently as her mother tongue- Sindhi! Roma Asrani. Though I don’t know more about this new budding starlet, I happen to know that she’s as healthy as the other leading ladies of Malayalam cinema.

<----- Roma Asrani

A lady lives in the nearby colony tries so hard to talk in chaste Malayalam, that she actually succeeds, but not before making you feel that she’s not really a Malayali. Truth is, she’s actually a Sindhi lady married to a Keralite, speaks convincing Malayalam, wears deceptively Malayali sarees and dresses, cooks food that taste almost like it came from a Udipi hotel!

All three of the above stories have two things in common. One is obviously the Sindh-Kerala connect. The other thing is that all three of them were told to me by my mother. The uncle in the train is in my dad’s train group. The Sindhi married to a Keralite lives in the same building as my sister’s dance teacher.

We had been watching the box yesterday. A reality talent hunt show was on when my mother pointed out to the celebrity guest and asked me if I know who that was. I replied in the negative. ‘I don’t get to watch much of TV, how do you expect me to know,’ I rued. She replied that the guest was Roma, a Sindhi girl who is now acting in Malayalam films.

I don’t know what she is driving at, but it is definitely sure that she is contemplating yet another such union. It gives me great pleasure that she is giving serious thought to it. Reason to rejoice? Only time will tell.

2007-11-28T00:17:00.000+05:00

“Tu repeater hai kya?” he asked me.

“Ehh…repeater nahi…” I replied and told him that this was the first time I was doing the sixth semester. So technically, I’m not a repeater, but non-technically, I am?

No ‘friends’ in class. There are two girls who talk a little more Hindi than the others, precisely why I solve the MidDay Bollywood Crossword with them. That is one part of this class that I certainly enjoy. Some lectures are fun, the others morose. No group to ‘hang out’ with. Hari is a loner. The fun lectures are where Hari opens up sometimes, thinks openly about things he heard at work, learnt in the process…shares with the class. Other times, a general quiet descends. Nothing much to talk. Anyways, there’s no one to talk to. Almost all of whom I knew flew away last April.

Lone canteen visits…the four-seaters are over-flowing with bums, while I manage to find a place to grab my grubs in peace. Dark clouds poke me with the silver wiring in them. The silver wiring of all that I did in the one year that I lost, of things I learnt and the money I earned. Sooner than later, the mildly pleasnt hallucination caused by the wiring sublimes into vapour as the dark cloud fogs the planet again.

Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t I have passed out with the others? Damned.

I think I know why I feel so down in the Deonar dumps.

K. Complete the following sentence with any fucking ten words of your choice:

Hari is going through this because………………………

One hand up. It’s Hari! Ok, Hari, tell us the answer. You are so smart, only you know the answer.

Ahem…yaya…all that is fine. I am going through all this because I always looked down upon repeaters. Did the ‘always good to everybody’ Hari really look down at people who had lost an academic year and scoff and haughtily think to himself that he’s way smarter than any of them?

*sheepish grin* uh…I guess…yes. There’s my neighbour who is really smart but would always fail when he was in school and I would always think to myself what a dimwit he was. It’s only in the near past that I got over that mean pre-conceived notion. Then there were many of these new faces that could be seen on the first day of every year at school.

“Hey, is that one of the repeaters? May be. Because, if it were a new student…the uniform would look newer than what he’s wearing now,” my mind would talk to itself.

It would take days to get talking to this new addition. Not because I thought academic failure was contagious or anything, but because such students were usually known for their nefarious activities and I really didn’t want to be known as one of them.

I never thought of myself as conceited as I now seem to be. My memories are shattering me.

I was getting my new college I-card made…when the guy in-charge asked me, “Tu repeater hai kya?”

The question hit me on my face like stray stones hit footboard travelers on local trains. It reminded me of how demeaning…almost derogatory that word was to me, till a few years ago.

All these while, I thought I did no one any harm. It brings tears to me. I thought I was all goody-goody in school. My hands shook if I tried to copy during exams. I never pushed anyone while climbing the stairways to the classroom, never clicked my shoes on the hard stone, never talked in class other than when of utmost necessity.

Isn’t there something on the same lines as sow a mango seed and you get a mango, not an apple?

My current class is good, accommodative and intellectually sparring and they wouldn’t look down at anyone, let alone me. But it is not my class. Yet.

Enough of things that thus weigh me down, compelling me to squander precious time and energy over such senile thoughts. Hope things do change for the better. May the dark cloud be vacuumed out of my head. Hope the industrial visit help me make friends, to help me get out of this semester in peace. Hope the projects and studies and work goes fine. And then there would be nothing to be as sorry about.

2007-11-24T20:28:00.000+05:00

No pushing

No shoving

No elbowing

No words spoken

No words intended for me

No hard feelings

No gritting teeth

Atissue atissue

On the top of the list of things that I detest the most, is the cold. The common cold. Now, there are two types of the ailment. A cold and accompanying fever is a great excuse not to go to school/ work/ college project work and calls for sympathetic “tch “tch”s. Everyone loves a good cold like this- a much deserved break.

The other kind of cold is the one that afflicts me twice a year and decides to stick to me like a mushy Valentine! Bah! This is the kind of bug that wreaks havoc in my system, just when I am gearing up my vocal chords for some ‘important work’. Here I am, all set to audition for a radio jockey position and “atissue atissue” goes the signal of hartal. Damn, my system is on strike, man! Oh, these bugs just served me a notice. It sounds something like those railway announcements “Aapke nasdeeki lungs mein kucch zaroori abhyantriki karya jaari hone ke kaaran, aapki sound box facility kucch der ke liye raddh kar di gayi hai”. The railways at least express their deep/high regret for the inconvenience caused. These pests are shameless, no notice only, dhinkra!

Whatever I speak, comes out with a nasal twang. (Oh Gawd, please leave that Himesh guy out of this.) My nostrils laced with Zandu balm, clogged with something like Joker gum feels like a Virar-bound train reaching Andheri at seven in the evening. My throat is no better. It sounds like Raza Murad with a dozen cacti shoved down his mouth.

Dad says a little kanakasavam (a vile-looking Ayurvedic concoction) will help release the cough. Mom suggests the sweet Homoeopathic sugar balls. “Oh, and don’t forget to inhale some steam,” adds dad. So now, I have Zandu balm on my chest, forehead, inside my nostrils as I sit with a blanket over my head over a steaming pot of water. Though I like the sweet medicine, I told mom that I better take the black potion that dad suggested. (Psst. the fact that I saw ‘11% alcohol’ on its label has got noting to do with this.)

As for now, “Ids dime for by dext sdeam sezzun, cya.”

2007-02-12T15:10:00.000+05:00

I wander through the linked lanes on a photo-sharing website, reading the images put up, pondering over the captions. Some are quotes from books, some, random thoughts. Others describe the situation the photograph was made in.

How I long to capture things that I see and find wonderful. I know I can write about them and paint my very own picture in words, but it still would not match the effect produced by a photograph. (Yeah yea, hot medium. Mc Luhan, I won’t forget you ever, I guess.)

One I picture that I have been carrying in my head for over 3 years now, is a circle of addicts squatting around a tiny fire, sniffing and inhaling narcotics. My mind reads out the caption loudly in my head every time I see them, just opposite Lower Parel railway station, just beneath the ticket booking window. The caption reads- ‘Two makes a duo, three make a joint’.

HE alone knows when I’ll get an eye for myself- an eye that would help me click and keep the clicks forever- to show people what I saw, a picture and not a necklace sentence strung together by beautiful words as beads.

2007-02-06T09:30:00.000+05:00

For heaven’s sake, stop forwarding mails like these. “really god made this a miracle” it seems! UGH!! The guy/gal/eunuch who made this must’ve been really bored then. And the person who started this mail must be castrated with immediate effect and sent to travel alone, without shoes in Virar fast on a Monday evening.

Why the wedding ring should put on the fourth finger?

Thumb represents parents – oh!
Second finger represents brothers & sisters – hum ho, ok.
Center finger represents own self – ha ha.
Fourth finger represents your partner – oh!
Last finger represents your children – teeny weeny mynah moe?
Really interesting – bah!

Pls follow the below step, really god ma d e this a miracle (this is from a Chinese excerpt)

Firstly, show your palm, center finger bend and put together back to back
Secondly, the rest 4 fingers tips to tips
Games begin, follow the below arrangement, 5 finger but only 1 pair can split.

Try to open your thumb, the thumb represents parents, it can be open because all human does go thru sick and dead. Which are our parents will leave us one day
Please close up your thumb, then open your second finger, the finger represent brothers and sisters, they do have their own family which is too they will leave us too
Now close up your second finger, open up your little finger, this represent your children. Sooner or later they too will leave us for they got they own living to live
Nevertheless, close up your little finger, try to open your fourth finger which we put our wedding ring; you will be surprise to find that it cannot be open at all. Because it represent husband and wife, this whole life you will be attach to each other

Real love will stick together ever and forever.

I WONDER WHAT THIS MEANS NOW!!!

2007-01-27T23:53:00.000+05:00

Ctrl + z

There are times when “shit” happens. Sometimes it is a small “shit” that escapes between clenched teeth and more often it is a “shit” resembling an open-mouthed guffaw accompanied by a rumble in the guts. It is followed by general sense of helplessness with a sincere wish- “I wish I could just undo that!”

Instances are many. Sometimes you bite your tongue simultaneously wishing you hadn’t said what you just said. “Oops”- a sheepish acknowledgement to a silly release finds its place here. But no amount of apology would work here. The harm is done. The tongue, a sword, has claimed a wound. If only it could be undone! Just a concurrent feather touch on ctrl and z, lo and behold, you have nothing to worry about!

Failed examinations, tiffs with loved ones, broken ties, shorn hair, sambar spilt on shirt just before a presentation- ctrl + z. Poof! It’s undone.

Naah, not to happen. Ever. Not unless man’s desire to create the time machine comes true. I think the origin of my current state of mind can be rooted back to the Bhagwad Gita (Gita saar, for the colloquially informed). I believe it says something on the same lines as ‘one must accept the consequences for one’s actions- be them good or bad.’

It just can’t be undone like in the sci-fi films.

As you sow, so shall you reap.

I wonder what’s with the new philosophical tryst in my style of writing. “Accept it, you are a big bore, Hari!”

2007-01-14T22:37:00.000+05:00

Whim Bar

(A plain Sunday morning. I am bunking the Rotaract meeting and sitting home to make better use of my time. However, the excuses that I made just not to be there are passe’ and flimsy!)

Sathya Saran’s piece in the relatively new coffee table booklet- Me, gave me the boarding pass to a new train of thought. Saran talks about finding a book in a fair in Delhi. The piece is not about the book. It is the mysterious origin and future of the book.

She found a note inside the book, which said “the book had been registered at a site called bookcrossing.com, and once I was done with it, could I please go to the site and make a journal entry.”

A unique way to keep a track on books and the various experiences it has, a testimony to the kinds of people and the various purposes they use books for, this site brings back the idea of a ‘message in a bottle’ and SOS messages from the Swiss family Robinson.

Exciting indeed! I ventured into the site and I am exploring it now. There’s also another site called phototag.com, which, on a whim, gives out a fully loaded camera, marked with a return address, to friends or strangers to click one picture and pass it on. The last one to click must then turn it back to the address indicated in the camera, which is nothing but the American Postal Department! The website, then posts these images on the site, a visual testimony to the journey of the camera.

I happened to meet Anita and Michael Norman, an English tourist couple under peculiar circumstances on Ambarnath station. They were returning from a week in a Matheran and were flying back to England the next day. They were stuck at our humble station, thanks to a burning train in Ulhasnagar and a riotous situation. They were travelling on a whim that they will see at least half of the world before they bite the dust. Michael, who is turning sixty this year and wife Anita had already seen been to Thailand, Japan, Russia and other places. “This is surely going to be a memorable visit as this is the first time we’ve got held up”, giggles Anita.

Man, just the thought of it makes me smile. Weird ideas these goras get. Wonder what they eat. (Chuckle!) Now, my train of thought. What do we do, that can be at a comparable level with such eccentricities that give tremendous adrenaline kick? Just for the heck of it?

What is the craziest thing I did ever? Drop in suddenly at a friend’s place to surprise her? Mimicking stand up comedians in a crowded train? That’s it?

What is the best prank that I played on someone, till date? An April fool’s day letter to friends, apparently from their coaching classes, stating that they’ve been rusticated from their classes and that they would not get a refund of fees! LOL. Ok, done.

Hari did not no what point to make until now. Now he thinks he can, though he doesn’t know why the drastic change. The point here is, HARI, GET A LIFE!

I happen to know that a bungee jump will be a great kick. Does someone know where I can indulge in one?

2007-01-03T02:04:00.000+05:00

It is a year now that I started writing on my weblog. What started as a silent companion, a ear to my qualms is now a partner in crime. It is not something anymore. Emotionalballies is a someone now. He hears me out patiently. He doesn’t kid when I am talking serious things. Not that I mind, but still, not a word is spoken while I pour myself out to him. Not that he talks to me after I am done. Just that he helps me sort out things for myself. Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I on track? Etcetera.

2006 was a year full of experiences. It started with the weirdest of them all. It went on to pleasant ones and more painful ones. Love hit and love flop. Last year told me what rejection feels like. I got my mobile phone last year. People called me names. I got a dream internship. I got dropped out of college. I found I could imitate one more voice. I lost friendship but gained brownie points later.

Not that I have nothing more to write, but I have to go. I am sleepy. It is past 2 30 in the morning. There’s a lot to think about and write about. All I need to do is frame them in a presentable way so it is easy to figure things out.

Hail weblogs!

:| :| :|

2006-12-11T00:48:00.000+05:00

For my grandfather

I spend a lot of my time in front of the mirror. At least, I used to, when I had all that time. Now I use all that time to sleep and read. A recent peep into the mirror, told me to take a closer look. I peered hard, looking through the corner of my right eye and stealthily bring my right hand to my right ear. It is true. I saw it and then I touched it. It was real. I had a real, hair growing out of my pinna and it is still there, untouched, unplucked, all set to wiggle with my ear and ready to welcome the gentlest of breezes onto it.

All excited about the new discovery, I lead mom by her hand, towards the mirror and demonstrate the tiny, wiry protrusion. She’s amused; I can see that in her eye. She hits me on my back, playfully chiding me for this childish exultation. She returns to her magazine, but is not very attentive. Her eyes don’t read, they just scan. She’s thinking and we will soon be hearing a nugget from her past.

She tells me that the hair on my ear is hereditary. It seems that her father, my maternal grandfather, also has hairs on his ears. Now that she mentions it, I remember the sinewy mesh of black hair sticking out from grandpa’s ears.

Mom goes on to tell me that I am very much like my grandfather. It is not just the dark colour that I get from him. It seems I also share his unpredictability in moods, confused nature, an amount of stubbornness and tremendous will power. I wonder if he is a scorpion too.

My grandfather retired as a schoolteacher in a government school several years ago. With the over-confident backing of humongous inherited ancestral property, he went on to pillage everything that he had following lost cases for more property. My grandmother caught the elevator upwards when I was eight. In his early seventies, my grandfather married a woman he came to like, caring a poop about whatever people would say. He loved books, mom tells me. Maybe it is from him that I also inherited the love for words, for writing, to express what I felt.

Thank you, Mr. Sankaran Nampi, for that is his name. I am going to have a clean-shaven face tomorrow and mom will surely comment on the uncanny resemblance to her dad.

Yea yea, looks like its thanksgiving time!

2006-12-07T10:55:00.000+05:00

Hum sab editor hain

They tell kids to read newspapers to mend their skills in English and also to pick up new trends in writing and understanding the language. Interning at the editing desk of a daily newspaper, I see why it is so. Each word is run through, each line; each sentence and thus paragraphs are peered into, with rapt attention to catch disobedient words, dismantled words, manhandled words or just a missing letter. Meticulous, is the word for it. Every acronym is looked into, for its existence and importance. Every complex word is pampered with some amount f attention to check if it is worth sitting there or would be better off in just the dictionary.

It is tough. I swallow the bitter spittle almost everyday. With my pride in the lowest level now, I watch helplessly as someone else easily finds barn-sized holes in the copy that I had just edited. It is called ‘subbing’- the art of sub-editing. I am learning, and I am loving it. People, who used to be curt and cold in the centralised AC, are now getting warmer and often beam a smile in my direction. And when acquaintances stop by and ask me where I am heading, in semi-formal wear, I proudly say, “Office” trying hard to suppress my gawky grin, lest I expose the fluorosis-affected teeth and invoke questions on how much I smoke in a day!

More, later. And I just might get bylines too!

Yay!

2006-11-24T23:46:00.000+05:00

Meeting the Royal family of Nepal

“I had two breakfasts, one coffee and one tea today,” I told a friend online later.

Indeed. I pine for experiences, especially now, when there’s a genuine low in daily travel experience. This morning was a wonderful experience. Thanks to the idea of movie exchange, I caught up with a friend from school. And do I need to tell you that the meet was feel-good?

Coming to think of it, I have this deficiency in carrying on conversations. Being a newly found disease, I am still attempting to gauge all of its symptoms and only then will I stumble upon apt remedies. The defect is my weird tendency to plunge into a stupor-an uneasy silence after a few sentences. Such pauses generally make the person talking to me feel that I am bored of listening to him or her and my ears have better work to do than lend themselves to their talk. it is but obvious that he/she will be offended by this ‘lack of attention’. But today was different. I set out after breakfast and my coffee. We met on the road leading to her place and stood there talking for more than half an hour, our conversations jumping from topic to topic, discussing future plans, episodes from school, the fluctuations in life, common friends, the need to be in touch with the native land and other common experiences.

We had never really talked in school. What with so many people to talk to! We had known and acknowledged each other’s presence every time we passed by or while talking to common friends. She would always be the one to be called on stage for winning awards for her art. Her paintings, I believe have been on international trips to Korea!

Our conversation today, was like playing badminton though there were no scores. She would say something- a serve. I would lash back- the return. At one point of time, my inner being panicked and I said, “Ok, topics khattam!” But then she deftly and gracefully handled the show and we talked on.

She than pranced upon a topic that I love to delve in. “Hey you do mimicry, right?” she exclaimed and I could only look down at the ground and dig the mud with the toe of the chappal on my right foot and smile from my left ear to my right one! And then Julie appeared out of nowhere and scared a dog when she yelled, “Hut kutta!” But then my friend pointed out, “It’s a kutti!” Sheepish now, I stop, smiling to see my friend in amused guffaws.

It has now dawned upon me that she likes PJs. She invites me home for tea, just a stone’s throw away from where we now stand. I have half a mind to decline and almost said, “no” but now I’m glad I accepted. I take my time and frame an old PJ revived from the archives in my rusty brain. This time I get quick, cute bursts of laughter as a response.

A laminated photograph of the late royal family of Nepal welcomes me into the humble house. On another wall, is a picture of a smaller size- my friend and her family. Another radiant face hangs on yet another wall. I am told he’s a spiritual leader of sorts, named Prem Rawat and has a large number of followers worldwide.

I can’t help but notice the similarity between Nepali and Bengali as my friend talks over the phone to her cousin in Nepal. Soon, she gets up to get me a glass of water. Then she hands me a plate and tells me to try it. As soon as my eyes tell my brain that it is sautéed corn, I’m informed that it is indeed corn, but roasted on a pan and then mixed with ghee and honey. The first spoonful of the dish has me hooked to it! All of it soon finds itself in my tummy and my friend asks if I would like some more. I declined, for I believe, what is to be relished must be taken in doses! Aunty gets me tea and saying, “Le baccha,” places it on the broad armrest of the sofa (cum bed?). Aunty smiles when I say I liked the dish, tasted for the first time.

Both of us- my friend and me claim that we’ve bugged each other no end and I feel its time I made a move. I decided to call it ‘two hours spent well’. I smile widely as I think of what a fine entry into my blog this would be!

Thanks Deepa!

2006-11-08T16:49:00.001+05:00

“Sir, can I come to college tomorrow?”

“Uhhhh (loud framing of sentences in the brain) yes of course. The Principal is waiting for you in his office. Just give me a ring when you reach the college gate and Rani will meet you there with a garland in her hand. Do you know how special you are to us? Or do we send a car to Ambarnath? But I think you would better come in a train as we can then avoid wastage of petrol on you. And walking is good for your health. I still don’t understand why you cannot go to CHM, Ulhasnagar. I talked to the coordinator Mr. Pathavle and he is ready to take you in. and, uhhhh, in terms of, your attendance, I do not have any problems. But I am concerned about your high IQ and your fast grasping powers. I must tell you now that your acute listening is tremendously powerful. And you are the only one who reads all the handouts that I supply in class. I must say, I love the way you sit on the second last bench and nod at everything I say. If you think I am 45 years old and cannot tell that that you are thinking of the Karjat fast home, then I must quit teaching and do kheti-wadi with my friend Bhargav in Karnala. I think I’ll go and do a soap-opera in the soap factory there and Bhargav can be Milkmaid. Aah, soap reminds me, did I ever tell you that Liril holds just two percent of the total market share of soaps? The loudest sound in my heart is the heartbeat ticking away. I am writing a song on it now, to perform at Ole’. I loved the way you mimicked me at Miditech and made the class barmy with joy. I love your scruffy hair, though now I have heard you’ve trimmed it akin to my hairstyle. True? Never rest you leg onto the wall behind you as you rest your back against it. You do that and I’ll pinch n twist n tweak n finetune n wrench n pull n tug n yank your ear that is closer to me and say, “How many times have I told you not to stand like that?” Don’t stare at my pen stand like that, you might break it with your cold eyes. I am told to play with it as I grill people because I have to push them with grace marks for every exam. Of course, with you, I never had any such issues. (Other than the fact that you ask too many questions in class!) I wanted to ask you if you would teach the current First Years’ a bit of Sociology? Or maybe ECS? I am sure you will do better than Patrick or his father or Sajay. Hena was good. I wonder if you would like to talk to the Second Years’ about your favourite subject, Innis and Mc Luhan especially? Ya, so, give me a call when you reach the college gate and Rani will me…"

Click.

2006-11-04T15:50:00.000+05:00

Once upon a time in a fictitious land called, Letscallitpandharpur, there was a very just king. He just loved to be with his wife. And he just loved to keep away from booze. He was just a perfect teetotaller. Now you see why he was just. The king and the queen had a kid. Let us call him Prince.

Prince was an angel. No he did not wear white diapers and did not have feathery wings. He was cute and pink and would be nice to everyone who came to visit him and who played peek-a-boo with him. He wouldn’t wet his undies at untimely hours, as he knew that the wetness would cause rashes that would become cactus when he would sit on the royal carpets on the floor.

But as he grew, he started throwing tantrums and people ran all round him to catch them, lest he would break them, for you see, it’s a royal palace and all of it has royal importance. He would ask for a white pony to sit on and then when all of the kingdom would be searched for one and a white pony brought for the royal offspring, Prince would want to ride the Prime Minister. (Bloody inverted paedophile).

His favourite tantrum was, “I’ll hold my breath till I am blue.” And Queen mother and all of Prince’s attendants feared this part the most and complied to his wishes lest he chokes himself.

Once, this wise old baba Bengali came to the palace. Out of royal etiquettes, Prince welcomed the sagacious being into the royal visitors’ room. And then he wanted to peep into the saffron clad being’s cloth bag. By know it had come to be known that Chandrasaw-me from India was on a trek to Letscallitpandharpur. Prince was now going to throw his ‘I’ll hold my breath till I am blue’ tantrum for the cloth bag. Saw-me decided to humour the kid. He winked at the queen and her maids and told Prince that he would not part with the bag, come what may.

Prince filled himself with air and pinched his nose and made his mouth an airtight Tupperware product. The palace watched on, with bated breath. Prince’s face turned red. The queen who had been smiling at the crooked Saw-me was getting anxious now. Prince turned beet-red and then roaring crimson. Saw-me just looked on, amused. The maids were annoyed at him. Saw-me just wasn’t looking at them and if something happened to Prince, they’ll have to forgo Royal employment and the fringe benefits it offered.

Prince’s face turned dark blue and he still held his breath. He went on and on and the colour deepened into altar-purple. The queen had almost rushed in to save her child when Prince went “Poof!!!” stuttering, spluttering and gasping for air, amidst roaring laughter from everyone in the room. He looked up at all the people and slumped into his mother’s arms, which too were quivering with amusement and exhausted relief that her son had finally learnt a lesson, all thanks to Chandrasaw-me. Wink. Wink.

I wonder if breaking ties is that easy? If it was the langot on the neck, it is easy. But, now, my friend, we are talking about human ties, bonds. Let’s not get the word ‘relationship’ into this, for, that takes this monologue into a totally different runway.

By breaking away, you mean ex-communication? Not talking to that person etc?

Great. And what is it that you want to gain from it? Do you realize that it only constricts, restricts the wholeness in your heart? It is but baggage that you keep adding to yourself. You already have enough of it buddy.

If Sudhakar was to talk on this, he’ll surely talk elaborate on the virtues of ‘so what?’

“She told you to go to hell, so what?” “He calls you names behind your back, so what? Does that make you what he calls you? Jhust lhet gho”

It pains me no end to see people severing ties like they were useless burrs that stick to your clothes as you walk through the wild. The reasons could be varied, but I am sure once you let go, it won’t look any bigger than the auto rickshaws that we see from atop Mumbradevi.

Let go of the baggage and just keep busy, hear songs, read-up things, write blogs (like me). You know what song works for me? Queen’s We are the champions. This song rocks, thanks to Freddie Mercury. The rush that I get from it tells me every now and then, “I know what I am, I know my own worth, I am just waiting for the perfect time to hit myself into ‘success’ mode. Aah, the route of immunity.

2006-11-01T13:53:00.000+05:00

Um…err…well. Times are not as good as I thought. But they are getting better. That paper did not want me to work with them as a sub-editor. They thought I’m over- qualified for them and told me to write for the Time magazine. Baah! Like I’m going to believe them. And he says, ‘better luck next time’ followed by a smiling smiley.

I still don’t know about Wilson College’s fate. Do they keep me away from it for a whole year or not is still a big question mark in front of my face. Sudhakar cannot muster enough courage to tell me that I have flunked. Well, shit happens.

My b’day rocked! The rocks at Mumbradevi were real big. Me had a great time and of course Arcopol and Rajaji Nath sponsored that part of the great time. Eccentric cake cutting show in public later we headed back home, not really tired by the climb.

The trek to Mumbradevi used to be a challenge. Maybe it still is, if I plan to climb it at one stretch. The last two trips were over-loaded with breaks for bum-rests and oxygen intake. My legs egg me on to push myself out of my reach in a bid to do good for myself.

Have I outgrown this challenge? Where do I search for more physical challenges?

Running early in the morning? Not that the idea did not cross my mind. I know, that will help me tuck my tummy in, but the nasty dawgs that bark at my sight, still give me the creeps.

The decision in college, the pay cheque, shopping for essentials (read shoes, bag, new eye-wear) and may be a film date. Whoa. I really see good times ahead!

2006-10-19T11:34:00.000+05:00

Good Times Ahead

Life’s no bed of roses, ‘tis fulla thorns it seems. But I smell real lovely, rich roses for I’ve had, it seems, my share of thorns of the season. Things went sour with a few people just as they year started, making a Grand Canyon larger than Mallika’s cleavage. God only knows if it will ever be filled and flattened into the Deccan plateau (that reminds me, our 3^rd Std. Geography teacher used to call it ‘pleetyu”!!!!)

Then there was the saga of a broken heart and the smelly farts. No more of that. Gee, that was bad. I am out and am looking back at it and smiling, gleefully. Damn! (Ahem, Hari, go on).

And then God decides that I should be the official witness of break-ups that happen. He wants me to sign official documents as witness for both parties- the guy’s side and the girl’s side.

Then there was this sick ordeal of not passing my allowed to keep terms papers. Maybe I surface or maybe I take some scuba-diving lessons while others think I’ve drowned. Freddie, tell you what? ‘We are the champions’ rocks buddy!

Nothing seemed right. Everything I touched seemed to go wrong. Like the reversed luck in Just My Luck- an anti-Midas touch. Super mood swings, broken windowpanes, flying remote controls and heated tiffs later, it looks like I am entitled to experience good things too!

JAM magazine decided to send me the tee that I so rightfully deserve and the Ed asked if I would like to work with them! I can’t believe it man. Me getting a job offer? Wait, too much for me to digest together. (Hajmola-selling man with white French beard comes in and says, “Pachpan saal maine Hajmola ki madat se guzaare.”)

A Times weekend supplement needed someone urgently to translate stories to English. Thanks to a dear friend, I fit right in. I ghostwrite for reporters and get paid for the service. Good enough, ain’t it?

And then I go to this swanky office of a relatively new newspaper with a name that somewhat matches with the Defence Academy and the nucleic acid inside all of us. I do a copy test there, maybe I’ll surface, maybe I’ll not, and they are yet to tell me. They have asked me to send them a mail quoting my expectation of salary! Wow, and I thought I was joining as a non-paid trainee who would have to run office errands, juggle coffees, attend phone calls and take messages amidst proof-reading stories and making pages. Well, may be I would, but what the heck? I am getting a job, my very first job!

And then my horoscope (I used to call it horrorscope) today says something like “love is in the air”. Ahem. Blush. Naah. Crap.

Do I see good times ahead? Did I tell you I got a new watch yesterday? Time. Time.

2006-10-04T20:36:00.000+05:00

I think now I know what I am going to do on my birthday, provided I make some cash by then. [;)]

2006-10-03T22:34:00.000+05:00

Hari ko gussa kyun aata hai?

I am a cold psycopath that sips hot coffee. I stare at people for long lengths of time and tell them I am short-sighted.and was only trying to focus. Yesterday I broke a window pane with my bare hands and today I made a taped collage out ofi t. today again I flung the remote control at the wall that sent the batteries with low charge flying high into the air before they hit the floor.

I feel undercurrents of anger pangs crawling creepily over me too often now. I feel this and then I throw something around- not intending to break or disfigure. The next second I am thinking why it happened. I am not among the ones to lose my cool that soon. I usually close my eyes and breathe it down, would rater have a halo on my head than horns and a wiry tail extending my coccyx!

2006-09-27T20:59:00.000+05:00

Birthday? wtf?

Sudhakar says it is important to celebrate birthdays. It is one day that the Almighty gives us to think what we did good and bad and how we could see the coming year.

I turn twenty next month. Looking back, I don’t see one really memorable birthday. Maybe the one 2 years ago was a tad batter than the others. My girlfriend had taken the pains to visit me at my place, with her cronies of course. The next year, it was the same.

Pathare Park is a unique colony. We have samples of every kind living here. I have a group of friends here, who till last year contributed meagre amounts and bought me a birthday cake and a T-shirt every year. (We did the same for all the friends in the group).

The cake, they would get home before me and barge in sometime in the evening with a present. I hated to be home that very moment. My mom would say, “what’s all this for? Are you some VIP?” It feels strange, I have to be happy that I’ve got a gift and I also want all that to end soon, so I can find myself alone and vent.

I’ve seen innumerable Hollywood films, why, desi ones too where birthdays are big. I saw Dr. Dolittle 3 yesterday. Murphy’s daughter goes off to a ranch for her summers and has a lot of fun. In the end, they give her a surprise b’day party. Baah! You’ll say such things happen in films only. Fck no! I’ve seen real good ones. Live. And I’ve been part of them too.

What I am going to do this year, I am unsure. But I seriously want to enjoy. I am bored of the fuckin sad birthdays I had all these years. Can I not have one just one decent, memorable b’day? Not a bash, but something I could look back at and smile? Something that I would find in a dusty CD in my drawer when I’ll be looking for my dentures years down the line- birthday pics of 2006, when I turned twenty!

F.S: I tried searching google images for some good pic to go with this piece and all birthday pics look happy!

2006-09-26T19:58:00.001+05:00

tHe cHiLd iN mE

In exactly one month, I’ll be twenty. BHENCHOD. Me? Twenty? (I apologise for the swear word used. It is not aimed at any person/ organization living or dead nor is it purely coincidental. It is one of those times when saying just one swear word makes you feel lighter and peaceful.) I am unable to come to terms with the fact that I’ll turn twenty! Its a matter that surprises me no end.

What did I do so many years? I mean, where’s school? Where’s college? All gone? Hayabusa eh? I think I’m just worried about leaving my comfort zones behind and venturing into the big bad world. But why this I-am-poppin-outta-the-egg syndrome now? I saw friends turn twenty and they were all smiles, happy that they’ve reached the 2-decade mark of their lives. Every smile, look, sentence screamed, “Yipee, I’m twenty!”

I look around me and hate it when I unconsciously question what people do. I see my batchmates’ lungs go up in smoke and they look like chains! I hear them narrating their mishaps in bed, hickies and frantic pill quests. And I can make out that they are far beyond make out ( drab sentence there, but hey sub just let it be ok?) I wonder, are we growing up too fast? And ain’t we got originality tat we are aping what the grown-ups do? Not that I know another way to grow up.

And as for me, twenty is just a number and there’ll be many more to follow just the way the Math teacher taught us in kindergarten. I resist growing up with all my might. Come what may, I refuse to let go of the child in me. I want to talk to people just the way I’ve been for all these years. There’ll be no ‘mature’ Hari. If people want me to be one and chide me for not being responsible and what not, balls to them, cos I know what I am and I obviously know what I am doing.

And if situations permit, I’ll celebrate my birthday with a trek ( I dunno where) with whoever cares to join me!

26 September 2006

2006-09-10T15:30:00.000+05:00

Orkutrya

Not very long ago, people getting used to emails would ask each other, “Do you have a mail id?” Now, they ask, “Are you on Orkut?” Who would have ever thought that there would be so much of thinking, writing and deliberating upon what is now an ‘in’ thing?

An excited rocker friend of mine exclaimed one morning, “Fuck, you know what Orkut is? Its McLuhan’s Global village!!” Further deliberation by him and me led to the conclusion that he was right.

Global Village. A term coined by P. Wyndham Lewis, a Canadian artist and literary figure but coherently explained by philosopher and communications theorist Marshall McLuhan. The latter’s book describes how electronic mass media collapsed space and time barriers in human communication, enabling people to interact and live on a global scale. In this sense, the globe has been turned into a village by the electronic mass media.

Place for cribbing. Venting. Ranting randomly. Dating. Making friends. Sharing books, movies. Sex. Marketing. Advertising. Orkut is as multi-layered as its users. Various backgrounds with superhuman connotations. Orkut is possibly the best networking software that the world has seen.

I used to be a fan of Aishwarya Rai. Not that I hate her now. I like her for she’s pretty and beautiful. I did not really know why I was a ‘fan.’ I did not know that you had to talk about acting skills and demeanour in public and a whole cartload of stuff to be officially called someone’s fan. Now I think she’s matured with her age and is choosy about what films she does. May be I am a matured fan too.

Then comes along aapro Orkut bhaayo. It has a unique feature where you can rate your friends with stars, hearts, and smileys and ice cubes each of these having rational connotations. You can also be fans of someone or let someone be fans of you. Last seen, I have sixty fans. Which means, if I stand for an Orkut election, I get 60 votes without fail. Of course, things also depend a lot on other factors such as bias and perception and what not. It also means that if I become a actor, these sixty people will be there in the audience to cheer, jeer, clap or boo or create a din as and when not required. Isn’t this what fans are supposed to do?

“I am your fan on Orkut, why aren’t you my fan?” (raised eyebrow free with this question)

Ho hum! Never mind. The point here is, what’s the point of having so many fans? They don’t even know me. Some people are plain acquaintances, a senior in college, an old friend in school and so on. Some are close friends and heck; I don’t see a point in being fans of friends! A few are friends of friends, might not have even met them once and they are fans.

Now isn’t that a sorry state? Is this all we look for in an idol? Wouldn’t we care to be a little more thoughtful about being a fan of someone even though all it takes is a click? Puritanical mood I guess but I feel quite strongly about this.

Well ok, Orkut did something new and unique. But would the ‘fan’ feature have been a little more fun if your ‘fans’ could also tell you why they are your fans in the first place? Well, I think so and am going to write to Mr. Orkut about this.

And who knows who Orkut really is? Is he a networking wizard who used to be a Google employee? Or is he a plain computer geek who made this website in the memory of his dead beau? God, kindly save me from those deadly spamming mails claiming to know who the real Orkut is. Well, thank you Mr. Orkut, for making this website, we love it oh so very much.

Well, well and then there are testimonials and I love to call them testiclemonials.
Here is one of them. I am going to ‘critically ANALyse’ it.

“wer to start frm...our friendship ... its definately has no boundaries...hes my good frenz...has totally crazy.. soft hearten..fun lovin..jovial..n u won't realise how tim fly's whn u r wid him..rock n yaar.. stay da same forever!”

Well, well, if I can call that severely molested English, then I am a pathetic sub. It seems I am a good FRENZ, with that ‘z’ supposedly meaning that I am not singular but a plural. Whoz line is that anywayz? I am a SOFT HEARTEN. Wow, the spelling of jovial is correct! And who the F is Tim who FLY’S when this person is with me? Yeah and I am going to stay this same gawking geek forever. Baah!

A testimonial for someone is sacred space. If you are making use of it, it should only add to the receiver’s charm. It shouldn’t make others feel the need to gift you a dictionary on your birthday!

Some people cannot even write their profiles. And ‘cool’ is the only adjective I can use to describe myself. And ‘bubble’ face and ‘bubbly’ face is the same thing. And Metallica, Led Zeppelin and Linkin Park are my favourite bands. And I love making friends. And my name starts with a ‘F’. And I am the owner of a community called Red-Haired League. (Red, you know where, rite?) And yes, my neighbour’s child is serious, he needs the rarest type of blood in this entire milky way (B-ve), so please contact this invalid no. 9823388803.

Hope you know what I am talking about. Up, up and away we go, in search of the big ‘O’

Occult? Ouch? Ostracized? Ogle? Ogle-we? Lol…never mind. Just playing with words.

So all my dear dawgs and beetches, are you an Orkutrya yet?

2006-08-30T18:03:00.000+05:00

ISSTAND

As a student in a course that the Mumbai University loves to call BMM Journalism, I am constantly bombarded with ideas. Inspiring ones, depressing ones. Gory. Morbid. Intriguing. All of them either fit into the magic bullet section- quick and direct or the hypodermic needle type- slow and sleepy. Each of these ideas tug at me and say, “talk to me.”

One of the ethics that are embedded into journalists in the making is the ball talk about bias. You are supposed to be unbiased and non-allies to everything. Sounds like, “the customer is always right” That reminds me. India Today with a readership of 62,62,000 is considered a good textbook for budding journalists by many. Sure it has covered all of the events in India and internationally, but in the end it is nothing but a piece of the BJP’s mouth. Definitely right eh?

I ask myself. Will I make a good journalist? Will the background that I come from help me reach the target that I have or will it only put obstacles in my quest for growth? Where do I come from? What are my sensibilities? Whom do I represent? Am I sensitive enough to sufferings of the people or am I treading on their wounds? Do I sense the breach to dignity around me?

I am not really nervous, but sceptic? Yes. I wonder how much I am really in touch with reality. Am I just sleepwalking? And I wish I would be able to deal out an even-handed treatment to everyone and still give them enough space.

Frontline- the magazine from the Hindu threshold is applauded for the values that it holds. Yet again, Frontline talks what Uncle Marx used to talk years ago. Definitely left.

What really happens to our stand? Where do we put our feet down and stay where we are? Adamant. Stubborn to move. I say what I see. How do we really make our own stand when what we hear, see and read is treating us left, right and centre?

2006-07-12T11:42:00.000+05:00

Bom(b) bahia

It is called a city that does not sleep. Now that is completely true. Mumbai does not sleep. What it does is snooze. Whenever she can, this lovely conjoined mass of land takes a break from whatever she’s up to and catches a quick forty winks. Her dwellers are equally busy. They do not even pause to breathe.

What used to be home for scores of fisher-folk is now home for people from all over the world. This cultural and economic hub attracts migrants from far-fetched places owing to its capacity to churn out jobs and accommodation for all of them. No wonder the political parties create a hullabaloo about people of the state not getting jobs as they were being given to outsiders. Known for its semi- extremist antics, a powerful party had propagated a campaign to drive away a certain minority group from the city. How much ever the people wax eloquent about the diverse culture and warmth of the place, tiny blobs of bitterness and unrest in the form of insensitivity and intolerance remains.

The city was called Bombay for much of the last four hundred years during which the British reclaimed lands from the sea and linked the seven distant, distinct. Islands that they were, into one large mass. The origin of the name is obscure, but is often said to come from the Portuguese phrase bom bahia meaning "good bay". The name Mumbai has been used in the main local languages for as long, and is ascribed to the local goddess, Mumba (aai means mother in Marathi).

The city is known for its heritage structures, which are of more interest to tourists than to the citizens. It is only when some odd cameraman frames a monument that people acknowledge the presence of such a structure. Eroded with time and weather and covered with multiple layers of bird droppings, these structures stand as examples of our shamelessness. A few lucky statues of important leaders get cleaned and polished as their anniversaries arrive! The variety in foodstuffs available is splendid too. Cuisines from all over the world are enjoyed with relish. With the dock nearby, fresh sea-food is brought into the markets daily. Vegetables are driven in from distant states. Migrant dishes have become routine components of tiffin boxes.

Here, it is a constant fight for space- the only thing that people here are short of- after time and money of course! The basic backbone- the transport system of the city, also called as its lifeline are the suburban trains. Commuters from far-off places bravely venture into these electric centipedes and travel for roughly two hours to their respective places of work and back home. Comfort zones get trampled upon, as they adjust and adapt to situations more favourable to them. Pushes, shoves and obscenities become a part of this unique experience. For most commuters the novelty has worn off. It is but a daily matter for them now.

News stories fight for space in newspapers. Film stars and business tycoons fight for photo- space in the media. Unlucky migrants fight for space to rest in. Even in tough conditions like these, good samaritans are generously sprinkled in the city. Ever ready to lend a helping hand- be it helping someone pick up fallen things or guiding blind people safely, they are there always without expecting anything in return. The floods that hit Mumbai last year proved to be the best example of this warmth. As people lay tired on railway stations, citizens got together to provide food and water to them. These teams also got together and collected clothes for the unlucky ones whose houses got washed away. A few do good things. The goodness follows, begets more. It spreads. Such is the magic of Mumbai.

Yesterday, that very magical city experienced yet another bout of shockers. Seven bombs exploded in local trains at peak hour, when scores of Mumbaikars were returning home after a busy day. Exactly four hours later, the railways sprang back to life amid the cheers of a hundred commuters. Such is the magic of Mumbai!

2006-07-08T08:15:00.000+05:00

When Bluto Wins Olive....

"Yay statement that cannot be true..wor which is yexxagerated to provide yeffect is called hyperbole..." rambles on an English language teacher who has her roots down south.

You think there really is some serious problem with the title eh? Something like, "Kahaan raja bhoj, kahaan Gangu teli?" B for boisterous, boorish, bane, boring, braggart and brawny. And B for Bluto. And P for Popeye and P for Perfect.

Well, things like these do happen. Is this age called 'Kalyug' or something? While Popeye goes unnoticed but ear-marked by Bluto fer a nice bash, the bloody MF of Bluto has photos of him and Olive in his bedroom in front of his mirror. Bloody show off, eh, Bluto?

Olive's got nothing to say, other than, "hey honey, show me the money." Others, she calls them, "Baby."

Yeah. Olive's kidding. Literally.

And as fun and frolicking goes on in Bluto-land, patience reigns in the distant, abstaining world of Popeye. Spinach wants to get the better of him soon, but Popeye holds back. "It aintz time yet," he says.

2006-06-28T22:14:00.000+05:00

WE??? Rude??? Bh*****d

A trip to my native place- Kerala, this summer proved to be quite an eye-opener. It wasn’t just a sightseeing trip. It was a month of what we call as ‘happy realization’, the realization that the people of Kerala could do with some more of genuine hospitality instead of the plastic show-off, the painful understanding that my kith and kin be a little more sensitive and less callous.

Picture this. One fat man sits on a wooden crate by the roadside- probably sight-seeing. Beside him, another man smokes a beedi, with one leg propped up on the wall behind him. A scooter comes by, loaded with cardboard boxes. As it just passes these men, one of the boxes fall down. As the poor rider gets down, hauls the scooter onto the stand and comes to pick up his unlucky luggage, the smoker and the other man do not even flinch as they stare at the box and its owner alternatively.

And they say Mumbai is the rudest city! Each city has its own cultural mix, mannerisms and spirit. What the Mumbaikars miss out in their day-to-day life, they make up when there is a crisis. Remember the deluge last year? Did the Reader’s Digest see the spirit of Mumbai then? Did it see how people helped each other and made them feel comfortable even as they spent three days away from home?

There’s no reason to create such hullabaloo over such an incompetent research by Reader’s Digest. Arcopol Chaudhuri, a BMM student in VES College, Chembur, says,

"I believe in individualism. You cannot generalise a city's manners by studying certain examples. Survey and research studies results are published everyday in journals the world over. Why make a big fuss over a survey?"

Space is what we need here. External space. Space inside the minds, to facilitate cloudless thinking. Do we believe in what the survey said n agree that we indeed are uncouth and rude? Or do we be what we are and do what we have always been doing? Let us all be good Samaritans and direct lost people onto their destinations, help disabled people cross roads, hold doors open or chairs ready fro people and never forget to say the magical words of “sorry” and “thank you.”

2006-06-17T18:02:00.001+05:00

RELATIONSHIP STATUS : Committed

There is lot of hoopla among peers. The reason is a new website, a kin of Google named Orkut. It is the usual networking website, where you share your address books and get connected with friends from other people's addresses. The site will soon be the number one dating scene (or is it already??)

Name, Age, etc etc is good. Then comes the fun part. Relationship status. Now Orkutji (lol, like AB used to address the Linux in KBC as computerji!!) gives you various options. Single, Committed, Open Relationship etc etc. There are scores of public profiles marked "committed" and i am no one to question them. It is thier life and they can do whatever they want to do. But at least respect the Oxford English Dictionary that defines commit as promise, entrust, pledge and deliver.

Now i decided to question the definition of the "committed". I have stated my relationship status as committed. Committed i am. To myself. A cause. To see myself BIG. A self made promise that i have to somehow make up for the two years that i wasted. Don't know how. But, guess have to do it. Its hard. But a little "committment" from my side will do it right?

Well, this time too, i dunno wat point i wanna make, blabbering on.

What'z thez pointz?

2006-04-26T20:22:00.000+05:00

Height Of Boredom

Vacations are on and so is the heat. and there is nothing to do and it feels like bullshit (when outside, i would better say bail ko goo, but here i think i can write what i want) This afternoon, me and few of my chums got together (yeah, yeah 'chums' is a word that raises an eyebrow now just as 'gay', which love poets generously sprinkled in their poems.) as the wires in our houses housed no current. What evolved from our gathering was a pointless collection of pictographs in wierd poses and which can have various connotations just as the word 'chum' or 'screw'...

i still dunno..wats da pointz??

Prof. Sudhakar Solomonraj always says, "If you have a problem, you should try to find out what you can deal with it." Now the problem is that I am bored and know what to do. I am leaving for Kerala with my family on the 29th of this month which is 3 days from today. A whole month of separation from this place. Not that i'll miss it. Great to be away. Need a break, a deserving one. Hope I will be sane and all when I return. TY Journo has to be interesting. Hope all matters in Kerala get settled this time round! Packing yet to be done...so..cya arnd..eyb!!

2006-02-25T15:45:00.000+05:00

NO POINT SOMEONE -Semiotics?

Isn't it amazing how certain things remind us of things and how every word or 'substance' (as my 6th Std. Science teacher woud love to call it) has more than one connotation and would have a hyperlink to memories old and jaded with gradual updating, yet kept fresh and green with frequent summons. now this is something akin to Semiotics, maybe not exactly what the propounders thought of it to be, but an interpretation of signs and symbols that come to be formed when two individuals in a candidly friendly relationship make it a pasrt of their memories.

Videesh is home today. So is dad. Dad is as usual, helping mom with her chores as homemaker- Saturday being the only day, he can actually market for vegetables, clean them, peel them, dice them and pack them neatly and compactly to accurately house them in the refrigerator. this job done, mother can dish out divine delicacies, which I miss when I depend on vadapavs and samosa pavs to quench my hunger pangs throughout the day.

Videesh keeps prancing between dad in the bedroom cleaning the veggies and me on my table writing religiously. Dad gives him a piece of carrot to munch on and thus completes the picture of Bugs Bunny. i get up to get myself a sip of water and Mr. Videesh bangs into me. I call him Gandhi, referring to his shortly cropped hair, which never seems to grow. (our family always jokes about how Videesh and his brother Shyamal always have their hair readied for a 5-year plan!) Then I call him "Chota Gandhi". I freeze. A big glob of snot and spittle passes through my throat as a whimper is supressed.

Now this cold is a very bad thing. Not that i hate the feeling of the sticky, slimy, salty goo rowing away into my intestines through the initial part of my alimentary canal but only because it leaves me retarded, handicapped with my voice, one of the things i am proud of in myself. The alst time i caught a cold, it went striaight into my respiratory system rendering it as useless as an old vintage model car all set to make a museum exhibit.

Went to the beach yesterday, for the first time after I helped make crack open a relationship before it could even send its roots deep enough to gather strength. HE is punishing now.
wading through the sands, i walked towards the water. there were young joggers and old gentlemen resting their muscles after a tiring morning walk. Far away a man sat facing the sea. his back was unusually straight and had his left hand up his nose, might have been some kind of breathing exercise, i reckoned. There wasn't any breeze. The waves were gently washing the shores. I then saw something like an idol sitting erect in the sand.

I went ahead and picked it up. It was a Ganesh idol. Was it yet another symbolism that the aura behind the idol was broken? Old ideas caught me. They tld me not to take a broken idol home. I shook it away. i said to myself that if i had got this idol, it meant something and i am going to keep it.

As usual, I don't have a point to make. Waiting for the time that I start making points...

2006-02-11T16:05:00.000+05:00

NO POINT SOMEONE - I AM ASHAMED

The setting was straight out from some well-made, tightly edited documentary on Mumbai train-life. I boarded the slow Asangaon train from Parel station to avoid the rush at Dadar. I prepared to hoist my bag up onto the mesh stand and did so after taking out my copy of Maximum City- Suketu Mehta.

A middle-aged man was playing his harmonica strung from his neck and rested on his lap as he belted out seemingly thoughtful songs like, "Duniya banane wale, ka tere man me samayi, kaheko duniya banayi..” the train trudged on billowing strong gusts of wind towards the opposite side. I found it hard to concentrate in the book as my mind read the lyrics as my foot tapped and my head bobbed in accordance with the drone of the music box and the deference in the man’s voice. The setting brings to my mind the logo of HMV (His Master’s Voice) with Einstein’s dog sitting in front of a gramophone that played his voice. Peace reigned inside the compartment. Contented eyes shone inside uncomplaining faces, as they seemingly looked somewhere, thinking something, obviously relating to the music. They don’t fight for space now. They don’t argue for the window seat. The song has had a humbling effect on all.

The bookmark inside the book stayed where it was until there came Kurla and the train started filling in, people occupying the fourth seat and requesting the other three to make space for him, others plainly grabbing the space and pushing in with their posterior, provoking noises of disapproval. I notice a Muslim gentleman adorned with the traditional skullcap board on with three burqa clad figures. Once inside, the veil was lifted and thrown above the head, facilitating better viewing and respiration. I, by the time was graced with a fourth seat but graciously sat on the edge without even touching my back against the person behind me. I love the way I behave, sometimes. Like ‘animal specialist’ Dr. Bhatavdekar says, “because even we are social animals”.

One of the Muslim ladies found a seat directly opposite to me. I notice that she is very young, not as young as me, but wouldn’t be more than three years older to me. We looked at each other for a second and my eyes went back to the book. The bookmark had found its way into my pocket, sensing that now perhaps the pages will fly, as words were skimmed through and scanned and registered in the gray. But that was not to be. The lady opposite to me kept gesticulating frantically at her companion, who was still left standing, to come hither.

I sense, she is now, looking at my book and me. I look up to adjust my glasses, which, somehow, keep gliding down my nose bridge like glaciers prancing down icy slopes. She is actually staring. Now, if someone stares at you for longer then the prescribed 2 seconds, it means either there’s something seriously wrong with the way you physically appear or you are looking like a runaway star from Hollywood! I meet her eyes. They seem to be talking to me. They are imploring. I felt cheap. “What am I doing?”

I move my quadrupled eyes away. I just can’t read now. I look up again. She pretends to be looking somewhere else, then glances back and forth, the same warm, implore in them. Abashed, I pretend to read, turning pages faster, much faster than my usual reading speed. The song goes on, asking the Almighty why indeed He had made this world.

A couple enters. The man has a tiny bundle of a human baby in his hands, held ever so lovingly, nestled close to his chest, with his eyes adoring the beauty of their creation. I get up, sensing the obvious discomfort both, for them to hold a baby and stand in a shaky train and for me, who has had the blood in the posterior held in the same position for lack of sitting space. The mother of the child fishes out a bottle of milk and hands it over to the husband. I peek at the contents of the bag where the bottle came from. I see a tin of Farex and raise my eyebrows. The couple doesn’t seem well off. This tin is perhaps the first and last the kid would ever see.

The lady looks at me getting up. I don’t return it. The train is nearing my station. I put the bookmark back in place, resting it until the next time that I travel, that would be the next day, most probably. A few more seats are empty now. The Muslim lady’s companion finds a seat now. They are all happy now. The lines on the brow are gone. They smile and are ready to break into convulsions of giggles and new stories and comments on people nearby. I wait for this to happen, waiting to be happy at my own prediction, to boast to myself about my knowledge of women, all in vain.

They are talking, but with their hands. As I got down from the train, I felt the shock of my life in the form of a bolt of shame and a tear jerk in my eyes. They can’t speak! No wonder her eyes wanted to speak to me. I say, “shit”, noting in my mental notepad to write about it sometime soon. Today I did it. Phew!

2006-01-22T20:10:00.000+05:00

NO POINT SOMEONE- Hi, this is Hari from 'rural' Ambarnath

I remember my first days in FYBMM, Wilson College. I could feel the squirmish inside me when someone turned to me and pouted English and expected me to reply in the very same pattern too. My good and evil halves struggled and marathoned (sheesh, wtf is tht?) inside me to juggle up a concoction of well- sounding words which wouldn't sound like the place I came from! Wow, do I call it an inferiority complex or SARS (Severe Acute Rural Syndrome?)

Ambarnath, a place which I lovingly call Amby Valley after the lavish residencies in Lonavala, is in a pitiful state.My website would enshrine the fact that I love to swaer by it and bask in the radiance of the sunshine here.We are the victims of endless mindless powercutsfor not less than five hours everyday. about a week ago, we hear from people and read in the celebrated papers that beyond Kalyan (that is where the 'rural' region starts) there will be powercuts for 12 hours a day. Kewl ain't it?

I was watching Richard Attenborough's Gandhi yesterday and the power of the puny brown man in his loin cloth and anga-vastram struck me like a thunderbolt. Does he mean to say that, if you don't get what you rightly deserve, you can proclaim that you won't eat anything (not even "thodi si pet puja") and live only on boiled, filtered, cooled and bottled water passed by the Municipality?

My friends, I take this opportunity to invite you to my humble residence for a sumptuous candle-light dinner anytime you wish to come. But, be sure that you call me up before reaching my place, so I can escort you with the torch, lest the canines in my region decide that you are a nothing but a bunch of burglars on the prowl! Also be sure to amply soak youraself in the New Odomos Mosquito repellant cream ( Now available in wholesale at all leading chemist's) to prevent them, flying dragons from interrupting the interesting discussions we are likely to have.

Exactly what the title of my posts say, I talk a lot, but don't know what point to make. (Kindly refer to offer documents before investing...shit, radio lecture hangover!!!)

There...yawn..am bored....

2006-01-15T22:52:00.000+05:00

NO POINT SOMEONE – The day I tied the knot.

The highly dramatic but enlightening lectures of our professor for Understanding Cinema- Miss Anuja got me thinking yet another time. Her prophecies coaxed the thinking cap onto my head, so tight that I keep thinking what it forces me to think!

“Shit, I pity you, you don’t remember anything about your childhood!” she said.

That sentence struck me like the apple of gravity struck Mr. Newton, reminding me of the day when I learnt to tie my shoelace.

I was in my second standard then. The day was pretty hot, so I gather it must’ve been sometime in summer. Another reason which forces me to think that it was summer is that I distinctly remember preparing for some bloody oral examination for the final examination. And isn’t it general student characteristics to eat only half tummy before the exams ‘cos the other half is filled with fluttering butterflies and tromping elephants?

Hence, my tummy was in the same condition on that day and I hastily made it to the place where the rickshaws would pick-drop us up to Fatima High School. Only then do I realize that my shoelaces had somehow become undone.

It now embarrasses me to think that I would start to sniffle and stutter at little occurrences like these. That is what I did then! My juniors, friends of standard first and kindergarten, sniggered and jeered. (Sheesh, am I actually writing this??) I wanted to run back home, to get them, stupid laces, tied again, when my neighbour, a year younger than me (who now, smokes and drinks relentlessly) bent down and tied it for me, poor, sissy of a cry baby.

Shit, I thought, now I’ll have to learn to do that, and indeed I practiced tying and untying the knot, that day after returning from a well-turned out oral examination! So, there, now you know that I have tied the knot many times!!!