The Thing and I

I Know that this is not GoodBye

2006-10-09T16:41:00.000+04:00

"I hereby declare this bridge... Closed!"

Oh, don't fret... I'll write again... eventually...

Nandita Narain's Letter to her Students

2006-08-12T14:07:00.000+04:00

Not too sure what I can do about this though I agree with it all. Seems to me like College is changing for the worse and in the same way as the "democracies" everywhere.

It is ominous that things like - banning blogspot and rolling back the Right to Information Act, implementing 50% reservation despite widespread protests and Banning Fana coz Aamir Khan spoke up for the need to resettle people getting displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Dam – are forced onto people without hesitation.

It is essential to question authority at all times (not that I can claim any historic achievements but so what). I think all of us loved College the most in our first year before drinking in Rez with friends was made out to be criminal... before ragging was banned (ragging was the first real "experience" for most of us I think when we at least started to come of age)... before College took up a holier-than-thou attitude of fascists everywhere… before authority became synonymous with tyranny.

I don't have Nandita Narain's email ID.. if any of you
do.. please append my two bits to your response as
well.

Thanks.

Vaibhav.
(Class of 2004)

A Letter to all my Students*
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> Dear Students,
>
> * *You may be surprised to hear
> from me, but I think that I > have reached that juncture in my life when I need to > get back to those who > have always been my source of greatest joy and > sustenance. You might > remember how I used to tell you (in my very first class with the pictures of 'mountains'!) that the most important aspect of our > interaction was the > forging of human bonds. Many of you have kept in > touch and continued to > share your good and bad times with me.
>
> Next month, I will have completed twenty-five years
> of teaching in College. > Add to that five years as a student, and it will be > an unbroken stretch of > thirty years in St.. Stephen's. Whew! I remember the > time when our students (was it Madhabi Puri's batch?) had given mementoes to the teachers who had > completed twenty-five years of service. At that > time, I thought of them as > Really Old. Now that I'm in their position, I don't > feel old at all! In
> fact, at this time of year, I invariably feel like a > fresher entering > College for the first time! There must be something
> about the nature of our > work that gives this illusion of a Peter Pan like existence. >
>
>
> When I look back on the last thirty years, events
> flash before me as if they
> happened yesterday. Those magical student days with
> endless rounds of caf้
> and coffee house, debating everything under the sun,

> lazy afternoons in the
> Allnutt lawns discussing vector spaces, neebu pani
> at Rohtas' Dhaba after
> judo, singing Geeta Dutt songs in the then LCR in
> our free periods,
> rehearsing Shakesoc plays till late evening,
> laughing over highly
> irreverent( but not yet obscene) pieces in KT and
> Spice, Wodehouse Soc's
> Practical Joke Week, the romantic foggy mornings of
> Winterfest, the fire and
> fury of Hindu-Stephen's Cricket Finals, lobbying to
> get good seats at
> Sports' Dinner( i.e. not next to any teachers),
> hectic Student Council
> meetings (we took ourselves very seriously)in which
> even karamcharis were
> invited to tell us their grievances, endless
> arguments with Principal Rajpal
> at his house, who listened patiently, gave us
> ice-cream and sent us off,
> packed general body meetings and token strikes in
> support of karamcharis,
> cooking in the mess (and turning it into one)
> because the workers had
> struck, our performance of Macbeth turning into a
> Comedy of Errors, sneaking
> kisses in the fiction section of the
> Library……Sometimes I feel as if I'm
> walking along the corridors and lying on the lawns
> with the ghosts of all my
> friends, mine among them as well. What is nice is
> that I remember all of us
> laughing a lot.
>
>
>
> As a teacher, I remember Piya Pallav and Jayant
> Bhushan (my first
> batch)helping me with the medals case, joining the
> DUTA strike in1982-83 in
> 'our own way', traipsing all over Delhi with Nandita
> Misra, Daman Singh and
> Som's batch having classes at the Boat Club, Rajghat

> and the Ridge,
> Stephanian students showing their support for
> teachers in a big way at the
> UGC, Madhukar Sabnavis being upset about the
> money-making 'lists'that I
> talked about in class (he was right), the lewd
> article in KT about me that
> made you very angry, our trip to Dudhwa with Oona
> Mansingh with Madhu
> Ramnath teaching us how to read the night sky and
> eat ants, Sanjay Saigal
> being stabbed outside Hindu, our magical judo days,
> grappling, writing
> poetry and learning calligraphy from Sensei in the
> beloved dojo( it still
> looks the same, with Jigoro Kano's photo still
> hanging there, but I've been
> told that it will be converted into a Sports Lab),
> the vandalisation of
> College during one Holi and the subsequent girls'
> movement leading to
> Jyotsna Kapoor first winning the Presidentship and
> then, after a recount,
> being defeated by two votes, the trauma of the '84
> riots and our work for
> rehabilitation of victims at Kalyanpuri, your
> insistence on coming with me
> to Anandamayi Ashram, where you had long discussions
> with a sadhu who turned
> out to be an M.Sc. in Physics from Stephen's, the
> awful incident of the
> mentally retarded boy being mistaken for a thief and
> tortured by hundreds of
> res guys, the deep gender divisions in the College
> during the 'chic chart'
> days in 1985 leading up to the infamous raid of the
> LCR and women's
> undergarments being hung on the College tower, the
> manhandling of the press
> and the subsequent month long reaction in the
> national media, the DUTA
> strikes of 1985 and 1987 during which Hasmeeth wrote

> supportive letters to
> the editor and Geetha collected contributions to the
> fighting fund, my
> fracturing my toe and your visiting me everyday in
> hospital plying me with
> goodies and gobbling up all of Pranay Gupte's
> chocolates, my hobbling around
> on crutches and making you write on the board for my
> algebra lectures,
> teaching you your Analysis paper on my nephew
> Nikhil's ABC board at home in
> the October hols, my having a baby in 1989 (my
> daughter Nida who often
> attended classes with you at the age of three, and
> is now seventeen!), the
> anti-Mandal agitation in 1991 when I had arguments
> with many of you, the
> fall of the Babri Masjid in 1992, my terms in the
> University Academic and
> Executive Councils between 1992 and 2000 when I must
> have been less
> accessible to you outside of class, our relief work
> in Wazirabad after the
> North Delhi floods and your chagrin at the money
> that you collected for a
> Sulabh Shauchalaya being given for the Latur
> earthquake victims instead,
> visiting the Urdu scholar O.P.Bhatnagar and his wife
> sitting on dharna, the
> massive demonstration by students after Graham
> Staines' murder in 1997, the
> Teachers' strike in 1998 and our classes for
> different groups during the
> October and December holidays, the birth of my
> second daughter, Nabila, in
> 2000, the Gujarat earthquake and then the riots in
> 2002, the anti-Iraq war
> mobilisation with music and poster campaigns, our
> relief work at the Kashmir
> Refugee Camp where Pranav Karol took pictures and
> almost got dragged off by
> the Special Task Force who mistook him for a
> terrorist(!)……
>
>
>
> Through all of this, you patiently attended extra
> classes whenever and
> wherever for which I am grateful. You responded with
> enthusiasm (that waned
> a bit in your third year) to my attempts to instil
> in you a love of the
> subject and its methods, its magic and mystery, and
> how it can be an ideal
> medium for developing powers of critical, creative
> and independent thinking
> and articulation. With examples drawn from real life

> situations familiar to
> you, I tried (often with much histrionics) to make
> the subject come alive
> for *all* of you. With discussions of other issues
> and actual interaction
> with the world outside the classroom whenever
> possible, I tried to expose
> you to the dilemmas and concerns of real people in
> the world around us,
> something that doesn't come automatically from
> studying Mathematics.
> Wherever you are today, I hope that some of what we
> shared together has been
> of some use to you professionally or personally.
>
>
>
> The education that one has access to in an 'elite'
> institution has its
> limitations, but I firmly believe that our college
> has had some great
> strengths that should not be underestimated in a
> fractured society. The
> ethnic 'plurality' that Shashi Tharoor referred to
> in his brilliant Jubilee
> Lecture, is one such strength, even though it is
> circumscribed by class
> boundaries. However, this plurality comes from much
> more than merely being
> an eclectic melting pot of diverse religious,
> regional and other ethnic
> categories of students. The real plurality intrinsic

> to St. Stephen's
> (unless wilfully subverted) has been its ability to
> generate and to nurture
> every shade of opinion. The only creed that
> Stephanians have ever accepted
> is that of non-conformism. While submitting to
> various forms of discipline,
> one freedom they have guarded jealously is the
> freedom to debate, analyse
> and express an opinion on any issue. In the St.
> Stephen's that I remember, a
> dissenting voice, even if in a minority of one, was
> given respectable space.
> College was a haven for eccentrics. The mere fact of
> _expression of a view,
> however unpalatable, did not invite disapproval,
> leave alone retribution,
> from the majority. As for the authorities, they did
> not breathe down our
> necks but left us alone to argue about anything and
> everything, criticise,
> ridicule and laugh at each other and at them. It was

> this environment that
> fostered a spirit of free enquiry, debate and
> _expression, which was
> responsible for the fiercely individual and creative
> qualities of so many of
> its alumni.
>
>
>
> Over the last few years and especially in the last
> two, that space has
> shrunk remarkably. Patronage has completely replaced
> a neutral
> administration. All positions such as Vice
> Principal, Dean, Registrar of
> Societies, Tutor for Admissions, Chairman of Library
> Committee, Building
> Maintenance Committee, Staff Advisers of Societies
> are rotated between a
> chosen few, some holding multiple positions for
> several years. Repeated
> pleas, over the last fifteen years, that *all*
> teachers should be asked
> about their interests and then given an opportunity
> to participate in the
> total life of the college, have fallen on deaf ears.

> Queries regarding
> administrative procedure and contracts with private
> bodies running
> activities such as the Centre for Mathematical
> Sciences, Media Studies,
> Legal Studies etc. and MOU's signed with foreign
> universities are met with
> hostility. Not only is information not provided, but
> vicious rumour
> campaigns are unleashed against those who continue
> to ask questions,
> attacking their personal integrity in an attempt to
> undermine their
> credibility. Not surprisingly, voices of protest are
> now few and far
> between.
>
>
>
> The situation is no better among students. Those
> daring to question College
> policy especially in matters regarding Societies'
> funds are sought to be
> isolated, demonised and intimidated. A girl who led
> a University rally that
> passed through college (with police permission),
> asking for minimum wages
> for workers, was even threatened with dismissal from
> residence. Even issues
> such as the University Ordinance on Sexual
> Harassment (which the College has
> violated by having a non-elected Complaints
> Committee) have been treated as
> taboo. A reference to this issue in the manifesto of
> a Presidential
> candidate was censored by the Principal, and a
> handful of students
> attempting to have a meeting on this issue in a
> corner of the Allnutt Lawns
> were given a dressing down. Discussion groups set up
> to discuss all kinds of
> University issues evaporated overnight in the face
> of such hostility.
> Patronage has bitterly divided the students as well-
> something unthinkable
> in the Stephen's that I remember. Yes, there were
> gender wars and
> ideological divisions, but there was no pro- and
> anti-establishment split.
> There was an unspoken solidarity among students vis
> a vis the Powers That
> Be, that is now a relic of the past. For every set
> of students trying to
> have a meeting on an issue not to the liking of the
> authorities, there is
> another set of students demanding that the meeting
> should not be allowed.
> While there is enthusiastic moral policing by the
> authorities during the
> Rock Show in Harmony, there is remarkable leniency
> shown towards obscene
> forms of harassment inflicted on a woman President
> in the form of simulation
> of rape of her team members during Mocktaves and
> sexist posters and leaflets
> pasted all over College asking her to "go back to
> the kitchen where she
> belongs". I have recently learnt that the she has
> been denied admission to
> an M.A. in History in the College, despite having
> got a first division in
> B.A.(Hons)History with a high rank.
>
>
>
> Even during the 125 years celebrations the College
> Union was marginalised
> and almost a parallel union was set up to organise
> the events. Students were
> dragged into a dispute between the Principal and the
> Bishop (who is the
> Chairman of our Governing Body) by being made to
> sign a letter in support of
> the Principal during (hold your breath!) assembly.
> Similar campaigns were
> conducted among teachers (including ad-hoc ones) and
> karamcharis(including
> daily-wagers). Those who didn't sign were seen as
> being 'against' the
> Principal. It's really bizarre.
>
>
>
> We now have a college in which students are pitted
> against students,
> teachers against teachers, students against teachers
> (I even received a
> nasty anonymous letter in June last year,
> purportedly written by students,
> with copy, significantly, to the Principal,
> carefully misspelt as
> 'Principle'. The class to which this was attributed
> was outraged when they
> heard about it), karamcharis against karamcharis -
> every possible
> permutation and combination of one group against
> another. The air is so
> thick with tension and hostility that you can cut it
> with a knife.
>
>
>
> In his reply to a PIL filed against the College in
> the High Court for
> violation of the Ordinance on Sexual Harassment, the
> Principal has stated
> that he doesn't want elected committees(as laid down

> in the Ordinance)
> because a section of the teachers has "antipathy
> towards Christian students"
> and would victimise them if elected to these
> committees. Even such a
> defamatory statement with the potential to
> communally fragment the College
> (which has had a proud secular 125-year-old record)
> has not elicited a
> protest from more than a handful of teachers. Leave
> alone criticism, even
> queries are considered a criminal activity (Saurav
> Sen, you would have been
> beheaded today!) So much for the Right to
> Information, and so much for
> promoting independent thinking and articulation,
> prerequisites for
> excellence, in any academic institution. We are now
> promoting passive
> subordination to authority and a value system that
> trains us not just to
> sneak but to trample on each other to get ahead
> (infinitely worse than what
> you saw in the film 'Dead Poets' Society')
>
>
>
> I have written this long letter to you because I
> believe that you care about
> what happens to our College, because each one of us
> has gained something
> from it, however small. Just as patriotism can never
> be mistaken for
> chauvinism, true loyalty to the College cannot mean
> simply basking in its
> 'reputation' while being blind to its decline
> especially in terms of
> intellectual freedom. Love of the College would
> entail preserving our
> strengths and working on our weaknesses. What is it
> that you can do? I leave
> it to you to think about, being the creative
> individuals that I know you
> are.
>
>
>
> On my part, I have done my best to keep the space
> for dissent and discussion
> alive, but it's a losing battle. The divisions among

> teachers have
> emboldened the Principal into resorting to the kind
> of retributive action he
> would have hesitated to take in the past. On May 31,
> without any prior
> warning, he gave me a letter removing me from the
> Headship of the Maths.
> Department (a post I had held for eight years, being
> the senior most Maths.
> teacher) with effect from. June1. When continuously
> pressed for reasons, he
> finally replied on July 8, stating that there had
> been a growing demand for
> periodic changes in Heads. So he had worked out some
> kind of contrived
> scheme of 'Change with Continuity', in which I was
> the only one he actually
> changed (despite some other Heads having been there
> for longer). I'm not
> personally unhappy with a change because I have
> always argued for rotation
> of Headship. But the action is arbitrary and,
> clearly, vindictive, and is
> therefore ominous for the institution.
>
>
>
> Given the spate of rather nasty letters I have begun
> to receive from him on
> issues of medical leave, housing rules etc., and
> given verbal campaigns
> against me with outrageous allegations of
> 'threatening' some BA Pass girl
> whom I'd never seen or heard of, the anonymous
> letter mentioned earlier and
> rumours about my mediocre and "routine" teaching
> being sought to be planted
> in the press, I wouldn't be surprised if charges of
> academic dereliction of
> duty are somewhere on the anvil. This is an area
> that only ones students
> have authentic knowledge of, and we do not have any
> official system or
> record of student evaluation.
>
>
>
> I have unburdened myself to you as your teacher,
> friend and fellow
> Stephanian. Do consider these issues carefully, make

> your own enquiries
> (since I have never expected you to accept anything
> I say to you
> uncritically), and see if you would like to do
> something about the situation
> as alumni.
>
>
>
> Meanwhile, I will continue to do my bit in the
> College. Last year, the
> harassment in the form of personal vilification had
> reached such an extreme
> that I went into clinical depression. It took the
> form of a nervous
> breakdown and I had to be hospitalised. When I
> regained consciousness in the
> hospital last year, I asked for the PIL papers
> prepared by Jayant Bhushan
> (on the Sexual Harassment Ordinance) so that I could

> sign the petition
> before anything happened to me. My father asked me
> why I wanted to take on
> all the stress of fighting a court case when it was
> telling on my health. I
> told him that for me, a moral death was worse than a

> physical one.
>
>
>
> I'm much better now but still on medication. My
> daughters Nida(17) and
> Nabila(6) are a delight. My husband, Rashid,
> 'Sensei' to many of you,
> explores new territory all the time. He now has his
> own theatre and music
> group, called 'The Mobius Strip" (guess why?) and
> 'Earth Rhythms'. We have
> four cats and two dogs and live in Mathur Saab's old

> house, A-7. Teaching is
> as exciting as ever, and is still the unfailing
> silver lining in College. At
> present, I teach Analysis (I never let go of it
> after Ann James berated me
> for changing to Algebra for a few years) to first
> year, Mechanics (!!) to
> second year and Boolean Algebra to third year.
>
>
>
> I would love to hear from any of you or, even
> better, to see you here. Take
> good care of yourselves.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> With all my love,
>
>
>
>
> 24th July,2006
> Nandita
> Narain

Duniya Goal Hai

2006-06-21T19:47:00.000+04:00

Does anyone besides me think that "Duniya Goal Hai" is the funniest Indian show on TV... ever?

No one can plan such comedy, man... the punch lines are just too spontaneous, reminds me of Coupling.... these dudes (Ranvir, Vinay, and the Australian (?) guy whose name I can't recall at the moment) have me in splits for all of 30 minutes...

God! finally a break from commercialised template humor that apparently gets ratings for the media industry because there is a fool born every second who'd think shit like "Hum Paanch" is comedy!

I think I am gonna put up excerpts... ROTFLMAO...

“Hell hath no fury like a small insect inside your head”

2006-05-30T16:24:00.000+04:00

I just had a trully arbid conversation after a really-bitchingly-long time.

Give the devil his due... I am glad Madhu is back in town.

Ahem...

2006-05-23T22:19:00.000+04:00

I
I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins
Like dolphins can swim
Though nothing
Will keep us together
We can beat them
For ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes
Just for one day

I
I will be king
And you
You will be queen
Though nothing
Will drive them away
We can be Heroes
Just for one day
We can be us
Just for one day

I
I can remember
Standing
By the wall
And the guns
Shot above our heads
And we kissed
As though nothing could fall
And the shame
Was on the other side
Oh we can beat them
For ever and ever
Then we can be Heroes
Just for one day

We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
Just for one day

GuetenTAG

2006-05-16T00:15:00.000+04:00

Well there you have it folks... All it took was a 15-hour day. Well that and Yohan’s post urging one (what one believes to be at any rate) to return to the blogsphere.

I am pissed off enough to write a nice long post but there is the thrilling prospect of work to get up for in the early morning. By the by, I am doing the 9 to 6 thing again… hopefully temporarily. Anyway, as I was explaining, this cannot be a long, philosophical yet amusing rant that it should be…

So I’ll just celebrate my return by responding, as it were, to yet another tag entrusted upon me by… who else but… IITYIHTKY:

5 people who top your shit list..... and why:

Can’t think of anyone for this one. That is not to say I see goodness in all of god’s children or any of that arbitrary stuff… This is just a phase of indifference-powered virtue. Of course, extending this to people I have not met would make this list endless… what with Ekta Kapoor still churning out soap operas faster than you can say I-J-K-K-K-L, Delhi Times still making money despite its horrendous puns, Himesh Reshammiya not being lynched despite that ridiculous “Jai Mata Di, Let’s Rock” combo of his… Hmmm… I think I don’t mind criminals as much as I hate irritating media personalities! I think we are better off without most of them!

Close brushes with death/danger:

Ah yes…

1. Almost squashed under a falling wall when I was 2. The wall (some sort of temporary construction as I recollect now) was the divider between the shower area and the loo area... and I had just stepped out after a very violent bath... when the walls literally came crashing down. There was a metal bucket I left behind which was sold for scrap to a kabari...
Lasting Effect: No baths for a fortnight.I claimed fear for my life but actually it was cunning ploy to avoid having my ears scrubbed .

2. Almost gored/stamped upon by a bull when I was 4 years old... while crossing the road on my own for the first time. Some may deem it divine intervention that made the bull skip ... yes, skip... over me and go after my snot-ridden classmate instead... I just think the bull couldn’t stand the sight of him either.
Lasting Effect: Not allowed to cross the road for another 2 years and consequently, had to be the seeker (of the hide and seek variety) in our neighborhood games for a long long time.

5 Preferable modes of suicide, in descending order:

There is just one way to do this if you want to do it right:

Step 1. Go up to the top of a roof
Step 2: String piano wire tight across the front edge at neck level
Step 3: Tie a rope to your foot and the other end to the building so that you'll be above ground level when it is stretched
Step 4: Put super glue on your hands
Step 5: Put your arms around the front of the wire and then back to touch your head
Step 6: Lean forward, so the piano wire cuts your neck but not your elbows

Lasting Effect: When the cord goes taut, you’ll be hanging upside down with no head.... except your head will be in your outstretched arms thanks to gravity and the glue, staring at someone upside down and spewing blood everywhere. And some poor bastard will be traumatized for LIFE.

5 Guilty Pleasures:

1. One smoke in the morning.
2. My motorbike.
3. Pissing off my Dad for fun.
4. Too many breaks at work.
5. Too many breaks at work.

5 things you never want to forget:

Not sure what this is all about… how can you forget something you don’t want to forget anyway? I guess we are talking about good times in the past (or are we talking “Zindagi-ke-Usool”?… I do have those as well but I keep forgetting them!) Anyway…

1. My home and neighborhood between the ages of 7 and 11. Not to get all schmaltzy here but its what can be called my “Happy Place”.
2. Three years in St. Stephen’s College. I especially enjoyed the angst and the music! And the vodka was nice… (Incidentally dudes, the World Cup final is on July 9th… are you pondering what I am pondering?)
3. My first lowe. (Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture titled: Dr. Strangelove or: How I learnt to stop Loving and start staring at the Bombs!)
4. To wash my hands after using the loo.
5. The PIN for my ATM card.

5 things you wish to forget:

1. That I have to go to work tomorrow.

Later…

5 crushes/loves in your life... in chronological order

1.English Teacher in Class IV, who also happened to be the Principal’s daughter-in-law. Surprisingly enough, things did not work out between us.
2. Bench mate in Class V
3. Her best friend.
4. First Lowe.
5. Current Lowe interest… (not counting the three in between since never did anything about them!)

Strangest dream you ever had:

Strangest… I have had a lot of strange dreams so this is tough… there was one in which I solved my own murder. That was rather strange.

5 most valued personal possessions:
Nothing to write here… can’t imagine being particularly upset about losing anything I own. Old furniture at home perhaps… I was pretty sad about our last sofa so I guess I get used to some stuff.

5 favorite superheroes..... and why:

1. Snake Eyes (Coz he was silent but effective… kind of like a cold stare)
2. He- Man (Coz he is twice the man)
3. Wolverine & Sabretooth (Ok, I am not kidding! But do these guys have the best powers or what? Instant healing! Pitch them against one another in a movie and you know what you get? A never-ending climax!)
4. Batman (agree with IITYIHTKY…. The “Wham! Bam! Thack! Was just too good!)
5. Spiderman (well, obviously people can’t fly… Spidey does the next best thing)

I'll tag someone in the morning.

I told you so...

2006-04-03T06:13:00.000+04:00

A few weeks ago I took up coming to work early. And when I say early, I mean 6 am. Frankly, I hated not having any time for myself and commuting is killer. Bloody thing is a necessary evil like defense spending. Anyway, coming early in the morning has the stupendous advantage of saving about 2 hours on the road) and I actually get to go out and chill with friends without having to make an "evening" of it...

So, I read books and generally get a chance to actually have conversations with people, including my mom and brother... and dad to some extent. You know how "old" people kept telling you about the benefits of getting up early? and of course, we were too cool to listen? well, its 1-nil to old people... you can feel your life getting extended when you wake up early. And I don't mean you are going to live long, which you may or may not... but you stop cribbing about the shortage of time... turns out 24 hours is long enough, if only you ever bothered to check!

Yes, this post will also be continued... I am at work and therefore can only write when i take a break.

Yeh Hai Meri Kahani (Part III)

2006-03-18T21:00:00.000+04:00

This part turned out too large to simply append to the last post...

PART THREE

Ok, about time I finish this... not that there is some climax or anything... but anyway..

So I guess, I was talking about the second night. We had planned to get an open gypsy and a jeep for travelling around (there were 19 of us and there was already an AC car for our MD)...and were initially planning to get those the minute we landed but partly due to laziness and partly due to time shortages, we only got the open vehicles on the second night, in the middle of the glug glug session. One of the guys decided to go for a spin sometime during the night, and being anything but fit to drive, managed to run off the road... Incidently, the roads around there all seem to be built at an elevation... with fields (usually) on either side and these sort of ditches/moats in between. So very fortunately I suppose, the jeep did not overturn, otherwise... screeeeeeeeeeeeech! squish. ho jata. But my friend lived to tell the tale... the jeep got a dent but whatever...

Next Morning... swam in the pool. I still love swimming underwater (Lung capacity is lower though... no surprises there!) Got enthu about starting to swim in Delhi also and gyming

Afternoon....

We went for lunch to Taj Exotica... damn cool place, posh and all... sort of too posh... since there were so many of us, we managed to order about half the menu... basically, all of the sea food... Lobster (I've forgotten what it was called on the menu exactly but the freaking thing was HUGE) cooked to perfection, Norwegian Salmon (this should come under red meat really... awesome), Calamari, Octopus in some sauce, King and Tiger Prawns (sex...), Sardinhas Assadas (grilled sardines), Pomphret, Mahi... with Port Wine (Note to Self: One more reason to settle down by the sea). And then to top it all off, the happy couple graciously offered to pick up the tab. Am sure that meal cost about as much as the rest of trip... what can I say... doesn't get any better!

Anyway, I got to enjoy the gypsy for the first time on our drive from Club M to Exotica... that was another big high. The jeep did not have a CD player but the gypsy did... I really enjoyed hip-hop for the first time in my life (without a dancing partner.. ahem)...

Honestly, I don't think rock would have been the best thing on this trip. In fact, I had a conversation with Sakshi Sharda (for the uninitiated, she's from College and now a co-worker) on different kinds of music tastes... it was a pretty good really, I was impressed when she said she had too much respect for rock to dance to it (or drive around to it)... true... rock is a personal thing... hip hop is mah bitch! Muahahaha

I still hate trance.

Ok... at dusk we were scheduled for a cruise on a river boat in North Goa... and we wren't really sure of the way... Man! I wish the time I spend commuting here was like that drive in the gypsy that day... cool air, setting sun, music beats. Goa! Take a minute here.

The cruise itself was a bit of a let down... those boats look mighty pretty glimmering in the night as they float sluggishly in the river in the dark... but the view from the boat itself wasn't particularly spectacular... we went upto where the river runs into the sea and back... could have just watched from the bridge! but no regrets... you do it all.

After the cruise, we had a couple of hours to kill before hitting the club scene (ya, club scene... I've become a total yuppie) and someone suggested we go to the Saturday Market at Arpora (or maybe Baga or maybe Calangute, don't remember)- the Goan equivalent of Janpath... and when I say "Goan equivalent", it was obviously better... the clothes and trinkets were all overpriced but the place had one heck of an atmosphere... filled with tourists, the place was the most culturally integrated place I've been to ever... everyone looked like they knew everyone else... the shopkeepers (many of them non-Indian) went about like it was a party, chatting up with anyone who walked by. Hippie is the word I am looking for... (wish I hadn't called myself a yuppie now)... there was a stage where this band was performing... Rock 'n Roll and all these white people were sitting on chairs like they were at a seminar... pretty good... there was this one young sadhu type person (long beard and saffron robes and sadhu type accessories) right up front getting down and funky in the area between the audience and the stage... and one little (like 2-3 years I guess) white girl jumping around with him... think of the excitement you felt the first time you got squeaky shoes and multiply that by a hundred... that's how happy the little girl was... it was beautiful.

There were quite a few food stalls... practically all run by foreigners (except a couple which belonged to some enterprising Mallu women), all selling food from all over the world... there was egyptian, german, israeli, vietnamese, punjabi, even a Sushi bar... needless to say, i hogged...

I could go and on about this place but alas, life is short... so moving along...

Around 10:00 we went off to Club Cubana (or was it Cabana?)... but that was closed for renovation I think... there was also Tito's but there had been some police trouble there (oh by the way, there were communal riots in Goa the day before so the situation was supposed to be tense... but we never saw much of that and if anything, everyone, us and others, were probably even a bit excited), so we didn't go to Tito's... we drove into and out of a couple of places... but none seemed good enough.. either stoned hippies or empty dance floors... usually both... so the clubbing scene was also kind of a washout... i still had a good time driving about though... a couple of the girls standing on the back made quite an impression upon the locals as well as the tourists... I don't blame them.
Anyway, we decided to stop our club hopping at Cafe Paradiso... they had only trance, and the scene was pretty ravy... I had this strange sense that I was experiencing a cabbage... (this is no Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds innuendo, I actually felt like i was experiencing a cabbage)... its there, its ok if you don't pay it any mind, its not intersting enough to analyse, and if you force yourself to analyse it, you'll just taste cabbage... hmmm...

But one end of the club was a open gallery facing the beach... so I (and everyone else) just took a beer (or ten) and sat on that side... Sakshi managed to have the best time, she was jumping around like a frog between all the tripped out people on the dance floor... ya, she had a lot of fun... I was pretty impressed again.

We got lost on the way back... drove around for 3-4 hours... I don't think anyone minded (though some of the females were bitching about the cold in good spirits) but I totally enjoyed it... we even got pulled over by the police in Panjim coz Sakshi and I were standing up behind... I felt like a schoolboy... pretty embarrassed at causing trouble to everyone... fortunately, Vikrant (the male half of the Happy Couple) stepped in to save the... well, night... the cops let us off with a warning...

phew, is anyone even reading this far down?

I hit the sack once we reached the hotel... I was tempted to join some of the people who were going the beach but in the end decided to just get some rest.

Last Day.

I went Jet Skiing... first time i did that... and it was really really good... Initially I thought I'd do it coz I simply hadn't done it before... was under the impression that it would be like driving a bike, but the thrill was like driving fast on land without being afraid of hitting someone else and a really good roller-coaster ride. Highly recommended.

Ate for the last time at the Beach Shack, listening to a bunch of foreigners exchange news of their experiences in India (not all that good, I am afraid). Was about to leave when the rest of the gang showed up... they ordered a really good fish, whose name I can't recall now... had a bit of that... then went for a swim in the pool before going to pack and leaving Club M. We had to go to Exotica first coz someone had left their cell phone there the day before, and we stopped on the way to pick up wine and fenni for the people back home...so we had to rush to make the flight.

Minor excitement happenned right at the end as it turned out that my cabin luggage did not have the necessary security clearance. They ran it through the machine again (everyone except me had already boarded) and were freaked out by a couple of (really cool) magnets I had picked up at Arpora (or maybe Baga or maybe Calangute). They are pretty sleek... could pass for some sort of nuclear fuel (at least, I imagine thats what nuclear fuel looks like) pellets... but they relented in the end, accepting that I was as innocent as I look. Hmmm...

The flight back was fun too... I just stared at the sunset for the first half and chatted with others later. There was this really cute kid running about the aisles, so I challenged him a couple of times... he was a cool kid, didn't get shy or whiny... just smiled his cool baby smile and asked me to come see him outside if I was such a big shot. (well, he didn't say it coz he was too young to speak but I get what kids say). One year old dude, he was.

It took us as long to get out of the airport as it took us to fly back from Goa... I am offically pro-privatisation on this (a yuppie's gotta a do what a yuppie's gotta do)

Anyway, I had some time to kill coz my parents were out that night, so I went to Punjabi by Nature for dinner with some of the others... really good food again.

Mom said I looked good Bronzed.

Yeh Hai Meri Kahani (Parts I & II & Update)

2006-03-06T21:59:00.000+04:00

Update: Ah! Stephanians!

PART ONE

Well, to begin with the obvious, I am back from Goa! The trip was good fun in an unexpected sort of a way. Maybe it is the scale of the sea or the unhindered view of starlight skies, but I got thinking about my place in the universe, if I may use a cliché. I have decided to do more things rather than go with the flow from now on... its too easy to float along and let yor existence atrophy...

My plan had been to go wild the minute we land, and I wasn’t the only one looking forward to the 15 rupee beers. But I realized that I am over binge drinking and half the stuff I did in College. Had this been an M4 trip I might have still done the drink-till-you-jump-up-and-down routine but probably not even then. Of course, that doesn’t apply to anyone else and we actually had a 36 hours drinking session… I stuck around for 12 or 14 hours but then just got bored. People were found scattered all over the resort the next morning and I think we lost like 2 cell phones, 5 sunshades, 1 set of room keys, 3 pairs of sandals, 1 pair of shoes, and a virginity that night.

Getting down to the facts… we stayed in Varca in South Goa at Club Mahindra… nice place, friendly people, second best beach in Goa… its not as posh as Taj Exotica which was the other possible choice but that’s a good thing on a trip to Goa. At Club M, one could walk about in wet swimming trunks; Taj Exotica made you wanna keep your clothes on.

Anyway, we hit the beach as soon as we landed at the resort; unfortunately, I forgot to take my wallet out of my back pocket. Went to a beach shack to dry myself and the Gandhis… sat their looking like some sort of a gambler, with my cash spread out before me. The place had really good seafood… all the places we ate at had good seafood… besides the usual, I had Lobster and calamari… damn good both of them!

END OF PART ONE

....

PART TWO

Ok, so the first day was the beach and food... did not go out that night, instead had a seesion in one of the rooms, 4 bottles of Teacher's, 1 Bacardi, 1 Smirnoff... and other stuff I am not sure of... was hell for the Non Drinkers I suppose... later went to the beach and built a castle... and cracked a hell lot of dirty jokes. Its cool how alcohol breaks down all walls of sophistication in such a short while huh? Girls too.

Next day, we went to North Goa.. Morjim... the best beach. The water there isn't so salty coz its right next to where the river meets the sea. Nice beaches, good food again and lots of topless females. Maybe I've seen too much porn in my life or something, but I was not particularly interested in the last...

Later we went to Fort Aguada and watched the Sunset... I thought that would be the most beautiful sun set I'll ever get to see in my life but in fact, saw an even more beautiful one during our flight back to Delhi... the first time, the Sun sank into the endless sea but the second time the sky was clear due to some high wind activity (if our pilot was to be believed, our Pilot, incidently, seemed desperate to keep talking throughout the flight... i was half expecting him to walk into the seating area to chat with people) .. anyway, the sky was crystal clear.. we were cruising at 11000 meters and we could still make out cars moving on the ground! and I was sitting right in front of the right wing... the Sun turned Blood red and sank into the rolling cotton plains... meanwhile the horizon went from Red to Gold... the picture looked right out of a British Airways brochure...

Ahem...after that poetic diversion...so we reached back to Hotel in the evening with plans to go clubbing after dinner but instead Vikrant, another guy from my office, suddenly turned up to surprise his girl friend (who was on the trip with us)... sometime during the evening he proposed matrimony to her so everyone got damn enthu about having a "US only" party and the clubbing was chucked (honestly, after the celebratory Bottoms Ups, the clubbing sort of chucked us) and had another party in one of the rooms. This was the infamous night of lost possesions... one guy slept on the stairs outside... somewhere... bathroom got jacked... the nice people at club Mahindra put their foot down for once and charged us for the mess... i spent the night on the beach... on the lifeguard's chair... I wanted to see the Sun rise and no one realised that we were on the wrong side of the country... there was also an incident with the Moon, whose details are blurry now...

END OF PART TWO

Ok, Goa talk is gonna be long it seems, but what is not long is the time required for me to come up with a bunch of things that I hate... I have been tagged by IFTYIHTKY to do just that... the following is what i wrote on Yohan's blog some days back before the tag happenned... I am actually gonna add this on the left hand side of this blog... permanent fixture to be updated whenever the occassion arises...

ok, for those of you who don't know, I HATE...

1. People who have loud conversations in public places. (This pisses the hell out of me everytime... its come to the point that I imagine lashing out at such people with a swift kick to the side of the face and hearing the satisying sound of their skull cracking) (I am not kiiding about this fantasy of mine! Just imagine how surprised the buggers will be... they wouldn't even begin to defend themselves!! *Fiendish Laughter)

2. Waiting and/or Boredom Self Explanatory... I'd rather walk miles than wait for a bus or a cab...

3. Any of those school kids / Call center types you find hanging out at "cool places" such as malls, cinemas... fucking retards all. Just to clarify, fucking retards all...

4. ToI/ Aaj Tak/ Zee News/ most radio jockeys/all video Jockeys/ Musical "Reality show" hosts, judges, participants, winners, and rejects/ Delhi Times and those who write for it/ Female oriented soap operas (i actually can't think of any other kind of soap operas) and anyone associated with their making or watching How they get away with so blatantly preaching emphasis on the mundane, the petty, the tasteless, and insignificant, is beyond me...

5. Anyone who thinks he/she rocks... though this is practically a duplicate of point 3. Bloody Extras in bollywood dance numbers all of them!

6. Anyone who acts shocked that you like or dislike something that they dislike/like... why the hell should i have to explain my tastes to some infected moron who picks his tastes from ToI and Zoom...
Also includes shopkeepers and DT/HT article writers who pronounce whats "in" these days... So, you know whats "in" huh? then why the fuck are you in this loser job, you moron!?

7. Fashion designers... anyone who calls it an "industry"... same applies to Bollywood with a couple of exceptions... Those models are so Ugly, it hurts... the clothes are almost always so tacky, I wouldn't wipe my nose with them... sheesh!

ok, thats not all of it but i guess you already have a good idea about the rest!

PS: I become addicted to Yeh Hai Meri Kahani by Strings... must listen! First Jal, then this... Paki bands beat Anu Malik and his brand of "inspired" music hands down...

8. Anu Malik should be fed his nose...

Rang De Basanti…

2006-01-27T18:16:00.000+04:00

Feb 27th, 2006
Dear All,
Yes, the author in his glorious wisdom realises that it has been a month since he posted a post etcetera etcetera. The author would like to apologise to his millions (AND MILLIONS) of fans and hereby pledges to post post-haste. He also humbly acknowledges comments on other forums which indicate displeasure at the content free content of this blog and also promises to write something half decent.. and perhaps even completely indecent the next time. However, as many of you are aware, the author will be sunning himself by the sea this week and might (hopefully) be too inebriated or otherwise engaged to offer content that contents, at least till next week.

Please beer with us until this Calamitious period of hedonism passes.

Yours faithfully,
Poster Boy.

Dil Chahta Hai meets Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi...

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Well, it is... but don't worry about that right now... go watch the movie...

It disturbs me that I found this hilarious...

2006-01-24T13:50:00.000+04:00

Here we have one little story (2 parts).......

Part I
A parrot goes to a shopkeeper and asks.... 'Aam hai kya?'
The shopkeeper says ... 'Nahi. Hum Aam nahi bechte.'
Next day at the same time, the parrot goes again and asks him ...'Aam
hai kya?'
He gets a little irritated and says... 'Aare Bola na, Hum 'Aam nahi
Bechte'
On the third day, the parrot goes again and asks him 'Aam hai kya?' He
gets wild and yells ...'Bola na naahi. Abhi vapas aaya to hathoda
marunga sar ke upar'
The next day,the parrot comes again and asks him ..'hathoda hai kya ?'
The shopkeeper says ... 'Nahi'
The parrot then asks ... 'Aam hai kya ?'

Part II
The next day parrot again goes to shopkeeper and asks "Aam hai kya??"
The shopkeeper is ready now....
He quickly pulls a hammer and hitz the parrot on the face.
The parrot loses all his teeth
But determined, parrot again goes 2 the shopkeeper next day n asks...

"Aam ka Juice Hai Kya?"

EDIT: Still can't stop laughing... I think my brother will be the only one else in the world who'd enjoy this one!!

And why the hell do they say its two parts of the same story?!?

"He quickly pulls a hammer and hitz the parrot on the face." ROTFLMAO!

ok, sorry.

2006-01-19T13:01:00.000+04:00

From: Venetia Vickers

hi everyone,
hope all of you are doing great..
okay listen i have a big big favour to ask of all of you..
i think all of you must have known or atleast heard of a very close friend of mine anirudh mayaram (cheeku) who passed away in may.he was a very dear friend of mine.
well his family and friends have started a foundation in his memory called "Anirudh Mayaram Foundation" which gives scholarships of various sorts and organizes a number of events. last year we organized an inter school basket ball match in jaipur.
this year we are organizing an online essay writing competition open to all students all over the country.
now the favour that i ask of you is to spread the word around...your college, friends, sibblings who are still studying,neighbours...everyone ok.

just to make things simple i'm attaching a poster of the competition which you can either forward around or print out and then circulate around schools and colleges in your city (second one preferably).don't be selective about who you forward it to, just keep it going....please guys don't take this lightly, do this for me please...you all know how much anirudh meant to me, this is just a small thing i can do for him and i need your help.
the last date for submission is 31st march and there will be two cash prizes---Rs.10,000 & Rs 5,000.
also just to keep a record, when you do send the posters around could you keep me posted about which all schools and colleges have been contacted..thanks a million guys.
take care.
loads of love,
me

Ok... well, the poster she sent me is sort of difficult to put up here... some technical problem, so I'll just put up the essential details:

ANIRUDH MAYARAM FOUNDATION invites you to submit a 1000-1200 word essay as part of an event organized in the loving memory of AnirudhMayaram.

"Breeding and Encouraging Creativity" is one of the aims of this contest.

Topic:" The most infertile region in the world lies under my hat"

You may address in any number of ways and approaches and all are acceptable.Your Essays will be judged on the basis of your innovative and creative "Out of the Box" thought process, as well as on the quality of your essay composition.

First Prize: 10,000/-
Second Prize: 5,000/-

For more information about entry procedures,the judging process, and a complete list ofrules, please visit the website:http://www.anirudhmayaram.com

All entries must be submitted no later than 10:59 pm on March 31st, 2006

CAT 2005 - SCORE CARD

2006-01-06T12:09:00.000+04:00

LOGIC & DATA INTERPRETATION
PERCENTILE: 71.79
QUANTITATIVE
PERCENTILE: 99.16
VERBAL
PERCENTILE: 98.90
TOTAL
PERCENTILE: 99.10

January 9th, 2006

Yea, Yohan's right, there is really no point in posting the score... no matter how nice 99.xx sounds... right now, I am no better than any other of the 1.5 lac + people who did not get a call.

Ouch!!

I needed about 4 more marks in DI to show "overall competence" and missed 8 on a really simple question set that I just could not figure out in the 5 minutes that I had for it... I knew that I had misunderstood the questions from the way the questions themselves were worded but unluckily enough, could not figure out my mistake during that time, despite searching for it. Other than that my paper was perfect...

Thanks to all the people who called up/mailed/smsed to express support and regret... but I am not doing too badly. Have been better but not considering suicide or marriage or something!

Ah...Dark Humour...

Anyway, on the bright side, I don't have any obligations to stop me from indulging in some gold old recreation. The only problem now is the damn cold. Apparently yesterday was the coldest day this city has seen in the past 72 years. I was supposed to meet up with Udayan, but - I kid you not - could not even bear to get out from under the blanket to call up to say I can't come. Now, I understand that hell is unlikely to freeze over?
It sounds lovely!

The days are very clear though, so if you aren't the kind who takes exception to living in freezer-like conditions, the winter is actually beautiful. I no longer sit by the giant glass windows but whenever I do walk past, I can't help but be struck by the sight of the grounds looking bright, fresh, and colourful in the winter sun.

Any suggestions for activities when the temperatures rise a bit? I am planning on going to watch The Chronicles of Narnia and Munich, and maybe Bluffmaster...

Currently reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest... I haven't seen the movie so actually don't know how its gonna end... besides there is Moving Pictures (Terry Pratchett) that Kaustubh had "borrowed" from me within 30 seconds of my having bought it... bitch! if u are reading this I want it back before I have to call you up and be nasty!! That beard makes it too easy you know...

So, any more recommendations for a young man with time on his hands?

You are Not Your Stupid Blogger Template.

2005-12-26T00:07:00.000+04:00

I am a well-known fan of Irony. Whoever named it “Irony” knew exactly what he was doing. It captures the sharp metallic taste of a self-defeating purpose. Yet, despite my veneration, the damn thing cuts me no slack and that’s when I find myself in situations like the present one.

I’ll miss the right hand slide page change spectacle and I am glad it’s gone. To round off… a big thanks to Chandna, for helping me sort out the code… you should have seen his verbal grinning when I chucked all his hard work.

By Gones. (Get Gones free).

II.
In keeping with the utilitarian spirit that we are currently in the throes of, I’ll cut the crap and get down to talking about things that truly matter… namely, the things that I been up to and what do I think of them.

Well, I saw King Kong yesterday night. And here’s what I think of it…

King Kong is the latest in a series of remakes of the original 1933 classic about a giant gorilla who is, coincidentally, also called King Kong. The movie and the character being such a classic and all, there are few who are not familiar with the plot.

The story revolves around a beautiful American girl named Ann Darrow (played by the appropriately named Naomi Watts… since the name has long been associated with steam and electricity) who is approached by a desperate movie producer named Carl Denham (played by the very inappropriately named Jack Black… since he’s neither Black nor a disorganized card game) to take on the role of leading lady in his upcoming adventure movie set in a remote island. Since there is an economic depression going on and Ann is, surprisingly enough, not willing to take up prostitution, she agrees to the otherwise disagreeable producer. The film crew, which includes a kidnapped scriptwriter Jack Driscoll (played by the exceptionally equine Adrien Brody) and a few other production types, sets sail onboard a shady tramp steamer that also has a crew of its own (What are the chances!). There is a fair degree of antagonism between the two crews during the course of the voyage but matters are always sorted out with promises of cash and walking out of the cabin. A touching romance blooms between Watts and whatsisname, which is happily, never consummated.

The streamer eventually runs aground on the rocky shores of Skull Island, a hitherto uncharted island somewhere in the Far East. Being an island and consequently having limited resources, the island’s economy is based on body parts… most notably… you guessed it… skulls. The most important industry is human sacrifice, as one may expect from an island in the Far East. The least important industry is oral hygiene and skin care products. However, there is a subtle yet significant difference between Skull Island and the numerous other atolls of the world. While places like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are tax shelters from merely man-made commercial laws, Skull Island is a tax shelter from the Laws of Evolution itself! Behind a 100-foot wall (a wall that eventually proves to be about as much use as a condom in a lesbian orgy) there exists a secret world inhabited by every major computer generated monster ever created. (Conspicuous by their absence were Gollum and Yoda, apparently left out as no one in the world now has the patience to write lines for either of them).

The monster-in-chief is a 25 foot silver back Gorilla… who takes a fancy to Ms. Darrow and proceeds to woo her with the ever-effective “knight in shining armor” routine. The role of the evil witch is shared by three (ya… 1…2…3) T-Rexes, who between them display the intelligence of the aforementioned wall. The movie will long be remembered for a 35-minute sequence involving a game of biting-the-parcel, played between the three T’s on one side and the 2 Ks on the other. A surprising scientific fact revealed during the scene was that contrary to popular belief, a T-rex’s teeth are made of rubber and not of hard enamel as was previously thought. It is now revealed that T-rexes actually kill their victims after a highly intricate trapeze performance.
At the same time, Driscoll (Brody), convinces the two crews to effort a rescue of the fair Ann (or Ms. Darrow, as she is fondly called). While his ulterior motives are abundantly clear, the crews decide to risk their lives, in the hope that the money will make it all worthwhile. After braving the other bizarre creatures inhabiting Skull Island, among them tumbling Diplodocii, agile Dromaeosauridae, various species of oversized Diptera, Blattodea, Mantodea, and Arachnids, and a “Swamp Thing” with multiple toothy suckers, the party finally decides to wait outside at the gate, while Driscoll gets the girl.

Romance rears its ugly head yet again as KK takes Ann to the local “Lover’s Point” and proceeds to appeal to her feminine instincts by expressing his vulnerable emotional side. Needless to say, this is in itself quite an achievement for someone who is literally a hairy gorilla. Fortunately, Driscoll arrives in time to strike a blow for humans everywhere. While KK is distracted by a bunch of bats the size of beach umbrellas (and obviously more distracting than the 3 T-Rexes), Driscoll latches onto the nearest wing and manages to make good his escape (along with the enchanting Ms. Darrow of course).

An enraged KK, who no doubt thought he had a good thing going with Ann, what with she living in the palm of his hand and all… saunters off to reclaim his lost love. Only to be doused in chloroform and speared in the thigh. With one last emotionally charged rendition of masculine vulnerability, he passes out after Denham (Black) passes one of his many cheesy lines in the movie.

The scene now shifts to New York City, where KK is presented to a rather enthusiastic American Public. As if a giant monkey was all that was required for the Economic Depression to end. The public gets a little more excitement than they bargained for when King Kong breaks lose (who would have thought!) and decides to find Ann, and no doubt ask her what the hell she wants from their relationship. Driscoll, whose apparently dumped Ann for her suspected infidelity when away with Kong, leads Kong away from the crowd and towards Ann, perhaps hoping for a conclusion, one way or the other. Kong proves that males are suckers till the end, carries off Ann to the top of the Empire State Building. After they have spent some time staring at the rising sun on the horizon, the American Air Force intervenes.

In a stunningly visual depiction of today’s socio-political America, Peter Jackson, the producer of the movie (not to be confused with the brand of cigarettes owned by Imperial Tobacco and a men's clothing store that sells suits in Australia), shows the Americans use overwhelming air superiority to destroy a hopelessly primitive enemy. True to life, despite their significantly advanced technology (Biplanes!!) the American armed forces sustain heavy casualties when faced by a determined indigenous resistance. Often using nothing more than his hands (and at other times ferocious growls) King Kong literally rips apart the attacking forces. It is at this point that tactics are changed and brute force is replaced by American Culture to win over the primitive beast. Ann distracts King Kong (and who can blame him for being distracted) while an Air Force plane strafes him from behind.

Perhaps taking a cheap shot at the hairless Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter Jackson then proceeds to depict King Kong’s death in an eerily similar fashion to the death of DiCaprio’s character, Jack Dawson, in the multi Oscar winner, Titanic.

The movie ends with Jack Black passing perhaps the most “duh” line in cinematic history… which goes something to the effect of “Bullets didn’t Kill Him, beauty killed the Beast”.
**********

For its provocative social commentary and controversial sexual insinuations, the movie will undoubtedly be honored by eggheads everywhere in Europe. The movie will also be a front runner various technology related awards for its excellent visual effects especially those involving hitherto unseen details of insect anatomy.

This writer, however, would also like to draw attention to other aspects of the movie that are not traditionally recognized, in the hope that he will get to meet Naomi Watts, if anyone of them is seriously considered as a category at any of the better known motion picture awards.

Naomi Watts’ night slip: The most durable and stain resistant garment ever worn by a leading lady on screen.

Naomi Watts’ Neck: For exemplary flexibility during the T-Rex Vs King Kong fight sequence.

Jack Black’s conscience: For being the least troubling conscience ever seen in a monster movie.

The Skull Island Native Pole Vaulter: For the most daring and skillful kidnapping during an Olympic event.

King Kong’s Hide: For being the toughest material known to Man. (pending examination of the T-Rex’s dental records)

The Giant Yellow Bug attacking Adrian Brody: For being the most harmless insect ever to try and sit on someone’s face. (Unless it was trying to mate… in which case NO award!)

And finally,

Peter Jackson: For single handedly reviving his native New Zealand’s economy by filming his fourth consecutive movie there.

Kill Me. Juuuust Kill Me.

2005-12-21T13:02:00.000+04:00

I've written frequently on the experience of commuting by psuedo-public transport in delhi (read autos, cabs, and hitchhiking)... add this to the "kids-don't-try-this-at-home" column...

Radio City "Pink" FM.. no.. I have nothing against the colour pink, in fact call it "salmon-terracotta hue" and I'll buy an undeniably pink shirt... have Aerosmith sing it and i'll nod and smile gaily... No sir, Pink is fine with moi..

I was referring to the songs the good-if-not-too-bright people at the aforementioned radio station play in the mornings...

hey i am the neal i am the man
rockstar superstar
i am da neal i am da man
rockstar superstar
Ta ta ra ra ta ra ta Neal n Nikki

Kill Me. Juuuust Kill Me.

Annoying as hell, but not something to write (home) about, you say? You in your warm and silent rooms... whats the big deal, you ask?

ITS STUCK IN MY HEAD, thats what the big deal is...

Runty Guys wearing makeup... Runty girls, wearing nothing... not bad enough? now add that ghastly song in the background.

If anyone needs me i'll be in the washroom, running water on my wrist...

Signing off...
i am da neal i am da man rockstar superstar

2005-12-20T10:33:00.000+04:00

There are still some issues with the comments and the weird pointer icon... I'll look into it after some time...

Till then... what do you think??

Edit: Well, I tried fixing the comments but all sorts of weird stuff happenned... it was taking a bittoo much time to make and check the changes... the comments are there as of now... For the time being, just select the individual post from the "Other Works by this Author" section and post your comment.

Ah... ste...

2005-12-02T18:02:00.000+04:00

My seat has changed... the shining towers that would have inspired me to greatness - had the boss not closed the shades to avoid the glare- are no longer not visible. (5 points for the smart ones who managed to figure out what that meant).

Now my seat is in the corner... reminds me of school.. where the most inspiring sight is that of maritially-engaged colleagues yahoo-chatting with their to-bes (or not to bes - if one was to avoid all assumptions) whilst blushing and giggling.

Ah love...

But there is a bright side... so bright in fact, that it hurts the eye... if i could just figure out where the bloody switch is, that particular problem could at least be sorted out... isn't life just like that? in the rare cases, when you know what to do, it cannot be done...

Ah life...

The only advantage is that being in the corner, one doesn't have to worry about unwittingly imparting the benefits of this blog... numerous as they are... to hard working colleagues. Afterall, productivity is paramount and these blogs are such a distraction. I couldn't live with myself if they cause others to lower their productivity.

Ah productivity...

And i've just realised that my chair and the desk infront of it (well, one of them at any rate) are inclined at an unnatural angle. And here I was thinkin that the painful drooping onto one side and distorted field of vision was due to me working too hard. A close inspection is in order after the day's work is done... And unlike the phantom switch scandal, this one cannot be too hard to pinpoint and complain about... unless the ground itself is inclined at an unnatural angle... in which, it would be pointless...

Ah angle...

PS: Is it just me, or does everyone find this guy too cool ?

PPS: and since I have used Chandna's creation in a cheap attempt at symmetry... all of you must now go to THE WEBSITE

Whatever...

2005-11-23T14:46:00.000+04:00

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".

Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k".

This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f".

This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w"
with "v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru!
And zen ve vil tak over ze world!

5 days left to CAT...

2005-11-15T17:38:00.000+04:00

Well, my prep is not perfect but somehow I don't feel too bad about it. (On a bit of a self contradictory note... ) The tough part is not really being good but being good enough... Its amazing what difference an extra 1.5 percentile can make. from no calls to a couple of calls.... and from a couple of calls to everything...

well, as long as i give my best.

I have been musing over the kind of hype surrounding the better management schools. It seems to me that a lot of people don't really evaluate the course and a B-School from their own perspective. Considering the innovative spirit that a manager or any sort of a leader must have, a surprisingly large proportion of people seem to be just in on it coz its the latest thing. If tommorow being an accountant was the trend... thats what everyone will be slogging their ass off over. Makes you wonder whether trends cause massive changes instead of the other way round. A paradox if i ever saw one! :)

I don't know what to make of the fact that something as trivial as "hype" affects perceptions on such a large scale. Maybe I need to stop thinking of it as trivial afterall. It seems to me that marketing isn't a complementary business activity.. its actually a part of production.

Brands - believe it or not - add value to a product! People pay extra for the same thing if the label on it is more highly regarded. This is not marketing then is it ? It's like the last stage of production...

I've had some bit of experience during my stint in Student's Affairs. The same sweatshop (pun intended ) in Noida used the same machine to make a thousand sweatshirts and then priced them according to the brand. This is hapenning on a global scale as companies shift manufacturing to places like China and count on marketing to be the differentiating factor.

Their is no such thing as value afterall.. it is the perception of value that matters.

PS: Oh, and I am Adam...

Adam

What Character from "Good Omens" are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Off to Jaipur...

2005-11-06T01:33:00.000+04:00

Today was the first day of the rest of my holidays... Well begun in terms of food if not studies... gorged on some indecent amounts of chocolates my Grandmother sent... what absolute bliss! I am off to the Pink City tomorrow to attend a friend's brother's wedding... Man, I've been waiting for so long to get out of the routine... I hope I can take the joy! And I love Jaipur. Stayed there for three years... it was kind of boring in retrospect, but it’s the most beautiful city I've been to so far. It’s got the desert feel though it’s not really the desert. I remember the roads and the cold sand on the edges of the roads I the area where I lived. And I loved the old part of town. Its not a preserved sort of a place that you feel is out of date! It IS the city... smelling of camels, milk burfis, spices, and mystique.

The last time Ii had gone to Jaipur was on Republic day, 2003. A memorable experience when 6 of us picked up our toothbrushes and got on the 10 PM bus, on a sudden whim. We reached at 3:30 in the morning, in the pitch dark and were greeted by deserted streets (excluding the mob of tourist guides who only left us when we convinced them that between the six of us we had 143 bucks to spend). We walked into one of those hotels where the manager is paid by how high he can raise his eyebrows. We nodded our approval to him on our way out after using the restrooms.

Our plan was to walk aimlessly till daylight and then find the cheapest place possible to have breakfast at. The second phase of the plan was simple too… we would eat at the aforementioned place.

The designed part of Jaipur is not unlike the India Gate area in Delhi but it has the added advantage of catering to far fewer picnickers. What far fewer picnickers do drop by the place usually assume that evenings are the best time to do the dropping by. In the disreputable pre-dawn hours on that Republic Day, we found this to be incorrect. Walking along the empty but broad avenues with Victorian buildings on either side is always a cool experience… but the scene was rendered even more fascinating by the sight of rain drops falling off the edges and into the glow of the streetlights that lined the avenue as far as I could see.

We reached Statue Circle while it was still dark… it looked a bit like this...

We lay down in the wet grass. Jaipur doesn’t really get cold I think, but this was January so the rain and all probably made the scenario uncomfortable but we were having too much fun to realize that!

When day broke we got up and walked over to Birla Mandir and reached it just in time for the Arti. It is a neat place and has an air of grandeur to it. I see what that Shah Jahan liked about white marble.

Anyway, we had a good trip… that also included a short afternoon siesta on the floor of one of the corner rooms in Amber Fort. And we also made some Japanese guy’s visit more enjoyable, judging from the excited way in which he was photographing us!

To sum it all up: Looking forward to this trip!

The Team and Me on Diwali...

2005-11-03T21:58:00.000+04:00

For the benefit of the uninitiated, I am the one standing fourth from left...

Today...

2005-10-25T19:08:00.000+04:00

I would like to...

go to an all night party
get into a fight
listen to loud music
get drunk
get on TV
get into an argument about morals
act in a play
play football in the rain
meet an old friend
meet someone new
break a rule

I don't want...

sympathy

Rules of the Road...

2005-10-24T19:29:00.000+04:00

For Every Punjabi cab driver, there exists an equally Punjabi Audio Tape (PAT).
The total noise caused by the driver and the PAT is constant.
Every song on the PAT is sung by a poor peasant boy in torment because his love left him for money, despite the promises that she made in the field by the irrigation canal.
Each song ends with the peasant boy going to the city and becoming a cab driver.
For every Jat cab driver, there exists an equally Jat subordinate (JS), sitting in the front seat.
The muscular nature of the JS is only less nauseating than the oily nature of his hair.
Despite the unwarranted touching and stroking, the driver and the JS are just “good friends” (Research in this field is in preliminary stages).
If a cab driver plays bhajans on his tape deck, you are going to reach late.
The extent of Salman Khan’s influence on a bus conductor’s life is inversely proportional to total surface area of the conductor.
Pointing at the meter on an Auto is the best way to start negotiations with auto drivers.
That is the only purpose of the meter.
Laughing rudely at auto drivers does not embarrass them into demanding any less ridiculous an amount.
A pre-settled charge is a necessary and sufficient condition for the auto driver to be aware of the shortest route to the destination.

Coming Shortly: Girls on the Road: WTF?!

You know what...

2005-10-20T20:00:00.000+04:00

I am wondering why the hell I even keep a blog. I write nothing of much consequence here... assuming there is such a thing. The best one can do is write some funny lines... as inconsequential as they come... but with all sincerity, the best of the lot...

Some people keep blogs that they write poetry on... frankly, poetry is lost on me... in fact, with a few notable exceptions.. my idea of anything artistic is what is aesthetically pleasing... I am told thats rather shallow... but honestly, which way is this supposed to move me?? I'd feel sorry for the guy, but the bastard seems to be enjoying it!

Which does not bring us to the question: do people "keep" blogs ?... like a mistress or gardener boys (I've been watching Desperate Housewives)... I mean, how sensitive should guys (or people in general) be when they are referring to their blogs... not that the blog will mind but others might... you know if they are the kind who use their blogs as a medium of expressing their souls or something...

What? its possible!

Speaking of possible... its Karvachauth today... what a funny day... its a pretty romantic funda of course, but its a funny romantic funda. A co-worker of mine (who I shall be making fun of in my memoirs) kept sending me mesaages everytime I got a phone call. "Your wife wants you to come back soon eh?" "Is your mistress also fasting?"... "oh! told you not to stay back! now bhabhi is mad" Funn--nn--y! Now, i am just full of romantic notions, so don't get me wrong.. its sweet.. its just funny...

Love's funny...

I am beginning work on a new project from tommorow... since I have a tendency o get bored with practically anything, sooner or later.. I am damn excited about doing something new! And its hardcore technical shit too! (Ok! I don't know the details but it involves "builds" happenning in New York at 4: 00 am EST, which I have to co-ordinate with... sounds cool = Me happy!) I'll be maintaining some indices for a living now... i feel like that shephard man, up there, now... minding my indices and looking for fun. Cupid (I presume) stuck to my leg... and... well, since its Karvachauth, I won't say anything about the naked lady...

ok, now i am hungry (no connection with the naked lady) ...

To home and feasting... (with all due respect to Karvachauth and those who practice the same)

No Wonder the Chicken crossed the Road!!

2005-10-11T19:11:00.000+04:00

I've been following this event (its become an event really) all day that i first came to know of through Ranjitha's blog...

Since we live in an era of outsourcing, I'll skip the task of bringing peopel upto date... background reading material can be found here...

Of course, there is the usual bunch of uncouth morons who have been going about changing popular opinion... against themselves as it turns out... but I have nothing to say about these chaps! (well, besides that they are uncouth morons)...

Here is the letter that IIPM sent to one Mr. Gaurav Sabnis...

It is more or less the most outrageously funny thing I have ever seen... but then, this is IIPM we are talking about here...

I got the feeling that I was watching a 5 year old brat throwing a tantrum... The conditions are hilarious!! remove this! apologise for that! and my personal favourite :

"2. Immediately notify all your affiliate partners and other relevant websites to remove any links to any news of IIPM that they have received from you. You have to also ensure that these websites follow instructions as you would be held responsible for any continued display of the abovementioned item in question and future unapproved references to IIPM of any kind in any type of a media vehicle. "

ROTFL! These guys have a pretty inflated opinion about their own rights over others! .. the Govt. cannot ask someone to do all this... let alone a so-called "legal cell" of a third rate B-School...

Good fun, what?!

UPDATE: Firstly, IIPM has also sent a "legal notice" to Varna Sri Raman (hey, what's Taranga's sister's name? )

Secondly,Wikipedia (does it remind you of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or what!) has an entry on this now. Think they are gonna get a "Notarized first notice of legal summons" ?

2005-09-22T22:53:00.000+04:00

It was a murder mystery and I was in it.

And no doubt as retribution for my ill-virtuous life, fate destined (as fate tends to do) that I be the victim. Now, if this were the extent of the absurdity, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought and definitely not a third one, but as it turns out, the aforementioned absurdity was even more absurd.

I was in a murder mystery... I was in it... I was the victim and to make the mystery complete I was as clueless as the innocent bystander about the identity of the perpetrator of this gravest of transgressions! It was all very mysterious.

Such was my clueless-ness in fact that I only came to know about my assassination, in the second scene, wherein I was being questioned about my whereabouts at the time of the crime. I answered all the queries put to me with honesty and good humor. Such is my nature, as friends will certainly attest. The interrogator, however, was not convinced. Hardened perhaps by my gory appearance (I had been scratched with some rather unfriendly looking contraptions) he (the interrogator) seemed skeptical despite my complete honesty in the matter. I was threatened with dire forms of persecution. Death is only the beginning, it seems.

Anyway, I may be the prime suspect in my own murder but justice is not to be denied where the heart is pure or, as was the case on this particular instance, the feet are swift. The “Innocent until proven Guilty” dictum, which I had used with more than reasonable success in my younger years (especially when charged with dropping the vegetables off my plate on purpose), prevailed here as well and I was free for the moment.

Shaken but not stirred… scarred perhaps… I decided to get to the bottom of this mysterious mystery without the customary ado. I had realized by this time of course, that I had at my disposal a few rather convenient powers (as powers are predisposed to being) and since I think best when mellow, I decided to add a soundtrack to the circumstances.

A small digression here: my new 2.4 GHz Pentium ® - 4 microprocessor and 512 MB RAM based personal computer now has a set of Creative ® speakers to keep it warm. At long last, there is music in my life again. I hadn’t heard Thick as a Brick while brushing my teeth since before the Night of the Walrus… (Ignore this… its all angle anyway)

Anyway, I settled on Behind Blue Eyes by The Who (it pleased me unto no end to note that my witty sense of irony had not deserted me even in death). The weather turned mild (another convenient power was at play is what I suspect but I was bent upon the task at hand and gave it not much thought then) and I set upon the task with good spirits, especially for a cadaver. What followed was a blur of thrilling twists, high emotions, and unbelievable violence… and even the bits not in the love scenes were pretty exciting. It was not very unlike piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, whereby I picked up clues, but the answer was nowhere near to being clear until at last, the truth lay bare before my eyes. A fulfilling sense of calm descended about me. It was all so simple in retrospect. I cleared my throat to address the solemn gathering and could not help but tremble keenly. It would have been the perfect note on which to commence my passage to paradise.

But as things now stand, I may well have declared “Colonel Mustard with the lampshade in the Study”.

The blinding light that I had naturally assumed to be a beacon to guide souls to heaven turned out to be just a blinding light and the trembling proved to be an effect of a fully charged alarm clock in silent mode.

I am in awe of my own mind today. To design the perfect problem and then to solve it without, in a manner of speaking, looking at the answers.

If I could just remember whodunit.

"The Memory of Threes" (Or - Oh, What The Hell...)

2005-09-22T09:49:00.000+04:00

Jon Jon has started a meme (That was not an echoecho)... and I feel the need.. the need for speed...

Actually, i just feel the need for writing...

3 movies I've seen 3 (or more) times
To list the ones that I have seen the most number of times...
1. Terminator 2 (some 30 times I guess)
2. The Great Escape
3. Jewel Thief (and I marvel at the twist everytime)

3 movies I'll (probably) never watch
1. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (3 Times I have started watching it and each time someone has some sort of an episode)
2. Anything with Salman Khan or Rob Schneider in it (on purpose)
3. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (have been hearing about it but have never gotten a chance to see it)

3 books I've read 3 (or more) times
In descending order of number of times read...
1. Man Eaters of Kumaon - Jim Corbett (I learned to read so that I could read this)
2. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
3. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers - Paul Kennedy

3 books I'll (probably) never read
1. 1984 - George Orwell (it's like it's avoiding me!)
2. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho (Sweet and Vague)
3. One - Richard Bach (Vague and Sweet)

3 persons I would kill (given a license to do the needful and get away scott free)
No one, to hate is to fear...

3 quotes I like (or just googled!)
1. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." - J. D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)

2. "On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everybody drops to Zero." - I am guessing... Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)

3. We had a Sky, up there, all speckled with Stars, and we used to lay on our backs and Look up at Them, and discuss about whether they were made, or only just Happenned. -Mark Twain {Huckleberry Finn}

Later On.

2005-09-16T00:36:00.000+04:00

Its been raining continously for the past 2 hours. And its been raining hard. Its been raining for the past three days actually. I walked out yesterday evening and saw that the sky was on fire. It was indescribably Magnificent. It had rained all day and but the clouds had only then parted. Parted, but not disappeared. And in the west, they came just low enough to block the Sun. The sunlight seemed to melt at the edges of the gray clouds... scattering a pinkish hue across a clear blue sky.

And there was a cool wet breeze.

Its good to be alive.

4:45 PM News Flash: Word on the ... well.. aisles is that the Delhi Government has declared a state of Emergency due to the incessant rains. There is no word on the aisles on what exactly does that mean...

Later...

Right.

Saw Salaam Namaste and liked it despite everything including a prejudice against Indian movies set outside India. Sure, it gets uncomfortably weird sometimes and the director/script writer obviously can't decide whether they want it to be a comedy or a drama or what... but what the heck, at least no one's pretending that it was supposed to be anything more than entertaining.

Fun Characters and the concept of honest individualism is so rare in Indian movies (and lets not even talk about TV soaps) that despite its not-quite-subtle "inspirations" from "Nine Months" and even "Friends", it still didn't come off as a copy.

It also highlighted an interesting trend in Hindi movies these days. Their target audience is not-so-slowly-and rather-steadily shifting overseas. The good thing in this that there is no longer any random repitition of lines.... (All I am saying is that it is pretty irritating... Main sirf yeh keh raha huun ki yeh bahut irritating hai). On the other hand, you can't help but feel that all the dire consequences of "Westernisation" are coming to pass. As much as I hate the family drama scene its not exactly something that is irrelevent to most Indians. If I was to get a girl pregnant, you'd better believe that our parents will be the ones giving us hell.

Movies today are becoming unreal in that way. Better than Sunny Deol beating his way to World Peace but still unreal.

Enough Said on that.

Writer's Block

2005-08-31T11:31:00.000+04:00

I seem to have invented the blogging equivalent of e-mail forwards. I'd say, I have, oh, about 2 more such posts before I start avoiding myself.

Till then... here, amuse yourselves...

My Adopted Ghost

Wha?! I object! Infringement of Right to Dance and all that...

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced
enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Relax, my boss is on it)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is
produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Two of my co-workers are on this one.)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to
squirt blood 30 feet.
(Lets all take a minute here.)

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(In my next life, I want to be a pig.)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to
death!
(Creepy) (I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories a hour
(Don't try this at home, maybe at work)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the
length of a football field.
(30 minutes..lucky pig! Can you imagine?)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)

Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Something I always wanted to know.)

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmm......)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed
people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(okay, so that would be a good thing)

A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)

Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(What about that pig??)

The Aristocats

2005-08-20T23:00:00.000+04:00

I read Madhu's bit on "Stillness of the Mind". I have not seen "The Last Samurai" but it's a pretty intersting topic to me, especially right now. I was trying to write something to describe that elusive "Stillness" but got lost in words along the way. That's the problem isn't it?!

It's comparitively easier to talk about getting there!

Somewhere in the electric impluses in our brain, nueralalgorithms, reactions, social inertia, and the all pervading Randomness, lie the roads that lead to the Clearing where the mind is truly Tranquil.
Fortunately, it's become easier for me to find those roads in the last few years. The more you experience, the more your values get attuned to what you want. But, it's still not become first nature for me! I still have to decide to be at peace and not bother about the white noise. But it's getting easier! There are less and less things that I give a damn about and sometimes… SOMETIMES… I find myself as relaxed as I want to be after a stressful day.

Last month, there was this day that I felt like I had been juggling all day! It was a nightmare… not the kind that make you wake up in fear but rather like those nightmares in which you are running hard but the harder you run the slower you go! Anyway! I was stressed exactly in the way one can never get while in school or college. I stepped out and waited around for a cab for close to half an hour… getting progressively more pissed off with creation… then this guy in an SUV offered me a lift. It's not a long journey from my office to IIT, half and hour or so, but the guy had the radio turned on. We were making polite conversation when a really good song came on air… we both stopped chatting as if on cue. This is what Magic is in the real world. The music seemed to be some sort of a purifier. There was no violence…it went straight to wherever the hell is it that the spiritual toxins were swirling about polluting my being, and dissolved them to nothingness. No harmful by-products… no burnt remains, no plastic-residue sticking to the walls. The poison was gone, like it never was.

Now, I am buying a digital music system.

I've concluded that any single second that we exist without that "Stillness" is the complete opposite of being alive. (_The_Undead_??)

Like right now, I am suffering from a severe lack of an urge to do anything combined with an extraordinary level of restlessness. I feel like a machine that's not been operated for a long time. Like having your insides slowly jam up. We had a chapter in Standard IX called "Games at Twilight". It wasn't a story, it was just about these bunch of kids wanting to get outside the house during a summer day. It was beautiful. There was this line that went "They felt like their lungs had been stuffed with cotton wool"... when the kids' mom/guardian wouldn't let them out of the house because it was a dog's day afternoon, and they could only go out when the evening came and the temperatures declined.

That line sums it up for me!

I don't know how anyone else goes through when they feel like this, but I feel like drinking a tanker of cold water… to swim… to fill my lungs with pure air till the point that they might burst! Pure is the key word here. My element is water. Water purifies… it dissolves the dirt, the grime. It even works away toxins… the chemical ones and the spiritual ones too. Some people would like to fly; I'd prefer to be able swim the depths of deepest oceans.

Dolphins have it good!

Epilouge: I'd like to thank Akku, who flew back to Dubai on Friday, for the Title. She asked me to buy her the book as a going away present! I think it's a wonderfully appropriate book for her since she is such a princess and has the most feline demeanor that I've ever seen in a person!

Stop or my Mom will Chant...

2005-07-29T23:41:00.000+04:00

Man, I’ve lost my enthu to talk about this now! Why do I make these commitments! Sigh, ok here goes…

If you knew my mom’s mom you’d be able to imagine what kind of a life she must have had before she married my dad.

A very very proper one.

Since she married my dad however, mom has been mostly away from her mom’s home. And I still say that its done her a lot of good! She is the only lady on her side of our family who drives, swims, and says “Shit” (albeit only when duly provoked).

There was this time I came back from school to find her practicing Reiki for the first time. It was pretty weird to see her standing there, with her arms stretched outwards to her side, eyes closed, face skywards. She was looking for her aura, I learned later.

Then there is the Yoga club she is a part of. She’s even got my dad enthu about it. There must be something to this alternative new age thing coz there aren’t that many things that get my dad enthu.

Now they are both hell bent on convincing me that all my ailments (they never say what it is that they think ails me!) can be cured within weeks if I just learned the proper way to breath. And then they proceed to demonstrate. Its pretty distracting, all that huffing and puffing, especially when a dude is trying to relax after a long day.

But anyway, I had come to terms with living in a house with crystal pyramids, bronze turtles, full metal jackets (ya… and you thought the name was metaphorical), magnetic healing belts, wooden rollers, and feng-shui inspired orientations. At least it was quiet.

But then, the chanting started!

YES, people! My parents, both of them, have joined a “Cult”. Why the quotes? Coz they don’t call it that… it’s not politically correct, you see. Of course, there is no fun in being politically correct.

But what the “heck”…

Anyway, they, my parents, both of them, have been issued a small blue book each… it contains the sacred Japanese (I figure its Japanese… but honestly, who can tell?) text that one is supposed to chant… (and with lots of energy) twice a day for 15 hours each. Or so it seems. The words all have accents to explicate the appropriate pronunciation. The editors, however, have deemed it excessive to include the translation of the sacred text.

“The meaning is explained when we get to the next level.” My mom explained to me.

Actually, there isn’t anything strange about it really… If singing bhajans or hymns in Hindi or English can make a difference, why not chanting in Japanese dialects?!

Liberal guy that I am… I have learned to let my parents do their own thing without any interference from my side. I figure, sometime you just gotta let them go and hope that you taught them well.

It has begun.

Lock Soc (and Two Guys Smoking Up).

2005-07-25T00:01:00.000+04:00

I was groping around in the second floor storeroom trying to find a certain Form 16 that I need in order to file tax returns (Seriously… I file for taxes now! WTF!) and came across an old cardboard box that I thought I had thrown out a year ago. It turned out to be some random stuff that had found its way into the drawers of my desk in College.

Here’s some of the stuff I saw after a long time…

1. The Allnutt South Spice that bore the (presumably) author’s lip prints in red lipstick! (A spice, for the uninitiated, is the College equivalent of a gossip column that was anonymously written and left outside the mess just before dinner … Spices were meant to make scandalous insinuations about those unfortunate enough to be targeted. Sometimes they were about people’s love life, physical deformities, or flawed personalities… usually they were about ALL of those!!!). I still think that this particular spice was pretty well written!! (it said I had well-built arms!!)

Anyway, I got enthu and looked around some more… here’s some other stuff that I found…

2. The lyrics from the first “Blue’s Game” we ever played in M4. (I don’t know how many people know this… The Blue’s Game is this song building thingie. Basically, every person has to come up with a line that rhymes with the previous line, and then come up with a new line that the next person has to rhyme with… its fun when you only have as long as the chorus, to come up with the rhyming line. (I’ll post the song later…)

3. A photocopy of the Spoof News Clipping I made, when Swapnil spanked Tommy by mistake! (uh… I just can’t explain this one) And listen!! Whoever has the original, I want it back!!!

4. The Oath that Yohan wrote down in first year, first term. It’s on this yellow writing paper.

5. A hand made envelope that Jayati and Swapnil used to gift-wrap a chocolate for me! It has this suggestive cut out in front and it was meant to cheer me up… (It did!)

6. Snaps from the Bangalore-Kerala-Coonoor-Erode trip. Pretty good, especially the black and white ones…

7. Besides that, I found this diary of mine that I wrote in pretty sporadically. Its got stuff written about “the bloody MosSoc”, the “Bhang on holi” trip… in fact lots of stuff… but here’s a small bit that I found particularly good…

We are having a party tommorow at Mrinal’s Place. Booze by the tub! Let’s hope that turns out OK! on the margins, I have added on a later date… Almost got arrested. Cops still visit Nithya and Tanaya’s flat.

later on…
Yesterday, we (this is Nithya and Me) were in KRC’s class and Tanaya was not present, KRC asked Nithya something about her and she replied something like “She’s not feeling well” (of course). Then we both glanced at each other and mumbled “Narain” at the same time and got back to work.

Hehehehehe…

Hmmm… what to write now?

Oh yeah… the Title… Iyer came up with that one evening… in second year first term. Me and him ran into Yohan and Anandroop one evening by the lamppost near the chapel. They had just watched Star Trek Voyager at Sunil’s place and were discussing Sci-Fi… We joined in, later on we all went to laze around Andrew’s Court… I guess this was after dinner… we stayed there for many hours and then just when we were all set to go to our rooms to sleep, someone came up with the suggestion that we go up the “D.U. Dick” (This is this astronomical observatory behind College that is no longer used and provides an awesome view of Delhi University from its top, especially at night.) So we did the usual jumping off ledges, 50 feet above the ground, breaking the loc and reached the observation room at the top and sat there just talking.

Anandroop was pissed off that there was no place couples could go for some privacy… Iyer was passing silly but hilarious comments as usual... hell, I don’t remember all the stuff we talked about that night… Sci-Fi, H2G2, Pratchett, Cartoons (Robotech), Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n Roll (seriously! We did!), movies, College… by the time we got back it was 3:30 AM I think and we had decided to form a new Society… it was christened “Lock Soc (and Two Guys Smoking Up)” coz we had to break a lock to get to the observation room and Anandroop and Yohan had said that it was a good place to smoke up! Iyer and I, of course, weren’t gonna smoke up… so there would always be – and this was the first rule of The Lock Soc (and Two Guys Smoking Up) - only two guys smoking up at a time!

The second rule was “You do not talk about Lock Soc (and Two Guys Smoking Up)” but since that was the only meeting the Society ever had, maybe its OK to talk about it now! :)

Weapon of Choice (or ???)

2005-07-21T23:41:00.000+04:00

The Funds project that I was working on is over and I am going to treat myself by being random.

Christopher Walken is the coolest guy on TV. I saw the whatszitname Fat Boy video. You gotta give it to the man… what did he think before he decided to dance… and then, what did he think before he decided to dance like that. Walken does a jig in every role he gets. And there’s also the way he talks… HE is the opposite of mundane. He is interesting, he is remarkable, he is fascinating. If it was possible to die of admiration I’d be, well, dead.

That’s how he talks. I can’t talk like that for nuts but I can type like that anyway.

I saw a movie of his some days back… the one starring the Rock and the Dude from Dude, where’s my car? I think it was called Rumble in the Jungle… but don’t correct me if I am wrong (hmmm… déjà vu, have I already said this somewhere?). There’s this scene in which he is talking about the tooth fairy to his henchmen… funniest thing I’ve ever seen!

Muhammad Ali is another cool guy. I was watching a documentary on the History Channel on his rivalry with whatszizname. Here’s a man, who stood up to the government and dared it to do it’s worse. An expression of freedom as such… strikes me as being better than cool… its beautiful! I never found boxing interesting till I learned a bit about Muhammad Ali. I still wouldn’t bother to watch any fights that happen now but I am a big fan of Ali. What a guy!

I spoke to Chandra a couple of days back… he told me that he read this blog. I also spoke to George, who said the same thing. Jon Jon, you ought to be a PR agent, man! It’s not as cool as being a secret agent man but you’ll definitely be better at it!

Yohan can’t keep a secret to save his life, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Of course, I didn’t want to keep this blog a secret or anything… but frankly, I am surprised whenever I find out about someone new reading my blog. Nishtha and Nisha have been here too… I don’t know why but I was quite pleasantly stunned!

I was pleasantly stunned some days back when my mother told me very seriously to have a love marriage rather than an arranged marriage! I literally know my mom inside-out and I didn’t see that coming!

Jyotsana thinks that I look like an old woman in a wig in that snap… hey? Does that anyone else think that? Try as I may, I can’t imagine any old women in a wig.

I think the Internet is a cool thing. Vidya thinks that it hinders the “personal touch” between people. Kinda depends on your perspective, Vids. I may not be as busy as I give the impression of being but I sure as hell can’t spend hours with friends like I used to. I used to think email was great since it made it possible for people to stay in touch… but that’s just one part of the staying in touch process. This virtual discussion thing is beyond anything we’ve seen so far. I never appreciated how much it means to have so much information at your fingertips, as the cliché goes. But now, on a fancy, I can find out the difference between the repo rates and the reverse repo rates, I can find out the name of the thirteenth zodiac, or I can look up the University of Addis Ababa.

Next time on The Hitchhiker’s Guide…

That Itchy Feeling.

It was the Butler...

2005-07-17T19:38:00.000+04:00

I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Ok... this is not the mature and intelligent post I was gonna write. And No! I don't think JK Rowling is God and HP will deliver us from evil. Its just that I bought and read the book at a stretch. And since I can only write at weekends and this weekend has been all about HP... here goes...

My favourite book is still Prisoner of Azkaban. That sounds harsh i guess.. i mean i like HBP too... "the Cave " sequence... "Spinner's End".. both kick ass.. but the thing that was wrong was that

1. there were no hints... except the note from R.A.B.... kind of at a bad time tho... and then there was no theories or further hints regarding RAB... though i think most people are think of the same guy. I won't assume JKR will be predictable in book 7 tho.
2. which brings us to point 2. The "revelation" was kind of expected... rather a let down. Of course, theories and rumours won't stop yet! I see others contemplating that the "HBP" was acting on Dumbledore's order (Note: I am feeling very nerdy right now... but will push on anyway... who cares etc.)... don't know man!
Comment from Orkut- Harry Potter Rumours (Geek!! Kind of settles it, huh?)
Amiya...the cool thing about every HP book is the clue it leaves in its wake... thats why the whole hype is there... everyone has a theory on what happens next... heck, this community is an example...But, there is no hint that SS was actually good... except the same old "DD trusts him for a reason"... now, if DD is dead (again no clue that he is gonna return plus that would be corny) then the final victory sort of loses part of its perfection... ideally, all JKR had to do was to leave enough scope for theories to be based on something concrete...Ya, SS could be good/bad, DD culd be alive/dead whatever... but there isn't much left for the reader to work with... for me, book 6 is literally a half book...

Right-O... have to go to the Star Trek convention now... so I shall add more later on...
(where are those damn pointy ears?)

And Someone we know thinks of the Grim Reaper when she says "sowing your wild oats"...

I Had A Feeling Twenty One Was Going To Be A Good Year...

2005-07-14T11:10:00.000+04:00

... and it was.

july 15th 2005
I was going to take today off and relax but decided against it at the last minute. I've been meaning to write down some intelligent stuff (Santa jokes hardly count huh?) but something always gets in the way... work, women, family, kids (not mine!)...

Will do that tommorow...

By the way, Barkha got me the coolest present... she has a knack for picking up the right stuff for me... a pack of original playing cards from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas!
Man! I've not been so kicked with a gift in some time!

1:31 pm
One of those agonizing questions has finally been answered. Blogger does update one's age on Birthdays.
That's right... everyone can relax and get on with their lives now...

7:28 pm

mitty (MIT-ee) noun
An ordinary, timid person who indulges in daydreams involving great adventures and triumphs.
[After the title character in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a short story(1939) by James Thurber, later made into a movie (1947) of the same name.]

Life is full of coincidences eh?! Abhishek?

My Favourite Santa Joke so far...

2005-07-11T19:12:00.000+04:00

Warning: This post contains adult language and possibly offensive thoughts.

(I love being dramatic!)

One night, Santa was driving in the bad part of town.. it was raining and
visibility was very poor. Santa is cursing away at his bad luck to be caught
outside on a night like this.

He says: "Behenchod! aaj mera luck hi Kharab hai!!"

Suddenly, there are two loud bangs and the car stops! Santa gets out in the
pouring rain to see what happened... and realises that both the front tyres
have punctured!!

He says loudly: "Behenchod! aaj mera luck hi Kharab hai!!"

So, Santa is standing outside... in the rain, in the bad part of town, with
two flat tyres. Now, since this is the bad part of town, soon Santa finds
himself surrounded by a gang of criminals... they slap him around a little
bit.. take his wallet, and even his cloths and then drive off in his car!!!

So, Santa is standing outside... in the rain, in the bad part of town,
without clothes, and his car has also been stolen!

He says loudly: "Behenchod! aaj mera luck hi Kharab hai!!"

Suddenly, through the pouring rain, the headlights of a truck appear! Santa
rushes in front of it waving his hands and pleading for it to stop! Just in
time the truck screeches to a stop! The Truck driver gets out! Santa thanks
his stars that he finally got a break! He rushes to to driver and tells him
the entire story! How he was caught in the rain, how his car got two
punctures, how he was accosted by a gang of criminals, and how they took his
money and his clothes!

The Truck Driver listens in awe, nodding his head... then he takes his own
clothes off... Santa is stunned!! He asks "bhai Sahab!! aapne kyon kapre
utaar diye!!??"

The Truck driver smiles at Banta and says...

"Behenchod! aaj tera luck hi Kharab hai!!"

I am Going to Delete this after I am done Laughing.

2005-07-08T17:17:00.000+04:00

(Ok, i won't)

HeadLine: Morgan Hwang, chairman of Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp, center, pours a beer fountain with the help of model Lei Hong, left, and rock star Wu Bai, right, in Taipei yesterday. Wu will again feature in a series of ad campaigns for Taiwan Beer this year, while Hwang is slated to take over as chariman of Taiwan Power Co.
PHOTO: CHEN YI-CHUAN, TAIPEI TIMES

Copyright 2005 Central News Agency
Central News Agency - Taiwan
July 01, 2005, Friday
LENGTH: 289 words
HEADLINE: CHANGE OF GUARD IN TAIWAN TOBACCO AND LIQUOR CORP
BYLINE: By Lilian Wu
DATELINE: Taipei, July 1
BODY:
blah blah blah
and here it gets arbid
Hwang, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, asked his old colleagues
in the TTLC not to set the termperature of the air conditioners too
low or dress too much to help conserve energy, in an attempt to show
that he is ready for his new job at the Taipower.
Hwang, 64, holds a doctoral degree in business management from
National Chengchi University.

There was something about this just seemed toooo weird man! Like those weird Chinese movies! I thought that was just bad acting! Hehehe... check out the Rockstar dude man! I can't stop laughing! And his name is "Wu Bai"!! ROTFLMAO

Have You Ever Pissed Off a Rickshaw, dude?

2005-07-04T07:56:00.000+04:00

Quotable Quotes from the weekend (NOT to be confused with Unquotable Quotes, which are not quoted here.. well, duh!)

I have just a few minutes to spare right now... will add the rest later...

"Have You Ever Pissd Off a Rickshaw, dude?"
Captain George P. Jacob, on the way back to his flat after an evening at Mojo

"No, but I've pissed off my Boss a couple of times..."
Me, in reply to the above

"What about this Ocean here?"
The Captain, a little later..."

Clarification : The Good Capitaan was merely offering a word of caution to the Rickshaw waala who seemed in a bit of hurry and might have driven straight into a puddle of rainwater on the road. And he was, in no way, responsible for the "Ocean".

"Indian Philosophy is spiritual... we are thinkers... while Western Philosophy is materialistic... they are doers. To illustrate... we produce better software engineers while they produce better hardware engineers. To further illustrate... they invented all the other numbers, while we invented Zero."
IMS instructor explains philosophy... and pretty darn well

"I am OK with him... as long as he stays out of my territory!"
Ragaputin, bringing me up-to-date on his love life

"I have lost the will to Live..."
Me, trying to say "I have lost the will to Drink"

"I have an ironic theory... no... that's what it's called...The Ironic Theory."
Gautama shares his wisdom.

"If there is a God, He must be a stud, huh?"
Me... having decided that the world is going to be OK!"

Who Says Animal Sacrifices Don't Work?

2005-06-23T16:39:00.000+04:00

The Air Conditioning is back...

aaah sweet bliss.

PS: Yohan, my second thought was of Coonoor... your house...trekking up that riverbed with the cool wet breeze coming off the waterfall...

PS(2): the first thought, was some joke involving Henry Ford and three guys named Norm, Hi, and Max.

A Sign of the Times.

2005-06-20T12:54:00.000+04:00

Here's an interesting thought that I had today.

Is physical proximity becoming less and less relevant with regards to social interaction?
In general, on a working day, the only face-to-face conversations that I have are with my TL when there is an issue that has to be sorted. And my life hasn't yet reached such depths of insipidness that I start calling such conversations, "social interaction".

Ranking by propinquity, the next level of interaction is through the internal office messenger. (The button's of which say 'Fire' and 'Intercept'!! I am still damn kicked about that!) I think that the IP (short form for internal messenger, don't ask me why) has the singular honor of being the funniest tool ever created by Mankind. For one, the messages that are exchanged over IP consist largely of "hehehehehe!!", or "lunch?", or "Please Close XYZ file. I need to use it." The second and more important reason is that these messages are exchanged between people sitting NEXT to each other. If you turn to speak to the person who sent the message, you'll find them staring expectantly at their screen. Then, to make the absurdity complete, when you say something, they only turn around to face you with extreme reluctance… almost as if they want to say "Do you mind, I am working here!".

Don't get me wrong, these are perfectly nice people, and let me also clarify…I am a big fan of IP!

Moving along, the next level of social interaction for me, is through SMSs. When the day's work is done (the chickens locked up and the horse droppings swept away) I lie in my bed and often find myself wondering what my friends might be upto. Since I am too cheap to call up anyone, I shoot off a highly intimate "How's it Going? Delhi is very hot man! Are you coming here sometime?" to buddies in different parts of the country. Sometimes, I add an abuse to make it even more intimate. The girls tend to call back and the guys generally reply sometime around 3 when I am no longer missing anyone. Besides these highly intimate messages, I also receive 30-50 communiqués from banks (offering easy loans to ease all my financial troubles), pizza joints (offering an extra pizza on every purchase of a pizza exactly large enough for me), and the Caller Tune people (trying to convince me that all that is wrong with my social life can be fixed by downloading Punjabi music and making people who call me listen to it.) I can't decide whether SMSs constitute genuine interaction or do they only help to cure the anxiety that one may be losing touch with people.

Next up, we have online discussions through this Blog on raging current issues like… well... read One Lump or Two? . Besides, there is the adorable PaGaLGUY.com a brilliant discussion forum for MBA aspirants and good fun for everyone. I like it even when I find myself arguing that perhaps all poor people are NOT lazy and cerebrally weak with yet another guy who thinks he's got the world figured out because he's just read Ayn Rand.

These forms of interaction are in some ways even better than real face-to-face discussion! Firstly, they are protracted over not hours but days!! Generally, people who participate in my Blog discussions talk my type of arbidness so the chaos is familiar and heart warming. By the way I think Batman just kills the scene! And, at PG, you can pick what you wish to respond to or talk about… they even have a thread on "Right Woman to Marry" though so far, I've keenly resisted the urge to add my comments there!

Now that I am here, there is much to be said about the wonders of the Information Age. The free speech, the free porn, the almost free means of communication, and of course, the huge amounts of knowledge that one can pick up from the comforts (tight pants or not) of one's swivel chair.

Keep watching this space, for more on that.

PS: Not Literally!! You can go pee now and then.

Office Humour...

2005-06-15T19:05:00.000+04:00

Maybe I've been in a working environment for too long.. but I found this funnier than the ads posted by desperate and linguistically challenged gais an' gaals looking to be making frands with other "open-minded", "fun-loving" types through DT, HT City, or those online dating/matrimonial websites which I never visit (the very thought!)...

I think its because of the comments... (3 Hours Later: Or maybe not...)

Cover letter: I would be prepared to meet with you at your earliest convenience to discuss what I can do to your company."
I am thinking... a horse's severed head.

Cover letter: "It is my professional objective to obtain a position which allows me to make use of my commuter skills."
I think we can oblige

Cover letter: Weaknesses: "Suffer from prickly heat in summer."
Sounds uncomfortable.

Cover letter: "Enclosed is my resume for your viewing pleasure."
Hold on while I get the chips..

Cover letter: "You are privileged to receive my resume."
We'll try not to let it go to our heads.

Cover letter: "To mature in the field of human behavior."
Having conquered the animal world?

Cover letter: Experience: "10 years of experience in financail budgiting and transactions rigistering."
But limited experience with the spell-check function.

Cover letter: "Please overlook my resume."
too late...

Cover letter: "I'm submitting the attached copy of my resume for your consumption."
Yum.

Cover letter: Skills: "Grate communication skills."
Yes, but can you talk and chop at the same time?

Cover letter: Experience: "Responsibilities included recruiting, screening, interviewing and executing final candidates."
CIA not working out anymore eh?

Cover letter: "Salary demanded - $65,000."
Would you like that in small, unmarked bills?

Cover letter: Education: "B.A. in Loberal Arts."
Did you minor in ear piercing?

Cover letter: "I've updated my resume so it's more appalling to employers."
It has worked…

Cover letter: "My intensity and focus are at inordinately high levels, and my ability to complete projects on time is unspeakable."
Unquestionably Hired!

Better than the Assembly Speech? (or Shall we Tell the President?)

2005-06-13T18:35:00.000+04:00

I vow, this is the last mail I post on this blog... but this was too good to pass...

Also, as some of you might have guessed I am very impressed by titles such as "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"

friends and lovers,,,,
its bin a while ive made my presence felt...im still livin in mauritius an hope to get back to my land by august.....this island is really beautiful but slightly boring..... my work place is one big mess and its screwed my thinking in a lotta ways...the world is wicked..the initial shock is over. the stephanian ideal of peace an numb comfort sadly doesnt fit here.....an i do not think it really fits anywhere except that comfortable hole.

scotch is dirt cheap here but the cost of living is fire high....its landlocked u see so evrythin is costly....weekends i go out to the beach an get smashed on scotch,,, my only respite.

if M-4 was unleashed here we cud ve turned things around....but those days r gone an its pretty memories. miss u guys a lot. murthy congrats on makin it to xlri...good shit....raghu wot u upto....studies or work an how was ur erode to lahore expedition....jakka wot u contaminatin in bombay, im sure ur gonna bring sin into tommys an yohans lyf. tanaya i no ur workin in bangalore, so wots up? an listen maybe ill come to bangalore august end or sept first week,,lemme no if ur still around. georgi boy an thawakley hows the whether an lyf treatin u. u no wot...may b we shud all meet up sometime....lemme no if somethin inspires.

till then don dieThoma(member)

p.s madhu,, take a bath please

That Irritated Feeling.

2005-06-12T20:55:00.000+04:00

I have got it.

It’s a blisteringly hot day in Delhi… the birds are croaking, the frogs are sizzling, and people are getting on each other’s nerves. I had stepped outside to get a haircut but instead, found myself being lured into a shady cyber café by the decadent charms of an AC. After the traditional staring-at-the-screen-willing-myself-to-think ceremony (A regular write of passage, you might say), I have decided to type out whatever crap comes to mind. Some of it is profound. Some of it is mundane. Most of it is retractable without apology.

Was Jinnah secular?

Was your Grandfather’s barber secular? Did he brush his teeth? How the hell does it matter? What kind of stupid f***s can’t get over the Partition? Firstly, Pakistan is in way more shit than India, so if there hadn’t been a partition, we would have had all their problems, secondly, even if there was some big emotional ripping apart experience, it was 58 years ago. I feel really sorry for the poor guys who still wallow in the tragedy that was The Partition. Get over it You Morons! Some people have REAL problems; if you are such a big nationalist do something about that.

Is Ideology greater than an Individual?

My ideology is that it’s not. Sue me.

Is there a God?

Man created God. You can pick your answer.

What do Women want?

To be respected and dominated at the same time. And it’s not as contradictory as it sounds. (That’s what they want from a guy, don’t ask me what they do in shops).

What’s the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything?

A wise man (even though he was in love at the time) once told me: “The funny thing about life is that we live it in one direction and understand it in another.” Whatever other profound implications that has for philosophy, it certainly means one thing: There is only so much time you should ponder over a question. You can never know anything for certain. You can back up everything and question everything.

So, in effect… 42 is perfectly fine.

What do Women want ?

See above.

What is it like to be an adult? (or is Tarantino a good film maker?)

I liked Pulp Fiction… it was funny and violent and well done. Kill Bill, however, sucks. One of my cousins was staying over last night. She turned on the TV late last night. Just the kind of a thing I’d do. She changed channels in rapid succession. Just the kind of a thing I’d do. And settled on a scene in which Uma Thurman is smashing a bad guy’s head between a door and the edge of the doorway. Normally, I would not have minded seeing such gratuitous aggression but in this case I felt a sudden urge to plonk© (All Rights Reserved.) my cousin and ask her to watch something more placid. A good old saas-bahu drama perhaps, wherein the height of aggression is a “One Tight Slap”, which leaves a woman and her illegitimate son with no choice but to destroy the aggressor’s family. I was even willing to watch some idiot of a singer getting orgasmic while expressing his love for Sonu Nigam. I realized at that instant what my parents go through each night and why, despite the fact that logic always seems to be on my side in the ensuing argument, I should listen to them anyway.

Note to self: The spoiling-my-kids-rotten plan might need some reconsideration.

Why can’t trees move and speak? (or What is Childhood?)

The first memory that I have of school is getting thrown out of a class play because I had the nerve to walk amongst the rest of the characters from Old McDonald’s farm and try chatting with them. I was repeatedly warned of course, but no one really explained why can’t I have lines simply because I was vegetation? Hell, even my brother had a cheep-cheep here and a cheep-cheep there.

Here’s what is wrong with the world? It misplaces importance. Childhood is when you have your priorities right.

…I have a lot of Final Solutions lying around but not enough time to write them right now (Look Ma! No commercial breaks!)… Do mail in with questions I might have missed, suggestions to be coolly ignored, checks to be cashed in immediately, and comments that amuse me into writing.

Yours Faithfully,
Till Death do us Part,
Etc etc,
And all that Jazz.

One Lump or Two?

2005-06-03T10:22:00.000+04:00

Note to Unsuspecting Readers: The following post is only for the purpose of tearing Vidya, Yohan, Maity, and Myself away from the comments section of the previous post. Please do not assume that this blog only hosts surrealist cartoon characters admiring a Dali painting in Wonderland (Alice waala). Most of the time I only talk sense.

End of Note.

Note to Suspecting Readers: I have done a bit of Research (I don't run a racket! I am a researcher.) and added some links and corrected soem spelling errors. A HitchHiker's Guide to this post I guess. Will add a few more links if I come across more info.

End of Note.

On Monday, May 30, 2005 I copy-pasted Maity’s sequel mail to “Days of Our Lives Part 1”… a bizarre night in the Big Apple.

I think 3 days and 350 hits later, a quick review would be interesting…

Vidya started the proceedings with a “I wasn’t gonna read this post”… lets pause a minute here to laugh till our heads plonk off (By the way, Ms. V… thanks for bringing the word “plonk” back into my life… I hadn’t used that one since 1993)… there was some arbid reference to the Olsen Twins and soap operas … I, of course, replied with information about my birthday… then Maity replied with something about Mad magazine and Mark Wahlberg’s third nipple… he followed up with some uncalled-for insinuations that I serve hygienically questionable icing on my birthday cake (Dude?? WTF??) and some jibes at my dear flourscent green sweater. There followed some chit chat about the bucket that I left for Maity being used to kennel puppies. Meanwhile remarks were exchanged between Ms. V and Maity berating one’s poor taste in movies and cheap Indian mentality, violence in NYC and Max Paine.

Vidya expresses unexpected sympathy towards my cakeless childhood.

Around here, Maity first expresses concern about the future (the Future in general), in the light of our conversation thus far.

Then he offered to bring over some “chicken, with halucinogens interlaced with the meat”, which he claimed was all the rage in Addis Ababa currently. Since the conversation had already reached beyond any normal levels of insanity, no one noticed the reference… no doubt much to Maity’s disappointment, forcing him to explicitly inform us regarding his impending internship (unpaid) at the University of AA. I refused to be drawn into any comments involving puns.

Vidya tests her wild imagination with regards to my use of a pail before the puppies moved into it. [theres a line you never thought you’d hear, huh?]

She then threatens to call the ASPCA. There is also present a secondary conversation about security checks of parcels containing cakes/mould from my Power Keds/weed. There is some talk of what lies beneath a man’s sweater.

The blog template changes on its own at this point.

I blame the “Fourth Dimension” and make a showy reference to PG Wodehouse. Maity tells an anecdote about a pothead friend of his, who sued the DEA for checking his parcels for less than an ounce of weed. Some talk of socks, mangoes, and Ethiopians that I don’t wanna get into now. In answer to Ms. V’s ASPCA threat, I tell her about “The theory of manipulated canine evolution”.

Vidya misconstrues our nature and walks out under the impresion that we are from Yale. Maityman explains, I call him normal and it’s the end of day one’s play.

Ms. V returns and tries to convince us that she was aware of the difference between Ethiopia and Elbonia (its not real Vidya! Scott Adams made that up!).

Enter Yohan.

Passes flowery comments to emphasise his Mallu ancestary and musical knowledge. Names a few works by Wodehouse just to be sure. Enquires about the circumstances that brought me and Ms. V together. Ms. V hits on him like a tramp! (no offense Vidya… Yohan is a big tramp too!! and we still like him)

The convesation turns to Bryan Adams. There is another conversation happening on Ms. V’s Blog about heavy metal music. I feel the first symptoms of a nervous breakdown and resolve to give up coffee.

Maityman returns. Makes fun of my Sania Mirza fan club, claims fever and retires to bed. I go UP ka Bhaiyya on the blog! (sorry about that folks). Maity throws some angle on music. Yohan suggests I get a chatterbox/shoutbox… I agree… it slows the flow of conversation.

Someone anonymously solicits homosexual partners and generously offers to throw in a beating!! (Own up!! Which one of you was it??)

Ms. V says that I seem happy, I am outraged that she didn’t think that I was happy the day before.

The convesation turns to Thursdays(!!!!)

Yohan proves he is strange by claiming he is a mallu who prefers tea to coffee… its Ms. V’s turn to be outraged! Yohan abases Tuesday, Thurday and Wednesday and insinuitaes something about Mondays too.

Vidya remarks on how productive we are. There is some adulation of Garfield.

I mention a poem my mom used to sing to me when I was little. Its about the characterstics of a child based on the day he/she is born. After seeing the poem, I realize that I’ve been having had (yes! That’s correct grammer… go check!) by my own mother!!

Meanwhile Yohan is still talking about Tea Vs Coffee.

I argue that Thurdays should be considred better than Wednesdays and immediately realize the direness of the situation. I call upon all present to back up a little bit and go blogging. Ms. V throws a tantrum like the girl she is and claims she has more important things to do… Study for her exams apparently.

I answer with a retort about her choice of subjects to study… and round it off with a sexist “Women!!”. Vidya brings back the word “plonk” into my vocab. (and do you really study statistics???)

Yohan meanwhile is still talking about Coffee and Tea.

Neha shows up after her exams and enquires about the Tornado.

Days of Our Lives II - New York Minute...

2005-05-30T07:48:00.000+04:00

Legal Disclaimer: The contents of following post almost certainly bear no reference to actual events and definately not to any people (living or dead or me)... However, I like to think they do (but still not to me).

"
sorry for the extremely long wait... exams over and all, i'm back in calcutta... (happy belated birthday btw, sorry)

(Vaibhav- My Birthday is 6 weeks away, you Moron!)

as promised here's the second installment of "Days of Our Lives"...entitled Episode II: New York Minute... Unlike Lucas' much awaited Star Wars III, hopefully this second and final installment of "New York Minute" won't be sorely disappointing and riddled with corny dialogues.

When we last met our unassuming hero, he was caught in a crossfire of .45 caps at the basement of NYC's hell-hole - the Port Authority Bus Station... a short recap to bring you back to the scene:

4 am: A massive caucasian male, standing roughly at around 6ft with dirty salt and pepper dreadlocks and a overworn moss green trenchcoat walks into the cafe. No one except for a few people take notice of him or the 9mm pistol he's holding in his right hand. Almost in a whisper he says "I'm so fucking pissed off, I'm going to shoot every one of you mother fuckers overhere". No one really responds. Needless to say, I was shit scared - I didn't really want to die in a cafeteria in a shady NYC bus station, there had to be a better way. With most eyes on him now, this maniac marches upto an old chinese (he could be Korean or Japanese or Thai, I couldn't really tell) guy who was eating a hotdog, picked him by the collar and askedhim "how much money you got huh, how much money you got?"

...END RECAP

The poor Asian gentleman was too scared to react and kept staring at Mr. Dreadlocks. Dreadlocks says, "so you dont have any money huh? I'll show you what money is." and saying so he opens the tote bag he was carrying and starts taking out wads of ten dollar bills (well they looked like $10 bills anyway) and starts placing them on the table. "See, this is what you call money, asshole" He then pushes the Asian gentleman back into his seat, slumps into the closest chair and starts crying. In between sobs he bawls out "What the fuck am I doing here? I'm supposed to in fucking Florida, what the fuck am I doing in NYC surrounded by you assholes!" In the mean time the transit guards have come back and try to appease this dude. For some reason, as if on cue, some dude's 2-in-1 starts playing that oldie Rick Springfield song "Jessie's Girl". The cops start sweet talking Dreadlocks (interestingly the radio starts playing "Wake me up before you go go"!). The cops tell him "Sir, just take it easy, throw the gun away, stay calm, we'll put u on a bus to florida pronto, just don't do anything rash and all..." Dreadlocks, fortunately decides to acquisce and slides his gun across the table, and the moment he does that, these two cops come in and beat the crap out of the dude with their night sticks...all to the tune of "wake me up before u go go"! It was a pretty insane scene. then they (the cops) take the gun and the money, put it back into the tote bag and took Dreadlocks away...that's the last I got to see these guys.

Then after a while, after all th excitement and adrenalin has subsided, I order some breakfast and try to get back to my book, when this fairly old gentleman, in a gaudy yellowing jacket and and brown sunglasses came and sat opposite me at my table and started dinking my coffee. I noticed that the entire left side of this guys face was burnt and scarred. Before I could react, the man spoke first. "So you think New York is a dangerous place, huh?" Slightly taken aback, I manage a shrug. "Obviously, you've never been to New Jersey" he continued. "You see these scars on my face? I didn't have these last weekend. I had just come out from a bar last friday night after enjoying a good evening of drinking and I was walking back home when these two muggers cam from behind, stabbed me in the back and threw acid on my face before making off with my wallet." (insert appropriate face of shock) "but these muggers, these muggers I can deal with, the real bastards are the ones who work in government hospitals. When I woke up, i was in this hospital and a couple of days later when they were ready to discharge me, i got my clothes and all back, and guess what, they'd cleaned out my little waist pouch which had all my credit cards and some cash...gone...all empty. but the worst part was, wait, check this..." (he opens the bag he was carrying and takes out a tweed jacket and holds it up and it's been cut quite neatly in two) "...they cut my brand new tweed jacket in half! So i go to the doctor and ask him, why the fuck did he cut my jacket in half? and he says that when i came in i was bleeding profusely and that they had to get the jacket off so he cut it. and i tell him, well if u can't fucking take three buttons off, you shouldn't call yourself a fucking doctor in the first place!" and saying so he picks up what was left of my coffee and bids me good morning and goes off...

I won't describe my reaction. I just quickly finished breakfast and spent the next hour till my bus cam in, in the toilet, trying to get some sleep and generally being safe. Well needless to say I came back to college "shaken but not stirred" and in my unshaven and unclean condition went directly to work (I was still an hour late, but my employeer decided not to dock my pay after she heard my story...)

I know there weren't any lightsabers or starfighters but I'm still working on creating my own brand of merchandise and licensed characters that i can market...

may his horse be with you,
maity. "

Vaibhav: Maity, I still say you have a Boring, Pointless Life!!!

A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream

2005-05-23T23:29:00.000+04:00

I utterly fail to comprehend the appeal that cold, gloomy, and (worst of all) short winter days hold for some people. Yes, I get the funda about hot coffee on bitterly cold nights. Very nice and all that. But how, the hell, can people prefer winter to Summer?

“Relaxed” is the most inadequate sounding word in the English language considering its meaning and implications. There should be one word that creates the same effect as “A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream”. I think Shakhu bhai knew what I am talking about when he wrote that play. Summer is like a mild form of love! Playing Football until the dark, a cool shower, the long days with mellow dusks, no exams (for most people anyway!), and summer parties. If there was a Heaven, I think it would always be summertime there!

Anyway, I had a typically chilled out summer weekend! The entire three days were like one long stretch after waking up from a deep sleep. On Friday evening, I met Sailo, who was leaving the city for home. We had a few cold beers and I hogged on Chicken Tikka at Ruby Tuesday’s. (“Cold Beer”… another summer thing!)

I was going to push off after that but Sailo was going for “Hazaar Khwaishein Aisi” with some people that I didn’t know so well and it turned out that they had an extra ticket. So, this being summer and all, I was happy to go along for it. As I wrote before the film was fantastic.

Saturday… I slept until Eight AM. (Its weird how I don’t feel sleepy when there is no compulsion to get up!) Made Breakfast for myself, took a shower and spent the day alternatively reading Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” (I’ll write about it when I am done)… and solving Math questions from CAT papers lying around. Had Kadi-Chawal for lunch, stuffed myself and slept in the afternoon! I did lots of stuff on Saturday evening but nothing particularly worth writing down… worth doing, but not worth writing about :)

Sunday morning, reached CAT class late (Guess some things never change)… cracked the tests. Had Golgappas during the break. Chatted with the instructor and another guy in my class. Decided on a schedule that I have not implemented yet. Had more great Home food (After three years of mess food that’s no small joy). Slept during the afternoon and was woken up by a friend who wanted to confirm that I was coming for a party in the evening. So, I went to Fusion Bar and Lounge at Mehrauli around 8.

“Fusion” is run by the same people, who brought you F-TV… but thankfully, its not quite as boring! In fact, it has a rather nice club vibe with its awesome lights and sound system. And, because of its somewhat discrete location, it gets a decent crowd too (which is rare in Delhi). I am not a big Fan of Hip Hop but its definitely awesome to jive to. Danced with a gorgeous lady all evening (who I shall be seeing again on Tuesday). She left with a promising “I had a great time tonight”… Aaaah!! Summertime! :)

Got a ride back with Hemant, who was drunk out of his mind. I was somewhat concerned (because after, among other things, 3 tequila shots you can only be “somewhat” concerned) about cops because of the bomb blasts earlier in the evening but the trip was uneventful. And for once, I was home later than my younger brother!

Monday was a holiday… Mahavir Jayanti I think. Mostly the same routine as Saturday, but in the evening, I finally managed to get out and buy a pair of jeans. The beauty of it is that Monday was probably the most “mid-summer night’s dream”ed day of the extended weekend and yet I can’t remember half the things I did today! All I remember is the feeling of summer…

My First Movie Review...

2005-05-22T14:49:00.000+04:00

Hazaar Khwaishein Aisi

Starring: Kay Kay Menon, Shiney Ahuja, Chitrangda Singh, Ram Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Yashpal Sharma, Arif Zakaria.

I saw a fantastic movie yesterday that I had not even heard about until ten minutes after entering the hall! And, of all the bizarre things to happen I saw it with the new block tutor of Muk West… nice guy…

“Hazaar Khwaishein Aisi” has its share of faults, but I just cannot bring myself to criticize it. It is not a pleasing movie to watch, in fact the end is quite disturbing. Nevertheless, that is exactly why it is a fantastic movie. It is honest because it neither tries to outrage you only to give you your money’s worth, nor does it conclude on a note of idiotic perfection to reassure you that all is well. This is the first time that I can say this for a film- some parts of it are trully funny and some heart-breakingly sad. The film is set against the backdrop of the Emergency era and the Naxalite Movement, but despite this and the never-ending depiction of the corruption and insensitivty of those in power, HKA’s main theme is not political. Rather, the film is a potrayal of the confusion and angst of a generation facing the real world for the first time. The main characters are people for whom police brutality, corruption, and casteism are just abstract ideas, until they see it with their eyes.

HKA starts in DU in the late 1960’s… when it was a hot bed of liberal philosophy and radical activism. It is a significant irony that the College being referred to implicitly (I am very sure of this but haven't actually confirmed it yet), turned down the director’s (Sudhir Mishra of Calcutta Mail fame) request to be allowed to film on campus… no doubt citing reasons of “tradition”. I do not know how much of the fim is based on actual events but I have heard and read enough nostalgic rememberances to know that a number of Stephanians were involved in the Naxalite movement in Bihar and MP.

My favourite character was Vikram Malhotra. In some ways, he understands the world better than the “idealists”. He is merely amused by it and feels no compulsion to fight it. There is no place in his philosophy for noble ideas like justice and democracy and he has no moral dilemmas while “gathering money and power at an alarming rate”. Yet, he is not like the politicians and the businesmen around him. Vikram sees the evil and the hypocrisy of those whom he deals with everyday and he also knows goodness when he sees it. He is, above all, honest to himself and trully cares for the woman he loves.

I am not going to give away any spoilers here, because I really want more people to see and appreciate this film. While it would have been even better if the acting had been more natural and the era-factor enforced properly, HKA still ranks much higher (in-my-not-so-humble-opinion) than anything in halls at the moment.

I wish I could say more.

If I was condemned to listen to one piece of music for eternity...

2005-05-18T16:16:00.000+04:00

... this is what I'd want it to be.

"And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our souls
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll

And she's buying a stairway to heaven..."

This, and the 65 seconds before this...
Sure, its been done to death, but hey! it's just THAT great...

Days of Our Lives Part 1

2005-05-03T17:19:00.000+04:00

When I get time from work I wonder if life has become boring and predictable after College.

Then I get a mail like the following one and I KNOW that it has.......

"Well the semester has seen a fair amount of snowstorms, sloth and other vices that go with extreme cold. Apart from a remarkable night in New York City, the details of which I have stated below, and a rather arbitrary weekend at Tufts University at Boston, the semester has been pretty straightforward, actually notthat straight-forward, but not as crazy as Stephanian times.

On the first day (a saturday) of Spring Break, dad called and told me that one of his friends would be flying to San Fransisco via New York and that I should meet this gentleman at JFK on thursday night. come wednesday I'm all set to go to the city, when my dad calls in the evening and informs me that the above mentioned gentleman would now be flying in on the following sunday instead.

saturday night I find out that there is a certain chap on campus who was going to be driving down to NYC on sunday morning. naturally I decided to hitch a ride with him. this guy tells me that we'll leave at 11 am on Sunday. I was fine with that since the before mentioned gentleman's flight was supposed to come in at 5:30 and NYC is only about 4 hours away from college.

Sunday: (I'll do the rest in an itenary format to speed things up, this keyboard sucks!)
As asked, I show up at my ride's room at 11, only to be told that it was in fact his brother who would becoming in from Yale to pick us up and drive us to the city and that his brother was not here yet.

12 pm: his brother turns up in a spanking new fuel guzzling Nissan SUV and we set off and I promtly fallasleep in the back seat.

2 pm: I wake up and look around and notice a rather large board saying "Welcome to Whitestown, Pennsylvania". I panic. "dude, aren't we going to the city?" i inquire. "yeah we are but my parents just called and they want me to return the SUV to them, so we'll take my truck from home and then go tothe city." my friend replies.

3 pm: I am cramped in the tiny utility seat in the back of a Chevy Truck and we're headed towards NYC.

6 pm: We reach the outskirts of NYC in a aplace called Beacon and my friend stops the truck outside therailway station and tells me to take the train from here to the city since he was not going to drive anyfurther since he was going to go to a friends place here.
7:30 pm: the freaking train takes an hour and a half to reach grnd central. i get onto a bus for JFK

8:00 pm: I'm in JFK. Obviously the fore mentioned gentleman is no longer waiting for me. I call dad and find out which hotel he's staying in and go there. I've never met this guy before in my life, but itturns out that he was pretty chilled and all. He gave me some money dad had sent and my plane tickets to flyback home. He asks me if I wanted to spend the night here or go back to college. Since I was working the next day, I decided to go back and took the West bound subway to the bus station at Port Authority.

9:45 pm; I reach Port Authority in time to miss the last bus to Utica by 15 minutes. the next bus is at 7in the morning. I have from 10pm at night till 6 in the morning to kill. I decide to go to Broadway.

I'm at Broadway, outside a theatre playing "The Lion King". They're sold out. Fortunately orunfortunately, I find a shady dude scalping tickets for the show close-by. I pay an exorbitant amount towatch the show, which was awesome!

1 am: I wander into the Laughter House to watch the comedian Kathie Lee perform. She's terrible...alhouse-wife humour. I walk out an hour later. i wonder why I stayed so long.
2am: the only kind of people on NYC at this time were drunk guys and girls, black chain gangs and 24 hourschinese food delivery people. I decide to head back to the bus station.

3 am: I'm sitting at the cafeteria downstairs of the bus station, trying to read "Brighter Than a ThousandSuns" when I and some other people in the cafe realize that the woman sitting next to me was trying to commitsuicide. This lady was a diabetic in her late 50s early 60s I would guess and her preferred method ofdying was tearing open sugar satchets and pouring the contents into here mouth. How did we find out? Wellwe noticed that there was a rather unusually large heap of empty sugar satchets on her table, maybe aboutforty or fifty and when one of the cafe staff guys tried to ask her what she was upto, something flippedin her head and she started cursing, flailing her arms about and screaming "let me fucking die the way I wantto, what the fuck is your problem?" Finally the transit guards showed up and managed to take her away.

3:30 am: The earlier events well behind us, the cafe is back into it's lethargic late night mode. thereare a few homeless drunks sleeping on the floor, or hispanic labourers with their families curiouslylooking at the shoes on display at one of the closed shops. Things were pretty quiet.

4 am: A massive caucasian male, standing roughly at around 6ft with dirty salt and pepper dreadlocks and aoverworn moss green trenchcoat walks into the cafe. No one except for a few people take notice of him orthe 9mm pistol he's holding in his right hand. Almost in a whisper he says "I'm so fucking pissed off, I'm going to shoot every one of you mother fuckers over here". No one really responds. Needless to say, Iwas shit scared - I didn't really want to die in a cafeteria in a shady NYC bus station, there had to bea better way. With most eyes on him now, this maniac marches upto an old chinese (he could be Korean orJapanese or Thai, I couldn't really tell) guy who was eating a hotdog, picked him by the collar and askedhim "how much money you got huh, how much money you got?"...

[I'll leave it at this cliffhanger...will maity escape with his life or will he succumb and become justanother New York crime statistic, find out in the next episode of "Days of Our Lives"]"

Warning!

2005-04-29T15:25:00.000+04:00

As a part of my ongoing efforts to make the world a better place, I would like to warn one and all that if you are ever accosted by the monstrosity that McDonald’s sells under the name Crispy Chinese Burger, back off slowly and don’t make eye contact.

I made the mistake of trying the damn thing and barely escaped with my taste buds intact. In case you are of the curious type, just go find someone with a very bad congestion and ask them what it tastes like...

Of this and, more importantly, that...

2005-04-21T19:58:00.000+04:00

My new interest in the Roman Catholic Church, the West’s inherent talent for Marketing, IMS, Lutyen’s Delhi, a Bike, a girl, and a movie script. Ya, theres a whole mess of things I could write about. The problem, as usual, is getting down the first lines.

Phew… so that’s done.

Ignoring the insensitive insinuations just for a moment, Benedict XVI’s ascension to the papacy was the coolest thing that I have seen on TV since 9/11. What with the “is the smoke black or white?” excitement and the tolling of the bells and a choice of name… the introduction of the new Pope to the world was good trivia-packed fun!

Since then, I have been trying to figure out the reasons behind the success of western culture in generating hype and awe when it comes to products and institutions. I suppose that a higher standard of living makes people in the West more receptive to “fun”. Which simply means that they are perhaps less cynical and more enthusiastic. In developing countries, where the social environment has evolved against a backdrop of poverty, people tend to have a rather morbid point of view. Out here, fun is associated with wastage and has an unsaid stigma attached to it. Everything has to do with “lessons in morality” and failure is attributed to flaws in one’s character.

Anyhow, I was writing about the West’s talent for marketing. In case of the Pope’s ascension, I am sure that religous fervour has some part to play when it comes to Catholics. But, in case of people like yours trully, what else but great marketing would make us sit in front of the TV at 12 in the night to watch a 78 year old man? I am wondering why is it that no Indian brand ever makes it so big as say Coke, Nike, Levi’s, MTV, iPod, or Blackberry? In India, the only hype ever generated is around celebrities. Between Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Sachin Tendulkar, and Shah Rukh Khan lies every product anyone has ever tried to sell in India.

Speaking of Marketing, I am going to be joining CAT classes at IMS from this Sunday onwards. I am pretty sure that they won’t teach me anything that I can’t learn on my own but joining an institute will at least help me pace myself and structure my prep. I chose IMS over others mainly because the classes will be at St. Columba’s school. That part of a town has the kind of relaxed charm that is associated with the trully successful! What better place to study for my professional degree?

Whenever I am in that area, I wish I were thundering about on my very own V-Rod. However, since I do not have the 16 to 18 lakhs to splurge just yet, I am thinking of settling for a desi cruiser. Only trouble is, gee wiz, a certain person that I am emotionally attached to is convinced that motorbikes kill too many people for me to have one. Well, looks like some marketing is in order.

~A few minutes of silence to let Steppenwolf perform the relevant number in my head~.

Ok, I have decided this will become too haywire a post if I were to continue the linkages mentioned at the beginning. My thoughts on “the girl” and “the movie script” shall have to wait for when I feeling more romantic and less pumped!

. 1 . 6 N4 6 N. 3 | 4 . 4 . . .

2005-04-15T12:51:00.000+04:00

What utter Shit!
Watching Afridi maul India is tiring ME out!
I can’t work under these conditions!
What utter shit!

PS: What utter shit!

H2G2- Official Movie Website

2005-04-14T07:34:00.000+04:00

Hmmm... what can one say?! I severely doubt the movie can be as good as the book... the trailer is about half as good.

So the plan is to keep expectations low and leave Condescension at home!

and yet! What if...??! What if!!!

See you in St. Louis!

2005-04-08T21:45:00.000+04:00

I got a weeklong leave from the 18th onwards! Woo Hoo! My first leave in Eight months! (Ya! I Know! Who'd have thunk?)

And I got it without much ado either... Frankly, I was expecting the scene to be something like this:

Me: uh... ahem! Can I speak to you alone for a minute?
Boss: Ha! Finally!! I knew professionalism was beyond you! Still... eight months! That's quite a bit! So what plans now?
Me: What?? Oh! That's not what this is about ~nervous laugh~ the thing is... ~wiping off cold sweat~ well, I got a lousy score in Policy last year and well, I want to give it another shot... the paper is on the 23rd and well! uh... I was hoping... as in I have to...
Boss: What?? ~Rolling of eyes and exasperated sigh~ you want the day off?
Me: Well, yes... I do need THAT day off...
Boss: ~sigh~ ok... lets see... I'll have to talk to New York about this... ~cold look of disgust, and starts walking off~
Me: Uh... wait... I'll need some days to study as well!
Boss: ~Pretending to hide look of shocked disbelief~ Really? ~Dogs start howling in the background, co-workers scurry to safety~ how... MANY... days?
Me: ~silence~
Boss: Well?
Me: ~beginning to enjoy myself now that the apocalypse is here (its the waiting that gets to me)~ Well! I did study for 3 whole days the last time but apparently that wasn't enough!
Boss: ~Checking handbag~ ahuh... ahuh...
Me: So I think I should take at least a week this time round!
Boss: ~withdrawing whip from handbag~ Well, You'll have to use your Medical leaves... ~whiplash!~
Me: ~Screams of agony~

But this is proof that all we have to fear is Fear itself. Here is what actually transpired...

Me: uh... ahem! Can I speak to you alone for a minute?
Boss: Yes? Tell me!
Me: Well... blah blah... improvement... blah blah...value... blah blah... nice handbag... blahblah...
Boss: ~Sigh~ Well Monday is a holiday, come on Tuesday, you have Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridayoff... and Best of Luck!
Me: ~Screams of ecstacy~

In other Serious News...

I have been assigned a new office. Its just too cool... There is a huge glass window that extends all along the outer wall of the building... and overlooks the kind of view that makes you want to plot world domination or at least invest in real estate. Its like sitting outside in the sunlight (but without the glare) however, with air conditioning. In the left fore front is the other tower, all glass and steel. I can see right into the coffee shop on the ground floor. When I feel like taking a break I just pick up my mug, lean back, and Voila! I am right there amongst the girls with shades resting on their heads and white men working on laptops.
I love it to bits!
Woo Hoo!

Impurity, Sin, and Damnation

2005-04-08T11:59:00.000+04:00

The City of Dis ?! Who the hell (pun unintended) thought of a name like that?? Don't diss me nigger or I'll take you down! Down to The City of Dis!!

and while we are on the subject... what level of hell is the City of Djinns? HA!! I crack myself up!

a tired blog...

2005-04-05T22:37:00.000+04:00

“Scarborough Fair” gets way less praise than it deserves! It is one of the most hauntingly beautiful songs ever written. I started humming it arbidly in the morning and then, suddenly realized what incredible poetry it is! Like some of Simon & Garfunkel‘s other stuff, it is an old folk song instead of an original composition. However, this one is English instead of American. Apparently, it was spread from village to village by travelling bards in ancient times.

I was imagining wild flower decked valleys, sparkling streams, and cold wind swept hillsides. Maybe that sounds lame... The song says something that words cannot. I guess that makes it a piece of Art.

Barkha called me up on my way back home in the evening to tell me that she was waiting outside my office. Since I was practically home, I told her to meet me at Saket instead. Whenever, I go to PVR I always… ALWAYS… run into someone by chance! This time it was Tarangita and Isheeta and they were not even together. Isheeta is currently working as the manager for a rock band! Finally! Someone who is neither in a B-School nor wants to get into one! I was getting sick of having the same type of conversations with everyone I meet!

I walked back home from there… and now I am wondering why!? Ok! A shower and then to bed!

a trippy experience

2005-04-01T11:46:00.000+04:00

I took a different route back home yesterday. It wasn’t by choice but I’m glad I did. I left office at almost exactly 6:00. Had met my targets and was feeling too lazy to exceed them. Googled for X-Men (I'm just glad I am not Cyclops), Harry Potter (this has more HP trivia than is healthy, including every futcha’s name ever called out during sorting! I love it!), and Van Gogh (“Starry Night” has finally pushed the Rishikesh snap off my desktop… 10 points for Vincent!).

Anyway, I had a very interesting trip back. Got a lift from a guy who drove at 20 for the first three kms. and then suddenly picked up to 80, as soon as traffic got a bit heavy! Later on we had to stop at a red light and our friend chose the precise moment that the light changed to speak for the first time. I think it was a joke about the corruption in Delhi Police, but there were too many horns blaring and drivers hollering to be sure. The dude then turned to stare at GB and me, smiled with the most chilling glint in his eyes and slowly turned up the volume on the radio. I was damn intrigued but had to get off at Mehrauli.

At Mehrauli, I found an auto guy who agreed to charge by the meter with such ease that I found myself disappointed at his lack of spirit! As it turned out, the distance and the charge readings on the meter had nothing to do with each other. While I was chatting with him about this detail, we happily sailed passed the turn. So, we navigated into this gap between two houses and found ourselves in a traffic jam (if a mule cart and a speed breaker can be called a traffic jam).

While we were waiting for the mule to get on with our lives, I noticed some minutiae about the neighborhood. The main building dominating the alley seemed about 200 years old, judging by the architecture and the dilapidation. Small shops selling multicolored oils (and I don’t mean different shades of golden… these guys were selling green and red stuff) sprouted out of incredibly small spaces. And, my favorite, someone was actually bedding goats on a balcony about 4 feet above my head.In the meantime, a dude on a motorcycle pulled up next to us and suddenly started making clicking noises. The mule must have understood because the jam cleared up at once and I reached home 5 minutes later.

Finis

Nothing changes…

2005-03-31T07:24:00.000+04:00

… but my mood.

Here’s what I did on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday:
Matching independently sourced data for East Asian companies by remembering their addresses. I did a bit of research and found out that this was the nineteenth leading cause of insanity worldwide.
I also mapped corporate structures for Canadian Income Funds. The luckiest break you can get on this project is if you find a SEDAR filing with a chart illustrating mutual holdings of the relevent entities. Of course, the chart is six or seven names connected by about thirty arrows in an area of half a computer screen. I have read Greek Tradegies with less screwed up relationships.
I was one second away from broadcasting a mail titled "Tyler Durden Rules" announcing the beginning of the recruitment process for Fight Club (Gurgaon Chapter). Fortunately, mom's yoga instructions paid off and large scale social upheaval was deferred yet again.

But today, I have it from reliable sources that the sun is shining and the birds are chirping. I feel like jiving to the beats of my TL’s cell phone and my heart is once again filled with a yearning to wander the world. To swim the oceans and feel the cold air on lonely mountain ranges.

Whats changed?

Bourgeois Boy Speaks

2005-03-25T19:53:00.000+04:00

I was once asked to attend an open discussion on the Gujarat riots. After the social workers talked about the problems at hand, the socialists had had a go at the Government, and the socialites were done blowing kisses, someone very kindly handed me the mike. I was young (well, younger than I am now anyway) and pretty worked up by then. To cut a long story short I concluded with an assertion that the hour of Revolution was upon us…
All I got for my passionate (if not original) exhortation was a patronizing smile from the moderator, a few rolling of eyes, and a couple of muffled snorts from my friends. Yeah right! Bourgeois Boy wants to start a Revolution!

Don’t think that I am complaining… they were right! I didn’t start a revolution and I didn’t go look for one either. But, it still felt great to express my thoughts… it was special because I realized the value of freedoms in general and the freedom of expression in particular.
That’s just about the time ToI and HT went from enriching-to-rags. Pretty ironic, huh? The moment I feel like talking, the newspapers start peddling porn and sensationalizing “what’s in”! But it sells, and it is a mildly free country, so I cursed indulgently… and switched over to the Hindu…
However, I read, “Give This Man a Visa” by Vir Sanghvi in HT last Saturday and realized that it was imperative that I make time to exercise my favorite fundamental right…

Ergo, the following…

Nationalism. It is the single most popular excuse in history that has been used to justify wars, genocide, martial law, imperialism, and the digging up of cricket pitches. What benefits does it yield? As far as I can see, it’s a pretty good way to start getting an identity. Like when you are down, it helps to emphasize your sense of self. Maybe it works for a country or community as well. I’d say it’s a good way to get to your own feet… use it beyond that, and you just start stamping on someone else. And the cycle continues. Its universal! There aren’t any good people or bad people, there are only stupid people who just want to feel strong… not actually be strong.

I recently got a PowerPoint file titled “Feel Proud to be an Indian”. It listed every C Level manager of Indian origin, in every major IT and software firm (Incidentally, none of them live in India). Then, the presentation mentioned a whole bunch of Indian scientists and their contributions to science. (None of them live in India either but that’s because they are all dead, most of them for about 2000 years).
I found that more insulting than the US denying Modi his vacation. How can someone assume that my pride in myself is dependent on someone else’s achievements? Like what they did is all I should ever want and even if it was, THEIR achieving it, somehow makes ME better.

And if I find it demeaning to accept the reflected glory of people who actually contributed something positive to the world, Why, Mr. Sanghvi, would I stand by a mass murderer? Despite what school education might insinuate, no nation is more sacred than human life and individual freedom. If we were to believe that then we would be scarily similar to Mr. Modi. The only difference would be the basis we use for classifying Us and Them.

What - Me Worry?

2005-03-18T08:50:00.000+04:00

The First thing I read today was that Narendra Modi had been denied permission to enter the US...then they told me that I should be Insulted...
Now, I don't know about you.. but I find the best of mornings to be hazy... today was positively foggy... Firstly, an introspection revealed no hint of outrage at the indignity brought to bear on the afore mentioned people's rep, I walked down wondering if I was missing out on the whole "I am an Indian" theme. Then, I almost tripped on my brother who had just had an apparently painful workout... Dad, then, took me aside to complicate the whole experience, by finally telling me what was wrong with the world... (bad umpiring decisions, if you must know).
And finally,to top it all off, in the midst of the groans, the rantings, and the frantic beating of my heart... realization dawned...
the weekend had begun...

The Spirit Prevails

2005-01-16T18:28:00.000+04:00

Well, this is kind of a celebration! After a week or so of being miserable and bitter, I finally took on the shit that was screwing my happiness and killed it… Nothing like emerging victorious from an internal strife to rocket your sense of joy at being alive!

I was feeling low because (yes, you get to hear about it too, you lucky dog!) I had a bad week at work, nothing major but I never like to justify my actions, which was what I had to put up with. Secondly, was feeling like shit because had no one to speak to like I used to in College. Even, nonsense can be such a relief! The worst thing about work, undoubtedly and unsurprisingly, is the fact that it offers no food for thought beyond a very fixed set of limits. That’s how I got into trouble in the first place, spent a couple of days thinking at work and bang! “What are you doing about your low numbers?”

I felt like saying, “Ya! About that! I think a vacation is in order, what do you say?” Typically, I fell sick… got a nasty cold but pushed myself to go to work anyway! Further screwed my happiness! But luckily, I got a long weekend off and utilized it in the best way possible… I stayed in Bed and thought things out! I figured nobody owns me, I have responsibilities but none greater than those to myself.

The issue of not having people you can communicate with is something that cannot be resolved by any sensible actions on my part. I have decided to deal with it for now. Work has some definite advantages, I am going to look at it in about 2 months, do an honest long run cost-benefit evaluation, an then take what steps are required.

Part of the dissatisfaction arose after I read “five point someone” by Chetan Bhagat. It has become my favorite book, followed by “The Catcher in the Rye”. That’s saying something. Maybe I started missing college, because I identified with the wasted-ness of the guys in the book. I would think some of my friends would identify with it even more! Plus, there was the matter of the chick our hero wants to get frisky with… very honest work. I was kind of hoping it was actually real, but Bhagat is an IIM A grad working with an investment bank in Hong Kong. So the bad part is he probably did not do too badly academics-wise but the good part is that his work still gives him the time to write a book, and a book like this! Maybe, the corporate machine doesn’t feed on souls.

Third Time Lucky?

2004-12-22T09:26:00.000+04:00

Two. The number of times I have taken the CAT before this one... Well, once officially I guess, but the first one doesn't count.. We have Mr. Ranjit Don (was it?) to thank for that.
its not like I had cracked it the first time. I am getting better each time, though... one of these years I might actually get through.

Two. Also the number of times that I have started a blog (not the most pleasing of words to hear, if one was to be honest, as one earnestly endeavors to be) before this one...and forgotten what the password was (hmmm... I think I've figured out why I've not cleared the CAT yet). But, lately I have come across some pretty good blogs... and figured its the kind of thing I have to get in on!

Incidently, I scored a 96.08 percentile... quant remains my bane... scored just an 83 in that i think... somehow, a bad score in math seems a bit embarrassing...
another mystery regarding CAT... I like it... jokes about joining the rat race aside (and there are so many) this is one exam I actually take pleasure in studying for... in fact in July, just when I had graduated, I was practically trembling with excitement at the prospect of 14 weeks of strategizing for the paper and reading the BRM (thats "basic reference material" for you non-catty types). Reading the BRM, another thing I have failed at doing twice.

For better or for worse, I landed up a job in August and the CAT sort of went out of the window. No regrets or anything... I work for a market information provider... I profile companies (mostly in the US) and the information I find is used by investment banks and private equity firms to analyse and evaluate potential investments, track current deals, and do a whole lot of cool stuff. I get paid to learn about the way businesses make deals and restructure. Its worthwhile.

I don't think I would have been too interested in hearing others talk about what they do, its just that I have been explaining my job to everyone I know, for the past 4 months, guess I felt compelled...

Not yet that clear about all the stuff i can use a blog for, besides amusing myself by writing that is... theres this buddy of mine from College who operates/manages the following : http://rainsoakedboy.blogspot.com

Its worthwhile