Art in my heart

Last weekend of my business trip, I thought I'd catch a glimpse of history of the city. So I contacted the Chicago cultural center who arranged a volunteer to give me a 2 hour walking tour. It was a nice experience. Learnt about some of the important buildings of the city.


I saw the Hay Market memorial where a violent end to a labour meeting gave rise to May 1 being observed as the Labour day the world over. At the end, I thought going to the art museum would be a better way to spend the hour I had before catching the train back to suburbs.Called the Art Institute of Chicago,it's a veritable treasure trove of art, from the world over.

They have a hall for Indian art, where scultures from Karnataka, Tamilnadu,Rajasthan and AndhraPradesh were displayed. Mostly they were donated to the museum by people whose ancestors were in India during the British occupation.

There is a special sculpture showing Shiva and Parvathi with Muruga in betweeen. The uniqueness is Lord Muruga is in a dancing position, normally never in such a position in any temple. And it's not in our country!


There are rare paintings, sculptures, artifacts ranging from very old to Modern abstract ones. One day won't suffice. I did it in hour! Just 2, 3 halls. That's all.



A sculpture by Rodin in the foreground. Claude Monet's paintings in the background.



P.S: The volunteer who accompanied me in the morning walk till my museum visit, had been to many places in India than me. He embarassed me saying that he'd even been to the Andamans!!

Environmentally yours!

My city, Chennai, has been again beset by torrential rains. The good thing is that government is in damage control, full swing. Prompt disaster relief and elections next year maybe beyond happenstance. Anyway I don't want to nitpick as long as something good is done. The bad thing is the poor, the homeless bear the full brunt of the Nature's fury. At times as these, it's hard to find justification of uneven distribution of material wealth through the society.
It seems in recent times the climate is going haywire, world wide. A slew of hurricanes have blasted the Central and North America. They have come in such huge numbers that the meterologists ran out of conventional allotted names and resorted to Greek alphabets. In India too, Mumbai had its share of rains and a lot more. For that matter be it rains or drought, they hit us severely.

For some time, I've been thinking whether these phenomena could be a result of man-made causes such as the green house gases and stuff. Global warming and such stuff are gobbledygook for me. Recently in US some liberals (or whatever such people are called) got together at Vegas, conducted a show called, "Earth to America". It was a two hour skit kind of thing. Stand-up comedians like Wanda Sykes, comedy show men like Ray Romano, Larry David, actor Tom Hanks, country singer Tim McGraw and other assorted entertainment industry people got together to garner support for environmental consciousness. They went bashing Dubya Jr., bigtime. The show was humourous and I liked it. They wanted everyone to logon a web site and click to show support. It was like a virtual march in support of environment protection. I never got to do it. Later I bought a Tim Mcgraw CD, though! At the end of the programme there was a brief mention of the Kyoto protocol. It seems even though the US is not a signatory to it, many US cities, around 40, have adopted it. Seattle was the first.

It was then I decided to bone up on the Kyoto protocol. Kyoto protocol is basically an agreement committing 38 countries to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2
percent from 1990 levels, by 2012. Greenhouse gases are carbondioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and Hydrofluorocarbons. US and Australia are the only developed countries not to sign it. And now,there is a Montreal protocol too.

The Kyoto protocol is peculiar in that it is valid only when countries that agree to the protocol, account up to 55% of worldwide emissions or more. It very recently came into force(Nov '04) when Russia ratified it. Developing countries like India, China and Brazil are not required to sign up, for now. The world's largest polluter US has refused to join, on the one hand saying that it's too costly to implement while on the other maintaining that developing countries too should be made to join. I guess it's cheaper to implement for the developing countries!

Ofcourse, it's a moot point that just by agreeing to control emissions, whether a country will overnight become 100% safe to breathe.Infact the signatories themselves are actually facing increasing emissions year over year! And there's a big club of nay-sayers who pooh-pooh the theory that the gas emissions harm our earth's climate. There are some prominent men like Michael Crichton, who wrote an entire book, not just a blog post, to denounce it. "State of Fear" became a best seller, infact.

Generations to come will vindicate either of the side. Hope they don't do it at their own cost.

Work of love!

I was on a drive to NY last week. Driving through snow covered landscape was an enjoyable experience. Pennsylvania and NewJersey are beauties. On the way, through Penn, I was idly gazing around while my friend was at the wheel. Suddenly something caught my eye. It was some graffiti in an Indian language, complete with the heart and arrow symbol!! Even in desolate places, my countrymen, diehard romantics they being, strive to declare their love. One must be a complete whacko to take out a paint tin and brush to a remote place, just to scribble his love.I naively assume here that Indian females are not given these tendencies. Now I'd like to visit Everest, just to know whether any Indian who had gone there, has proclaimed his love, thousands of feet above sea level! What all a love lorn guy is driven to!!

Hairy tales!!

After well over two months, I finally got my hair cut last week. Having no time to get the hair cut, I let it grew, and grow it did like wild weed. Curly, unkempt hair is not a great advertisment for your company when you're visiting a client. And I was getting looks too. Afraid of being mistaken for a rock star, I decided to go to the saloon. The poor lady at the saloon had her clippers break trying them on me. I was a bit embarassed.My friend whom I went with, helpfully suggested her to go for a lawn mower. There's nothing like a lady to make one take snipe at even friends! :-( It took a whole 10 minutes for my Delilah to figure how to get at my hair. "You should have come earlier", she told me primly. I mumbled, "Didn't have time", my eyes bleary having pulled an all nighter just before. Then she doused me with water and then managed to do her work. The next day, I got appreciated for the hair cut, at office. Lotsa ladies and a few men too!
While I was there, I got reminded of my first hair cut at Indore. It was a hilarious (not to me, then) episode. I was new to the Hindi heartland and had a very small vocab. I sat on the swivel chair, and the barber went to work. He asked me something. I just nodded, proud to let him know that I didn't understand a single word of what he asked. After 10 minutes, I was shorn and was about to get up, he fired away another question. I made some undecipherable sound. He poured a cool oil on my head and started practising tabla. I realised, albeit a bit late, that I was asked about having a head massage. In my mind, I started counting the money I had, to give him for this extra. Then he again enquired something pointing at my face. I should have atleast got up then. Proud I am, I did some more affirmative sounds. I forgot whatever Hindi I had known till then. Not a single Hindi word came to my mind and said, "I'm here". To my horror, the barber took some cream applied on my face. He took a mallet sort of thing and went about hammering my face. I couldn't have been any stupider then, though my friends contest this. This went on for some time. Enjoyed at the opportunity to practise all his skills and apply all his concoctions, the barber started talking to me about something again. This time, I managed to croak out a "nahin" and got off. The good thing at the end was all of them, the massage, facial or whatever he did to my face, came at a very low cost. For that money, I would've got just a plain vanilla haircut in Chennai. Even after that, my repertoire of Hindi words didn't increase. But I started rehearsing what to say, before going for trimming my mop.

Chink in the armour!

Since I came to the US I am fascinated by one thing. Whatever store I go to, I see products with the "Made in China" label. And this is not a stray occurence. In stores like WalMart which caters to the middle class, almost all the products sold, are from China. I saw some clothes with the "Made in Bangladesh" tag too, never a "Made in USA"! But ofcourse, sodas are the obvious exception.
Amused, I started a game to myself, to find an article which has the words, "Made in USA". I searched and searched. Finally I found Zippo lighters carrying that etching.
USA, it seems to me, is a large consumer economy than a manufacturing one. In general, all products for the high end market come from Europe and for the rest down below the affluency line, it's the Chinks! It looks as if China has bought the manufacturing rights to all sorts of consumer durables!!
No doubt, the Chinks are leveraging their population as an asset.It is a controlled labour market as well. Important of all, China's exchange rate is artificially pegged down to the dollar, making it's exports to the US dead cheap.
I made an hypothesis. Let any US president restrict the imports from China.
Effects: 1.He will see a raise in prices.
2.It will result in public unhappiness and complaint over the prices.
3.Ratings down for the incumbent in the endless opinion polls they conduct.

That is why, No US president offends China. US will preach the whole world about signing NPT. They'll demand that all markets should be open to them. But when it comes to China, it is at the decision and timing if its own, does it relent. All the South East Asian tigers got plundered because of having their currency at free float. China and India as well, escaped then because of their relatively insulated economies.

US may be known as the super power but I wonder what will happen if China lowers the boom either through its currency rate or making its exports a bit costlier!! It'll hurt US badly. So who's the actual super power?

To be a big daddy, a country has to do two things.
One, create market dependencies. you control a nation's market, you control the nation!
Second, Go Nuke! It's the Insurance!!

Shooting Bull!

Today I had 110 calories worth of Carbonated water, Sucrose, Glucose, Sodium Citrate, Taurine, Glucoronolactone, Caffeine, Inositol, Niacinamide, Calcium-pantothenate, Pyridoxine HCL, Vitamin B12, Artificial flavours and colours, and managed to stay awake through the day!!


P.S: I had a Red Bull Energy Drink.
P.P.S: Too much of fine print is injurious to health!

A tough question!

It's winter and cold has started its regular nocturnal visits. And my city, is known for its winds sweeping through. The winds shiver your timbers, while forcing the temperature down south. I quiver inside three layers of clothing. But what never ceases to surprises me are the raiments of the womenfolk. I see them still coming about in skimpy dresses, tank tops, sliver straps, and what not! And every dress fights shy of reaching the navel, leaving the midriff to the mercy of cold winds and having the men at their mercy. It defeats me how they manage or why they should torture themselves such!
I am no male chavunist, or atleast I think so. But what seems to me a 10,00,000 dollar question is, when the men, fully clothed, could sweep the opposite gender off their feet, why the femme fatales have to indulge in such masochism just to get our attention? Your two cents please.

Constipation of the body; Diarrhoea of the mind!

When it comes to profound thinking, there's no better place to me than the loo! Sitting in the toilet (I've not misspelt anything. Now don't be a smartass), my thoughts flow undisturbed and reveal previously unthought of truths. A little extra constipation, and one can be a great thinker, till the kingdom come(er..er...ok, let it be).Two days before, I was at my usual seat of wisdom and I came upon the following questions:
1. We come across countless number of mail forwards these days. Has anyone seen any person who created one such a forward? There are senti forwards, humourous forwards, factual forwards and what not! For example, one had comparing the recovery of Mumbai and NewOrleans after natural disasters. And there's an old one showing Laloo allegedly sitting during the National Anthem. There are numerous mushy forwards replete with photos of scenery and flowers arranged in a studio background. And virtually no end to the humourous and supposedly humourous forwards! The latest on this flavour I received was comparing the software engineering profession to the oldest one. Anyone who hasn't read that one still and want to read, mail me, and I'll fwd you that! I like this variety of forwards though. They strive to lighten our dreary daily routines. Their downside is that they quickly turn stale. Okay, coming back to my initial question, why am I yet to see anybody claim himself/herself to be the author of such and such forward?
It looks like a strange and secret netherworld exists which creates all these junk and releases into the web world. And were there any fwds when snail mails ruled? Imagine! A person gets a letter which contains just a joke. He reads it, laughs at it, and quickly putting pen to paper, copies it down and sends it to someone across! Another one gets a post in which a rose or some flower is drawn in a pink/violetish mushy background and extolling the virtues of riendship, love and all such feelings. He immediately painstakingly draws that into another mail and posts to everybody he knows, his snail mailing group, cousins thrice removed, friends very much removed and the like! Difficult to have happened, right? So nothing beats snail mail as an antidote to junk and spam.

2.Sachin comes again, scores a half century and any Indian worth his salt goes ga-ga over it! When was the last time when the following scenario happened?
a.The chips were down for the Indian team (Ofcourse, this happens all the time, but wait till you get the entire combination)
b. It's the fourth inning of a Test match and India does the batting
c. A seemingly stiff target (true, our team can make any target seem stiff to achieve, but lets assume it's a real stiff target. One that's stiff for the world beating Aussies or the Aussie beating English, okay?)
d. And our man Tendulkar plays a match winning fourth inning knock and saves our team the blushes!! Can anybody remind me of any occasion where these four things have come together? Sorry, but I can't remember one such. Either it'll be an easy target or we would crumble from an easy position (The Chennai one, where we lost by 13 runs or so to the Pakis, rankles me still. I was there, to see the fire and fury of Wasim and Waqar, but it was a Test where we could've won). Or be it any inning, still, it would be somebody else saving our team from defeat(Yeah, VVS' 281 is what I too think of!). Sachin can set up a good total for the team. But when the going gets tough....it's a different thing altogether. Hmm..Sachin looks like a good batsman, and maybe a little bit more, but never extraordinary after all. Never in the class of Viv, Ian or Steve when it comes to playing Horatius Cocles!

3.Why bad/filthy words are called unparliamentary words? Ofcourse words being considered bad or filthy is a matter of perception. Ask any self respecting college student. His standard beneath which, a word will be considered unparliamentary will be very low that even a snake can't crawl under.Anything goes!
Here the question is why such words are considered unparliamentary. To me they should be called parliamentary, going by the legislative behaviour, the world around.Imagine if they are known such what would happen. It would go something like this:
Kid: Ma, I don't like this @#$%&@$* food!
Mom: Mind your language! No parliamentary language allowed in this house!
Kid: Why Ma? I'll grow up to become a politician and stand up for the election.
Mom: Politician! Election! My foot!
Kid: No Ma! I'd stand for the election on my feet. Not yours!
Mom: You wise cracking s......#$%#%&!!!!!
Kid: you'd make a good politician Ma, with a parliamentary language like that!
Right na?I could not dwell on such thoughtful gems forever, because it was the office toilet. And I am not paid to think (For that matter, Whoever is?) So I had to go back to my seat and wonder on more mundane matters like what mistake did I make while setting up the data card to get the soc7 abend. So I reached for the tissue and as they say, rest is history!

Nature at its best!

I sweep aside the curtains as eyelids sweep off the sleep.
Outside, the sky paints the whole world of its own hue

I, glad that there is no rain, shrug and go about
I get ready, open the door and step out.

The joyful cold air hugs me nipping about
Ignoring it, I briskly walk to the car

Mist of the night lie crusted on the windscreen
Like the blanket on me, the night before.

I just set the wiper in scour off mode and pull off the park
Just as my mind glides off to the day's work

Eyes on the road and also on the clock
With the cerebellum taking care weaving through the flock

Mind in a stir,sequences the things to do
The bedecked Fall entices me; striving to woo

Trees in yellow, brown & red make a screensaver of the world!
I pass by with nary a glance and a thoughtful stare.

Boards of black in white plead the limits of speed
Eyes see through them as I hurtle onward

Colours of Monet and Sisley dance around
I ignore them as mounds of office work abound

Like one among the bees of a hive
The car snugly fits in a slot of the lot

As the car with a shudder grinds to a halt,
Mind switches into top gear, on the mark for the start.

All the grandeur of nature fail
When with work on my mind, I walk not but sail

And out of the blue, in the corner of my eye
Walks in a girl; Mind in a whirl goes, "Oh My!

Work forgotten, lies among the leaves as they pall,
My eyes and mind are on Nature at its best, in Fall!

Cognitive dissonance!

Finding a laptop within your means - Happiness
Ordering for one - Anticipation
Waiting for the laptop to be delivered - Expectation
Seeing the one you bought - Satisfaction
Getting a Wi-Fi and surfing - Comfort
Online virus infection - Irritation
After just a week, the system gasping for a life - Frustration
Call from a kind friend, boasting a higher but cheaper version purchase - Grrrrr...*#$%&*.
I managed to clean up my system. It's up and about. Though I'm overcome with a strong urge to break my friend's laptop on his head, I am happy about my purchase.Mine's super cool.One should not buy a higher version, with bells and whistles, when the lower version itself fulfills your needs, I say. Mine fulfills my needs, and that's all that counts. I am happy. Satisfied. ..........Am I? A wee bit lying! Too much of heartburn!

Tag-tailed!

I've been tagged by barathrao to write 7 things on few topics and here i go. In olden days, people used to get postcards/letters, espousing some God and simultaneously threatening the receiver with dire consequences if he/she fails to forward similar letters. Later we came into email fwds which urged one to continue the chain for the sake of some blah. And in blogosphere we've got tags.Not that all tags are boring. But, some are contrived. Another side is, tagging might also make the tagged one happy in that he/she is being read, recognized, and in someone's memory enough to be tagged. We all love publicity and recognition, don't we? On some topics, I too love to be tagged like the Fiction-55 tag. Another one tag I saw looping about in blogosphere was the book tag where the tagged one has to list out his library. It didn't reach me though. :-(
This 7's-tag too made me think, albeit about me. Some introspection, it was. Maybe had I taken some more time, I'd come up with better lists. But spontaneity would've been lost.

Seven things you plan to do before you die!!
Read as many good books as possible

Travel around the world

Learn a foreign language

Write a book on my domain.

To retire into teaching

Learn to play drums & play it

Understand Relativity theory & proof of Fermat's theorem

Seven things you can do (Am not doing right now)!!
Be a little optimistic

Study

Stop being philosophical

Start some bad habit

Be more smart

Catch up with missed friends and relatives

Dissolve my cute little tummy

Seven things you can't do.
Without a phone

Stop getting enraged at perceived wrongs

Being patient

Concentrate for a time

Speak fluent Hindi

Save money

Wear contacts

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex!!
Intelligence

Being genuine

Sense of humor

Understanding

Down to earthiness

Cooking

Good looks
Seven things you say most!!!
Hello!!

Acha

Na (as a suffix)

Pasikudhu (Hungry)

OK

"_ _ _ _" (When with close male friends)

Naaye

Seven celebrity crushes (People I want to be like (Iwtbl) or be with (bw))!!!
Richard Feynman (Iwtbl)

Don Henley (Iwtbl)

Prakash Karat (Iwtbl)

Mark Knopfler (Iwtbl)

Bharathiyaar (Iwtbl)

William Wordsworth (Iwtbl)

My girl friend (bw) - If I understand one!

Mera Bharat mahaan!

I saw Ghajini! At Chicago! Meeting fellow men who speak your language in a faraway land makes one happy. Getting to see a movie in your mothertongue, makes me happier. Trust me, even while was in India, I couldn't see Tamil movies because I was in Hindi heartland. But in English (American version) land, I get to go to a movie hall screening Tamil movie. Cool.

The movie's concept is a lift-off from "50 First Dates", where Drew Barrymore loses her memory within a shortwhile (15/30 mins, I don't remember now). But this movie utilises the concept for a so-called thriller, where the hero manages to overcome his handicap of memory loss to take revenge (what else?) on the villains! The original was a comedy movie, with Adam Sandler managing Drew's memory loss. Ghajini is worth watching once. First half, the humour carries the movie very well.

The thing I liked was Tamil fans! There were whistles when hero and heroine were introduced. truly like back in our place. I was proud! No matter where you are, you should foster your culture. That's my belief.

And Indians and Pakis as a whole nurture the subcontinent culture at Devon, a place an hour's drive from Chicago. There to cross the street, you have to disregard the rules. Waiting for pedestrian signal will get you nowhere. There i saw spittle on the streets, shop toilets littered with paper and water and suddenly population density was higher there! Just like in our country. I got the feel of our country there. Atrocious rates were quoted in electronics shop there, for a roti maker, and we had to bargain!

You can take an Indian out of India. But you can never take the India out of him!

test post

You can comment here on the ranting below.

Frustration in Fifty-five!

"Why am i spammed?", bellowed the blogger. The heavens thundered and boomed a stentorian voice,"Serves you right. For you were a tele-marketer in your previous birth. And that was before the privacy laws came". The blogger cackled, for then he became sure that these spammers would be harangued by nosier techniques of the future!
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I was thoroughly disgusted yesterday by the was I was spammed immediately as I blogged a new post. Immeiately I turned on the spam protection, but by then 4 creeps had sneaked in. I think seriously of breaking their brains, or whatever they have for them. I can't understand how the heck they could attract business their way by spamming others. That naive a people are there to be taken in by spammers, is beyond my ken.

Reality check! (Fiction in fifty-five)

He was with his fiancee. Mercenaries sprang on them.The road was deserted, but courage didn't desert him. He fought them off, and saved his damsel from distress. The night show ended and lonely he walked, whistling to himself,putting down his panic. But no whistling would save from his waiting shrew of a wife.

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Thanks Janani, for tagging me to write a 55 word fiction. An one hundred and fifty-five word short story and ruthless paring for an hour, resulted in this rule-conforming output. It was an eye-opener in that it made me realise the redundant, superfluent, unnecessary, needless and dispensable flab in my fable. :-)

Just my imagination!

Don't know where to begin.
Don't know what to write.
Thoughts roll on, they come in waves.
Thoughts fighting among each other for the right to write about.
I'd like to write about my shift in place of work.I'd like to write about my dislocation in culture and society.I'd like to write about the funny things, that happened, and that happen.
I also remember that I've been tagged by BarathRao and Janani.Whenever my mind is idle, and that's all the time, it thinks what to write about in less than 55 words!
Yet to put my ideas into words.Fetuses of thoughts, aborted half-way through.So here i end up writing nothing, or writing about nothing. Whatever!!This maybe the writer's clog, the anti-thesis of writer's block.Well, atleast I make a restart, after being stalled for the past two weeks!And am happy about that!

Amputated!!

God! I realise now how painful it would be when you lose a limb. It hurts like hell. There is nothing left but a ghost of a limb. You search frantically for it, only to despair over its absence. You miss it sorely. When it was there, you take it for granted. You abuse your limb like anything. It takes its revenge by leaving you. Oh! What I would give to get my limb back!

Yeah! I had to separate from my mobile. I am on a short term visit outside India and had to part with my dearest and most beloved. My mobile! And it has left a void in me. No people I can call. No person I can yak-yak to. I wail out loud. At Delhi airport itself, I feel the absence sorely. It makes me frustrated. I feel like hitting a wall. Impotent rage, as I can do nothing and international roaming is not an option for a guy eking out his per diem. Hmm.......

Let's see how I survive the next three months.
Maybe I actually miss my family of friends whom I reach out through my mobile. And maybe the mobile is just a metaphor.

P.S: I find that net cafes are not a rage in the U.S and till I buy/set up my system, my blogging too might suffer. At a time when I find so much to blog about!!

After the deluge

I had to come to Mumbai, yesterday.With a bit of trepidation, I started on the journey. I was wondering how the city is coping up after the downpour somedays back. And the heavy rains were enacting a sequel too, during the past week. On the way to the hotel, what I see! people from all walks of life, celebrating Ganesh Visarjan, with joy. And I mean by people from all walks of life. Pillayars (Ganeshas) were everywhere and on all modes of transport except his mouse! Pillayars were on bullock carts, push carts, trunks of Cars, and what else! Girls were dancing in front of such processions, tiny and huge. One could never tell that these were the same people who were inundated in their own sink of a city. Night, as I lay in bed, rain poured in torrents and the roof of the hotel amplified its force. I was wondering whether I could get my work done. Came morning and the streets were clear. Not a cesspool in sight. The city was wet though. It came alive like a wet dog shaking off the water from its fur. I got my job done, much to my relief. The hotel said that if i were to vacate by noon, it won't charge more than a day's rent. i was told that the checkout time is 12 o'clock noon! Irrespective of the check-in time. Nice way to steal. I told them that was unfair, checking out all the same. Saved my company a good amount of money! Went to a high-end showroom. Found that instead of purchasing there, I could've very well stayed at the hotel and saved money. Then ambled across to Crossword, the book-shop. Spent time, chatted on phone with my manager who was off to take PMP. We congatulated each other on our achievements. I managed to purchase books, even though I am yet to finish the ones, I purchased previously. Or should I say, booklets, the ones Penguin has brought out on its seventieth anniversary. I purchased three, already finished one, waiting for my flight. Spied a netcafe and here I am blogging. Two air hostesses came around. Which airline I won't reveal as one would understand, from what I am to tell. They came, looked around, saw that all the machines were occupied. Then they plead with the person manning the counter who shrug helplessly. They look around and then come to me, plead with me to lend my machine for just 2 minutes for they have an urgent mail to check. Gallant as I am(no sniggers please), I rise and give them my machine, carefully instructing them not to close the minimised screen, where I am blogging. They keep to their word, and give the machine back in precisely two minutes. But they forgot to close their screen. And what I see. Naukri.com!! lol. If rushing to their work, they beg to check about any new openings, I could imagine the state of their airline. Thanking that it is not the one I am about to travel, I continue to wait for my further delayed flight. It's been a good day today!!

Beckham of our Bungalow!!

My roommate is having the latest fashionable haircut. Lol. It was not the result of any planned effort, though. He didn't ape any actor for his zany haircut. All he did was to go to the saloon when Indian team was playing. ROFL. The barber was holding the knife to my roommate's nape, when, fourth wicket fell with a paltry score on the board. Kaboom! The barber became agitated and the knife went swishing high above where it was supposed to be! lol. I find it difficult to type when convulsing with laughter.To compensate the unintended cut high above, the barber came down an everything below that line. lol. And my poor room mate came, with his neck going up all the way to the top of his head. lol. lol. lol. :-)))). Now his scalp looks like a bald rabbi's cap, with pate sorrounding it on all sides. lol. I'll stop here, to finish my laughing and to prevent my hovering room mate from deleting it.

Bursting at the seams

People have not taken my philosophical outbursts kindly. My roommates slam me on the face. Other fellow bloggers, are a bit suave in their comments. All the same, giving fundas puts people off. Therefore I'll stop such drivel for now. I'll concentrate on more mundane things.
I am not fat. I am neither skinny. With such a frame, I've managed to develop a slight tummy. All time at desk and no physical exercise contributed to that. A fondness for cheese, paneer and cream of milk has aggravated this. These days my problem, deformation, rather, has assumed huge proportions with everybody taking potshots. I am bemused at this. Isn't everybody entitled to a slight bulge? Mine is not yet a case of "Tummytoe"(no, not a misspelt vegetable!). For the uninformed, that's a physical complication where a standing person will not be able to see his/her toes due to a tummy that impedes the view. Policemen are prone to develop it. Honest, mine's slight and I can still see my toes, when I stand and look down.
These days I can't have a meal in peace, without somebody commenting on the amount I eat. I feel, for a healthy body, healthy appetite is necessary. The girlish ways of snipping at morsels of food are not for me! Even men have taken to such habits, calling themselves metrosexuals. I prefer to be a retro. True, I should exercise. But when lying in the bed, twisting and turning, the blanket going under and pillow on top, does anybody in his/her right mind would think of getting up and strain their body?? For me sloth is bliss.

With due apologies to Frost,
When the woods are lovely, dark and deep,
Why should I travel miles before I sleep?
By sitting at a place, when I'm getting fed
Why should I trod, getting bled?

Getting back to my tummy, all the pinpricks about that have got to me. I am going mad these days thinking of ways to reduce it. Any method, which is devoid of exercise and doesn't advocate food abstinence, is most welcome. I plead fellow bloggers to tell me such ways.

I hesitantly tried some exercise too. I give below the prescription I found, in a newspaper.
"The following bicycle exercise, which targets all of the abdominal layers, will help make your six-pack pop. Lie face up and pull your knees in towards your chest. Place your hands behind your head and curl your head and shoulders off the floor, keeping your neck relaxed and elbows wide. Extend your left leg as you exhale and turn your left shoulder towards your right knee.
Exhale again as you switch legs and turn toward the other side. Try to keep both shoulders off the floor throughout the movements, and avoid tucking your chin in toward your chest. Stretch your legs long as you alternate them, keeping your tailbone on the floor and your hips as steady as possible. Perform five to ten repetitions, or as many as you can do before compromising your form or straining to continue."

I tried this, for a day. I am not able to continue to do this daily. And I am getting ribbed about this tummy of mine. Hope I don't develop a case of tummytoe. Meanwhile I'm sick of the PJs about rice shortages and about the fate of friends inviting me for dinner.

P.S: For all the nubile things out there reading this. This is just my stab at humour. Actually I am a macho hunk with washboard waist and biceps like cast iron pillars. Check me out! :-))

Point I ponder!!

How extremely different emotions create the same wish, I wonder!
When deepest despair hits, when it seems that there is nothing and no one left to live for, Death wish takes over.
The strange irony is when happiness seeps and pervades the soul, when not just joy and laughter, but peace and happiness takes over your being, the same death wish takes over. Since that zenith of sublime nirvana, the mind transcends, can never be repeated (or that is what we believe at that point in time), it is better to shuffle our mortal coil then, than hitting the lows after, is what your heart and soul lead you to believe.
I wonder!
I wonder why!!

The after taste!

*
Today was a different Monday. I didn't go to office, today. My mother left for Chennai today. The train was at 4, and I had to drop her at the station. I took the entire day off. Morning I got up late, lazed about afterwards. Had to do minor shopping for mom. Did that. Had a third
or fourth coffee, I don't remember, and slept.
Woke up at 2, took bath and slowly got ready to see my mother off. She wanted to stay a bit longer here, but that couldn't be. We went to the station, she in an auto, me escorting in a bike. We reached the station. I parked hurriedly in a no parking zone, for the auto used a different entrance and I had to rush there to pick up the luggages and pay the driver off. The station was a madhouse, with three important trains leaving around the same time. We trundled along slowly, climbed up the stairs, and got down on a platform hemmed by two trains, only to realise that we are on the wrong'un. I asked to mom to rest awhile. We had plenty of time on our side. I was tinged with worry about entering the station without a platform ticket and having parked the bike in a wrong place too. She was fretting over getting on the correct platform and on to her seat at the earliest. I was a bit irrascible trying to hide my concerns regarding bike and platform ticket from her. Otherwise, she'd fret more and that through her entire long journey too. I didn't want that. Then we again moved platforms, this time to the correct one. I made my mother sit at her reserved berth.
I started watching the crowd. It was fascinating. People hanging on to the person whom they have come to see off! It was all senti, pally-pally and smoochey stuff. I idly thought whether the odd bunch talking to the odd traveller, fond and fast, would've shown the same emotions till then. It seems that the train, the threat of departure it holds seems to evoke strange emotions in people. Maybe, every departure is like a temporary death, and hence affects us very much. My mom, held my hand, talking the take care of your health and such other stuff, that usually moms speak. The train was a bit empty and mom was a bit worried about travelling all alone. I could do nothing to that. Just commented not to take anything offered by strangers. I got down and stood by the glass window.
The train was already late by 10-15 minutes and so I didn't want to be in. We tried some sign language through the thick plexi-glass window. To no avail. I started observing how different groups having come to send off different persons, behave. It was truly
revealing. Though a few people looked disinterested, generally all were caught in their own whirlpool of sending-off emotions. People must have been together for quite some time. Yet they had so much to speak at the last moment! They had to exchange important phone numbers which God only knows why, they didn't do earlier. My mom was trying to say something and I couldn't make out any. The train showed no signs of movement. I was getting a bit tired, my mind already in "what would have happened to my bike" and "will they fine me for not buying platform ticket" mode. My mom meanwhile was just looking at me throught the glass window, being not able to tell something. Then again she wanted to talk something. I couldn't make out and just shrugged.
The delay, meanwhile, was telling on everybody at the station. People ran out of words to speak. Nobody can spout sugary stuff all the time, I guess. And high intensive outpouring drains people, I suppose. I idly thought whether the info my mom failed
to convey through the window glass was something important. The thought nagged on me. I may meet my mother again maybe next year. So why not be all ears now to her, my conscience pricked. The ticket examiners were chatting on the platform. I decided that it would be a long time before the train would start. The entrance nearest to my mom's seat was blocked by a
crowd looking on to their traveller standing at the door. I ran to the farthest entrance, hopped on, and raced through, to my mom's seat. I asked her what's it. She swept it off, said nothing, just drinking me in through her eyes. "Take care" tumbled through my lips. The train as if waiting for those words made a move.
Immediately my mom asked me to get off. I jumped down through the nearest exit, pushing aside the traveller still waving to her audience. I with a slight trepidation walked towards the entrance eyes on the look out for ticket checkers. Two of them were chatting ignoring the people. I managed safely across. One more hurdle to cross. I was a bit
nonplussed when I didn't find my bike in the position I parked in, but a bit skewed. Some other car wallah had managed to squeeze in abutting my bike. I walked nonchalantly and with a prayer on my lips, swung my leg across the bike. I heard a shout and looked up to see a cop beckoning me. My heart sunk. When bad luck comes in threes, why good luck shuns fellow company? I cursed at myself. I then launched into an innocent role. I claimed that I was new to the area and with a piteous expression wondered that whether it was a no parking area. Ofcourse all my histrionics didn't save me and my 100 rupees from being separated.
I was dejected that I had to unnecessarily pay that unofficial fine. I moved my bike and slowly came out of the station. I drove slowly and came to an area in shade and stopped there. I felt that I had to talk to someone. I called my friend C, at Delhi, and told her how I had to pay the policeman. My heart was heavy. Though, a niggling inside told me that being caught by the policeman was not the reason.

* - My mom, roommates and friends after a sumptous dinner.

Mom's the word!

My stomach is happy. It's having a gala time this week. It's tasting all varieties of home cooked food. Yeaaah, My mother is here, with me. My flatmates, friends and I are having a gala time this week. In the evenings, I look forward to start from office, for a change. I don't worry about where to have food. Yippeee! My mom, who doesn't know a syllable in Hindi, managed to come this far to the Hindi heartland. I should thank my office for not granting me any leave even when not giving me enough work! Frustrated, as anyone would be, I asked my sis to book tickets on tatkaal, and lo and behold! My friends at Chennai bundled off my mom on the train. I offloaded her, here, and brought her home.
Two days, Monday and Tuesday, she managed to sit alone all through the day, while I yawned at office for the whole of each day. Wednesday, I had to arrange a shopping trip. Sari shopping trip! Today, the fourth day since she's been here, I think she'd start missing her Sun TV. She generally awakes with the Sun TV and goes to sleep after all those umpteen senti/tear-jerking/supposed-to-be-thriller serials. Those serial killers are my Mom's life line. Hopefully, the cable wallah will give our home a connection. Atleast I won't have to regret for ever for taking my Mom away from her world of serials for a long time.
Meanwhile my mom is playing dumb charades with the servant maid. Mom talks in tamil, maid speaks in god-only-knows, some dialect of Hindi, and they both get along!
Today I brought my team lead home for dinner. The flamboyant bengali, enjoyed my mom's sambar rice. Had a second helping too, which my mom liked. he stayed for just 15 min, had dinner, touched my mom's feet and left.
Just two more full days of Mom! :-(

What does it take to be an URI?

I recently had the privilege of getting to know the characteristics of an U.S returned Indian. Let me list out them here, meanwhile referring to him as URI, in short.

1. Suitcases would be strewn around the house with his history, , geographical location, travel itenary and all such details except his horoscope, pasted on them in big block letters. And tags! yeah.

2. URI'll miraculously remember all the distantest relatives, call them on the phone and letting it slip by that he has a few goodies for them, meanwhile seriously enquiring about their well being.Then URI'd drown out their formal protests assuring them that bringing Hershey's kisses is his duty.

3. URI'd talk of cleanliness in the US, nonchalantly leaving the dropped shorts in as-is-where-is condition on the floor.

4. For a 30-40 min travel, URI'd bring his CD man along. URI has to relieve his boredom during the short trip. Three friends accompanying him can't match his CD man. More than that, URI has to attach himself to his Sony CD man even while sleeping.

5. And it's not worth living if the traffic at U.S. is not talked about. The speed of traffic, the roads, the yellow pedestrian crossings where whizzing cars creak to a stop...blah..blah...

6. Voila! New sneakers! Suddenly the house shoe rack will see new sneakers. The usual formal black shoes which would have received avuncular attention a short time back in India, would be discarded on the floor.Yes, avuncular! I had never seen a person daily caressing his shoes at the end of every day with spittle and cloth, before this guy came along. But that's history.

7. The guy who refused to do as much as open his eyelids when the milk man literally broke down the door everyday before, would now miraculously wake up early morning. Oh, we realise. It's the jet lag. And URI's room mates'd get preached about the virtues of rising early in the morning.

Heartfelt thanks for my room mate B, who offered himself as an unwitting specimen for this study. And continues to offer himself, I have to add.

If I am left alive by B, after he reads this, I'll continue posting. Bye for now.

P.S: B! Take this in a sportive spirit. Nevertheless, please clean up after you. ;-)

Living on a prayer

Last week, when during an idle chit-chat (Is there ever a official chit chat? OK..ok..they are called meetings), my friend asked me, "when do you reach office and what you do in the mornings? I said, "I come to office at around 9 0'clock +/- 30 mins".
She: "What time do you get up?"
Me: "I get up around 6.30."
She: "Then how does the whole 2.5/3 hours go?"
Me: "I brew coffee,and with coffee go thro' the two morning newspapers leisurely. Then morning ablutions(thinking meanwhile, "are there evening ones?"), prayer and finally donning office wear patting pockets for wallet, ID card, kerchief, bike key etc.. and off".
She said, ""Prayer! Wow! what will you do? Light deepak and then? prayer for how long?"
Me: "around 10 mins"
She: "What will you pray?"
Me: "Just something (thinking meanwhile, "asking the god this and that")" She left it at that and there ended the conversation.
But my conscience didn't leave it at that. It started asking me, "What is the use of your prayer if you utilise that for presenting a fresh charter of demands daily?"
Me: "Then whom to tell my grievances if not my creator?"
Conscience: "Have you ever to tried to realise the God in you?"
Me: "No. Sorry! That's beyond my scope"
Conscience: "Atleast, have you ever thanked God since there are billions in the country who are less fortunate than you"
Me: "Then what makes a person less or more fortunate? Karma?" Conscience: "Don't divert the topic.Have you not become His manager setting him targets for the day and cribbing when the day turns out to be less than what you anticipated?"
Me: "Then what should go for prayer?".
I couldn't get a satisfactory answer. I thought and thought. If god is omnipotent and omniscient, then why does he let us suffer, Him being the benevolent one? When I ride my bike along the road, what more good things than I did and how, than a person who walks along, being poor to afford a bike? Or what the guy zipping around in a car past me has done enough to satisfy God to bestow him with riches? Why is material wealth not distributed uniformly? Or for that matter why only a rare few are in possession of wisdom? If God wants everyone in His powers (and that should include EVERYONE) to lead a better life, why didn't he make one and all, a saint and a rich person, at the same time? Or why does God allow the piteous misery that many people suffer through their life? Why the heck does God allow rape, pillage and plunder in the land? Are there two areas to everyone's life, one that is controlled by God and one that is decided by every individual's actions? Could be. Like depending on your actions in the areas under your control, God decides on the area He controls!! How is this? There might be several bands of fortune. Here fortune means the sum total of your material wealth, knowledge, love, wisdom and other endowments. One may lack in something, be showered with some other thing, a la Stephen Hawking. So, He will study how you behave in the areas you can decide (like writing this blog) and decide on the area He rules over (like the band you fall in next time). This way the next time you get a better or worse band and given some area where He just watches you and doesn't interfere in your actions. If you are going to torture and harass a person, not only does it mean that your such actions aren't controlled by God, it also means that the victim has fallen into a worst band this lifetime as a result of very poor performance last time. Sounds like performance appraisal in office? Pretty much is. If this sounds like crock, answer this: can't He straightaway control and eradicate our bad thoughts and deeds? Looks like He is pretty diffident about this. I get one more question here. Say, all behave in an exemplary manner, in their present lifetime. Who'll torture a guy who has to suffer now, because of his misdeeds the last time? So God himself might mete out some kind of punishment like maiming. Then, it makes God a mere dispenser of Justice. I don't believe that. Then can't He really pardon a person who has sinned and give him a good life, all his x remaining lives? Are we all mere characters of a giant video game? And is the kid with the joy stick the God? I am going nowhere with my hypotheses.
Sometimes I, during my prayers, could connect to Him. Not that He provides answers. Just that I get the feeling He listens. Many a time I also have felt His protective Hand around me. Hmmm....I am reminded of a stanza studied long ago, nevertheless imprinted in my mind,
"Dhukh mein sumiran sab karai
Sukh mein karai na koi
Jo sukh mein sumiran karai
Dhukh kahe ko hoi"
Translated, it'd mean something like this,
"Everyone thinks of Him when in sorrow
Nobody does when being happy
For whom remembers Him in joy
there is no sorrow as such" .
Seems that's the way the cookies crumble!

Valuing our Independence

I saw "Mangal Pandey - The Rising" today.




Went without expectations and that helped. Everybody knows the story so it is the treatment, that was to look forward to.

I liked the timing of the movie, releasing the weekend before Independence day. It helps to some extent in telling the present Indian populace how our Independence was hard earned one.I could not understand all the dialogues in their entirety, since, I have only a passing acquaintance with Hindi. But I could very much grasp the narrative.

There was polite applause when the protagonist takes on the enemy. And when he gets beaten, there were a few stray shouts too. But in general, the audience viewed as a entertainer, and some more. That's all.

Coming to the film as such, it is a balanced portrayal of events which shows East India Company's opium trade as well as Mangal Pandey firing at his own countrymen when it warranted. But it seems that Aamir Khan has had some doubts regarding the amount of interest that our First war for Independence would hold for the masses as a screenplay. So he resorts to Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel as a backup. And that affects the could have been taut storyline. Rani with her cleavage and expressions swings between erotica and glamour. Not at all needed in this kind of a movie. A.R.Rahman is good in both BGM as well as songs, but whether he is authentic as to the music of the land and time, only our North Indian brethren can tell.Overall, I could not but feel shades of Kamal Hassan in Aamir Khan. Be it the method acting or the portrayal of women (Amisha gets lip-kissed, though not by Aamir) in the movie, Kamal could be seen in him.

But this movie which has undercurrents of Hindu-Muslim unity in these times of religious intolerance, is a powerful reminder of the oppression and humiliation that pre-Independence Indians had to face, and the struggles and courage with which they overcame them.Now, when we celebrate Independence Day by watching special latest movies in TV, this is good. For this, I salute Aamir Khan.

And, India, my country, I am proud of you and your glorious history!

"I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love........
...most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
we may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
and soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
and her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace."
- Cecil Spring-Rice

Barry! Dave Barry!

I like Dave Barry’s work very much. Whenever I got hold of a Mad magazine, I used to leaf through for his pages. Though his books are priced a bit steep (Any original is costly for a pirated, platform book purchaser), they are good. Sometimes he harangues a bit more on a topic. Still class is there. I have a collection of his quotes and I quote from them:

Starters:
“White bread and refined sugar, if eaten, cause death within hours. So it's important to watch what you eat, at least until it gets inside your mouth. After that it becomes pretty disgusting.”

On American way of life:
“The article quotes a wildlife official as saying that great horned owls "regularly" attack people. "They have very powerful feet," the official says, leading us to believe that it is just a matter of time before these creatures are employed by automobile dealerships ("No thanks really, I was just look... HEY! Let GO!!")”

“We wanted to have a relaxing family vacation, so we got together with two other families and rented a sailboat in the Virgin Islands. There is nothing as relaxing as being out on the open sea,listening to the waves and the wind and the sails and voices downstairs yelling "HOW DO YOU FLUSH THESE TOILETS?"”

“Disney World is a place where your dreams really do come true, if you dream about having people wearing enormous cartoon-animal heads come around to your restaurant table and act whimsical and refuse to go away until you laugh with delight”

“The Hawaiian Islands were discovered by hardy Polynesian sailors, who crossed thousands of miles of open ocean in primitive canoes, braving violent storm-tossed seas for months at a time. My family and I arrived by modern commercial aviation, which was infinitely worse”

On little family issues (and my tongue in cheek):
“Nintendo enables the child to develop a sense of self-worth by mastering a complex, demanding task that makes his father look like a total goober.
The typical Nintendo game involves controlling a little man who runs around on the screen trying to stay alive while numerous powerful and inexplicably hostile forces try to kill him; in other words, it's exactly like real life.”

“Dave's Safety Precautions: (1) Never keep three-year-old children around the house. (2) If you do, never sleep.”

Cocking a snook at the British:
“In America, people drive on the RIGHT side of the street, whereas in London, they drive on BOTH sides of the street, using hard-to-see cars about the size of toaster ovens. The best way to handle this, as a tourist, is to remain on one side of the street for your entire visit, and see the other side on another trip”

All in the family:
“Tragically, my wife and I both happen to be domestically impaired. If we were birds, our nest would consist of a single twig with the eggs attached via Scotch tape”

“The trick to remember while backing a boat into a carport is, if you turn your car wheels to the right ("starboard"), the boat trailer will actually go to the LEFT ("forecastle"), until your wife ("Beth") announces that you have run over a sprinkler head ("$12.95")”

Management:
“I think the people wearing enormous cartoon-animal heads at Disney World are part of a corporate discipline program for Disney executives: "Johnson, your department is over budget again. You know what that means." "No! Please!" "Yes! INTO THE GOOFY SUIT!"”

No parody is worth its salt if doesn’t poke the taxman:
“18th Century Tax Forms: "To determineth the amounteth that thou canst claimeth for depreciation to thine cow, deducteth the amount showneth on Line XVLIICX-A of Schedule XIV, from the amount showneth on Line CVXILIIVMM of Schedule XVVII... No, waiteth, we meaneth Line XCII of Schedule CXVIILMM... No holdeth it, we meaneth..."”

Dave! I hail thou! You’ve made my day many a time. :-)

It's my day! Anyday!

Sunday, late evening I venture out with my friend M. I want to try out X&Y, Cold Play's latest album.I go to the music shop to buy a CD. Develop cold feet and buy a cassette, instead. That way, if it turns out to be a dud, my loss'd be minimal, I calculate. The fact that, later I liked the album very much and cursed myself for not buying the CD is a different story.
But when I reach the market place where the music shop is located, I find the market crowded. It's the place they call it as Chhappan (56 eateries lined up, no less!). Even on normal weekends the place will be crowded, but this Sunday it is as packed as sardines in a can. One curious thing I notice is all are teenagers! Then I realise, "Oh God! It's Friendship day today!"
M finds it very difficult to drive through the mass and we have to park well ahead of our destination and walk.I find it crazy, all this Friendship day thronging. True, I too got friendship sms from a friend, but it is a stray incident. Here, there is, an city's entire teenage population! In one place! There is'nt any music or dance programme going on. Just that, everybody milling around, patronizing all the roadside and pavementside eateries and in general making a hell of a noise. M laments, "I should have been with a young thing and roaming like these people. It's my bad time, I have you for company". I commiserate. Is it not my bad time too?
Adding to this shops are selling pieces of string advertising them as "Friendship Bends". lol. "All stupid young things out there! Come here and buy our strings and tie to your stupid friends and your day would be complete, your friendship survived the test of friendship day, and we are happy counting the money" is the motto.
Coming from a no-nonsense Chennai (except for NewYear when people at midnight go crazy, shout, drink, drive and accost girls, if there are any, at that time), it is strange for me. I can see through the greeting card companies' motive in promoting such non-events. Nowadays even music companies have joined the band wagon. They'll bring out one sugar candy oozing album, promote it like mad, and rake the moolah from people senti enough to buy them. If it is anything romantic, Celine and Elton will pierce our eardrums crooning thier high Cs. Or mostly, one local wannabe will rehash (calling it remix) some old song and let every pinky teeny bopper gyrate to it.
An entire city going ga-ga! Whoa! That's something, for sure. I don't know what difference they see from this Sunday to all other days! Infact when asked to wish in return, by a friend, I had craftily replied, "Everyday is a friendship day to me, since I cherish my friendships all the days". I hate specially marked days to cherish a thing, wish sweet nothings (What do you exactly convey by gushing out,"Happy friendship day"?") and in general make an occasion for extracting money someway or the other. Let me tell you, Men are suckers when it comes to such senti occasions. They are made to shell out money, one way or the other be it Feb 14 or Raksha bandhan! Bah, I'd say it's a women devised scheme to commemorate such things as love and friendship on a particular day! Mind you, I'm not against women. I am just seeing through the senti, sugar candy stuff. And what do I see? Not a heart of Gold, but a heart pining after gold! (Just couldn't resist the turn of phrase, nothing else) Hmm.. Am I too cynical or am I getting old?
Anyway, we have some snacks at one of the 56 shops, move over to a pizza joint some distance away for finishing our dinner. We do it leisurely, then drive home past the market place. Now police men are regulating the crowd and diverting the market bound traffic! At 10 PM on a Sunday! We've got an office to go the next morning. We drive by this phenomenon, not being a part of it.

Dropping a hint. Like a bomb...

I took my friend A to a hospital, as he was down with fever, headache and other ailments. It was quite a big hospital. We went to meet the duty doctor. There was pictures all around the hospital walls. But what caught my attention was a picture at the duty doctor room. It was a picture of vulture!! yeah, they had hung a picture of the king of carcass, at the first place every patient will be ushered in!! Oh my God, if there had been an award for the subtlest hint, it should take the cake..er...award. First I was furious at their choice of picture, then I started to laugh at that. Atleast, they were frank about the possible consequences, a patient will suffer, having come to them!

All is fair in war and politics!!

With a coffee, in hand I start scanning the news paper. Reading the cartoons, sports pages, I slowly gulp the filter coffee. When you don't put your lips on to the rim of the tumbler, you cannot call it sipping, right? So, I slowly "gulp". Calvin is upto his usual pranks. Some Hollywood starlet divorces. News is thin. Amidst of all this I saw a photo. Madhya Pradesh CM, coming out of the Assembly to plead the opposition sitting outside on protest, to come in. I was pleasantly surprised. In my homestate, TN, politicians of opposite sides are not supposed to even look at each other. Few days back too, I saw a photo of MP politicians of all hues warmly talking to each other at the start of the assembly session! Why can't such manners and pleasant demeanour be practised by my home state politicians, I wonder! It's not that MP politicians are not tainted of scandals. Infact their conversation when two opposing guys meet and cheese for the cameras might even go like this:
X: "Hi, How are you?"
Y: "Hi, How is the enquiry against my corruption coming on?"
X: "Oh, That building society scandal. I have put a committee, headed by a retired judge, who needed a salary more than a pension. It may be the end of it.BTW, what happened to your agitation against my misrule?"
Y:"Yeah. We burnt a few buses, got few diehard followers arrested. a few more assembly noisy protests and a day's strike. That's it. meanwhile can you take care to evict us when we protest?"
Y: "Sure. And there are a few judges retiring this year end. So if you get to occupy this post, next election, you need not look far, for some committees. And how did your daughter enjoy Switzerland?"
Y: "Fine. Thanks. My daughter likes Switzerland. Eventhough the bank account business took a whole day, she got to sight-see too"
X: "Good. Next week I am sending my nephew for that job. OK. You carry on with your protest, while I'll give some sound bytes to those journo nuisance on leash there"
Y: "Ciao"
All done with panache. Scandals, corruption, strikes, riots are the same everywhere. But why does my state politicians look daggers at each others, refuse to even share the same forum including assembly and so on? When the mayor of the state capital met the CM, both belonging to opposite parties, a few years ago, it made a major news splash! Partly the media is responsible for stoking their enemity, I believe. As a result, very little gets done for the state and its people! :-((
Hope the next generation of politicians come together in tackling people's grievances, while they make something in the side. Something in the side, that will go on! It will become the longest surviving profession, when all other professions beome extinct. Come On, a famous politician once said, "A man who is in charge of honey distribution from the jar is entitled to lick his hand later on!"

Can't think, can't move, can blog

It's a lazy, lazy, lazzzzzzzy world. Everywhere I look, I see people moving about in slow motion. The milk man comes late, the news paper slithers in being shy about coming in 30 minutes after it is due.It's three hours since I woke up, but still sleep drips from my eyebrows much like the rain water dripping from the eaves outside. Everywhere is wet, wet, and damp. But this laziness around me, I sense for the past two days. Oh, it's in me, I realise. Wearing the blinkers of sloth, I perceive the world to be lazy. For example, see down below the apology of a post, I blogged yesterday. It started as a full page in my mind. It got censored by my lazy fingers which refused inputs from my brain and demanded a concise summary of what the brain wanted to be told. "Don't blather on", screamed my fingers at the brain. And this trend continues today too. My building janitor informs me that the main road to the office has been flooded due to the incessant rains the night before. I might have to take a roundabout, or risk driving through knee deep water. But unperturbed, I blog away, unwashed, unhurried and blatantly lazzzzzy.I would like to take a day's leave, laze around and...... well, I am lazy to think what I might do lazing around. But I have to go to office as I depend on the office canteen to feed me, two times a day! It may sound better but lazing around also means starving. Stomach in a panic, orders my mind to start for office. Mind running in circles, hazy in its thoughts and what not! What a Monday! Definitely not manic. I have to will myself to stop further blogging, move me, get ready to office etc...Let's see how the day turns out to be. For now, bye.
P.S: Typos, if any, are due to half shut eyes and a full shut brain. Pardon me, pleazzzzzzzz..

Luxury of the lazy

Whatever I do, these days, I find an undercurrent of thought always,meandering about the topics i could blog on. Sometimes an excellent area I can dwell on my blog, comes to my mind, only to die a premature death in my conscious. I lay down half-awake, half-asleep today morning, and I realised there's nothing like lying in the bed. I snuggled inside the blanket. oh, what a luxury. However deep you sleep, it's nothing compared to lying inside the blanket awake. And if it's a bit cold it's all the more better. Then I'd curl up inside the blanket covering me like a cocoon. Come weekends and there's nothing like rolling in bed till say 11 A.M. Semi-awake, muffled outside sounds filtering in, but not loud enough to disturb my dreams....aaAh...This is bliss! Not everybody gets to enjoy, the luxury of waddling in bed wrapped by a blanket, I know. My friend A, works in a truck factory and has to start at 6.45 AM everyday, six days a week.My friends easily irritate him by just mentioning, "We awake only at 9AM".Hmm... Hope I don't cause such emotions inpeople reading my blog!

Murphy's laws which I got to verify!

When I try cooking and as a result dishes overflow in the sink, servant maid will take a leave of absence.

Only last and first weeks of the month will see the servant maid in full attendance.

Paying salary to the servant maid will always make her fall sick afterwards.

If I sprain my right wrist at the bowling alley, I'll definitely sprain my right foot afterwards, making my one side pain-challenged! ("It hurts like hell" is not a politically correct term).


When I have a con call at 9.30 AM, I'll wake up only at 9.00 AM

When I am on time, my team lead will never require me. But when I'm late getting ready to office, he has to call me on my mobile, enquiring my whereabouts, being absent for the con call.

When I'm hungry at 5 PM, there won't be any birthday parties in the canteen where I can have freebies.

When I get an invite for a birthday party an urgent assignment will prevent me having a go at the snacks and I'll be tied to my cube.

All parties and treats will be given within a short period of time, say a week, making me sick of them for that span and easier on the hosts' pockets.

When the dinner treat is on me, office canteen lunch will be at its worst making my friends go easy on the lunch and all too prepared for dinner!

There are other very valid laws, which I will not put here, for that will make my blog a real tearjerker!

Rendezvous

Up the rolling hills ever so high,
I start to climb; weary of the sins I load
On my soul, which joins my body in a sigh.
Path is so steep and winding is the road
I reach the bowl of the Lord after many a rest.
I feel serene and calm, outside too.
Shivering in the cold, I take a holy dip with zest.
And I join the crowd, pious and true.
Queue circles and slithers like the serpent of the Lord
Every move makes the crowd chant His name
All diverse in demographics, united in the God
Poor and rich; To Him they are one and the same
About to meet the Lord, of the hills that are seven
I quiver and quake. Only His name I say
Bestowed His presence, I am in heaven
I break down in bliss as I am pulled along the way
With unbearable thirst I wandered like a nomad
Scorched by the heat; the spawn of my sins
Trembling in His presence; deliriously glad
Two eyes not enough to see Him, the saviour prince
I came out in peace, and my heart is content
As no earthly riches can give me such ecstasy
His enigmatic smile! I wonder what Balaji meant.
Again I'd be summoned, that is my fantasy!

@#$%&*!@*&%#

M is my good friend. At the day's end he'll invariably call me from his cube and we'll start out together from office towards mess for dinner. And he'll rope in our another friend A, who works in a different company. M will always ensure A is also there, as A has no other company for dinner. And if me and M start talking, we'll get immersed in the topic and analyse it threadbare. He shares a passion for reading Tamil books and discussing Tamilnadu politics. He is not crazy about outdoor sports like cricket. Max, he sticks to Table tennis. He also loves to recount college days and we generally gravitate towards each other. We were planning on long drives, adventures in the kitchen (He likes to prepare potato gravy) and all such. Such a nice fellow to know!
One might be wondering why I am drivelling on and on about M. Pardon me, I am about to say my piece. Our office had an influx of campus batch recruits this thursday. There is one girl hailing from Tamilnadu. She also belongs to the same college as M. She is a junior of M (obviously). Mr.M today was a changed man! Today is just Friday and in the morning he spoke in piteous tones of how she must be starved for South Indian food. This morning he declared that he is bringing her to our mess! Early evening, today I called him up just to chat him up. Lo and behold! That guy was at the tennis courts! I was mildly surprised. I told him that I have to leave early and will wait for his call when he leaves from office so that I can start from home to mess. Call comes later, but he is already attacking the food at the mess. And his dear friend A, whom he never fails to pull for dinner, is totally forgotten today. I had to remind M to call A!! Ofcourse when I reached the mess, M was having dinner with her. Normally M will saunter into the mess, swipe everything at sight, lift his portly figure and leave. Not so, today. A perfect gentleman, he was, tasting a decent and reasonable quantity of food. Guy A came later and with other 3 friends, with M and her, we all started yakking after dinner. Half an hour later one of us remembered the bill and asked what the fresher had for dinner. M quietly replied that he had paid for both of them! Both of them! And he is after me for a paltry amount I owe him. Hmmm....Till yesterday M used to harass other guys who do just so much as to talking to girls. Now he is gentleness personified! Only thing is he has started forgetting his daily routines like rounding up fellow us guys at dinner time, stretching his body for nothing more that TT etc. Today, he plays Tennis and even in flood lights too. Makes a great impression, I think. Grrrr....Ways of the world! What makes a sane man with a logical mind to do strange things, then look sheepishly at his friends, generally do acts that we never dream him to do?

Gomorrah of India?

I notice a steady pattern in crime rate of Delhi. It is going up and up. For the past month or two, I was disturbed by the daily news on one crime or the another in the capital.And all types of crime, by people with various proclivities,.....Delhi's crimes are turning more gruesome and hideous. I culled recent news articles..........
Man throws kids from balcony, kills wifeNew Delhi, July 18, 2005
A south Delhi businessman on Monday turned heinous murderer when he threw his two children down from the balcony of his seventh floor home and then shot his wife from close range.Navin Ahuja, 32, who was under heavy debt and had been depressed for some time, flung his nine-year-old son Manav and seven-year-old daughter Manavi from his seventh floor apartment in Sector 22 of Dwarka (southwest Delhi) and then shot his wife Minu
Crime Branch to probe Ring Road robbery case Businessman shot dead by motorcycle-borne men, booty looted
NEW DELHI: The sensational case of robbery in which an Uttar Pradesh-based businessman was shot dead and robbed of Rs. 20 lakhs by two motorcycle-borne assailants on Ring Road near Red Fort in North Delhi this Saturday, has been handed over to the Crime Branch for further investigations. While the driver of the deceased is being interrogated, the police suspect it to be a case of personal enmity.
Auto-lifters arrested NEW DELHI:
Four persons who allegedly stole commercial vehicles have been arrested at Rohini in North-West Delhi by the Crime Branch of the police. Six stolen trucks, a Tata-407 and a motorcycle have been recovered at their instance. Acting on a tip-off that some criminals would come to Rohini in a stolen truck, a team led by the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Kumar Gyanesh, laid a trap and arrested four of them. They were identified as Charanjit Singh, Karan Singh, Gurdeep Singh and Khalid. The police said Charanjit was the gang leader, while Khalid was a scrap dealer who purchased stolen vehicles from the accused.
Held with drugs
NEW DELHI: A 23-year-old man was arrested at Dilshad Garden in North-East Delhi on Saturday on charges of drug peddling. The police claim to have recovered 2.5 kg of "charas" from his possession. The accused, Ranjit Kumar, is a resident of Vaishali in Bihar. Around 12-15 a.m. on Saturday, a patrol team intercepted him near a petrol pump.
Labourer shot at
NEW DELHI: A 30-year-old man was shot at by three persons at Timarpur in North Delhi on Friday. The accused have been arrested. According to the police, Mohammad Samirul Hasan, who worked as a labourer, was shot at by the accused -- later identified as Mohammad Noor Islam, Noor Alam and Mohammad Hafiz -- at Gandhi Nagar in Timarpur around 11-45 p.m. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared him out of danger. The police have arrested the accused and booked them for attempt to murder. The police said the victim and the accused, all of whom hail from Supaul district in Bihar, had old enmity which led to the incident.
Criminal arrested
NEW DELHI: An alleged bad character involved in more than 20 cases, including attempt to murder, robbery and dacoity, has been arrested at Sultanpuri in North-West Delhi. According to the police, a loaded country-made pistol was recovered from his possession. Acting on a tip-off that the accused, Daya Shankar, was likely to commit a crime, a team dressed in plain-clothes apprehended him near a park at Saraswati Vihar.
Rickshaw pullers stop child rape
New Delhi, September 7According to the police, a couple of rickshaw pullers who were waiting for passengers outside the Shastri Nagar metro railway station, spotted Azad, 25, going into the bushes accompanied by a five-year-old girl. Azad also pulls a rickshaw for his livelihood.
The duo became suspicious and leaving behind their rickshaws unattended, followed Azad. On coming closer, their worst fears were confirmed as they saw the alleged culprit in a semi-nude state. He had also reportedly removed the child's undergarments and was about to molest her.
Suspect confesses crime, say police
Press Trust of IndiaNew Delhi, May 13, 2005After an intense search spanning three states over five days, Delhi Police on Friday managed to arrest one of the four men who had allegedly abducted and gangraped a Delhi University student in a moving car in the early hours of Sunday.
Ajit Kumar Katiyar (28), a driver with a private company whose features had been described by the 22-year-old victim, was picked up this morning from a colony near the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border.
Why our capital's lifestyle is such a mess? With its people turning into animals! There is a serious problem with Delhi's DNA. Maybe it is the excessive politics that permeates its environ. Maybe its entire police force is too busy protecting the VIPs to tackle crime. I don't know the cause. But it's citizens ought to get rid of the sickos and weirdos from their midst. Maybe their collective consciousness accepts amoral, anti-social, corrupt and criminal behaviour! "Man se ravan jo nikale; Ram uske man mein hai"

Driving mad!

Till recent past I was never enamoured of cars. Generally I see them as another mode of transport and always assumed that they come attached with drivers. I never bothered to think about driving one, let alone owning one. All those people who go ga-ga over cars, I couldn't understand them. It was a cultivated hobby, I thought. F1 racing too, I felt (and continue to feel) was mildly disinteresting as there is not much scope in change of fortunes for drivers during the race. Too much depends on 2 seconds wasted in a pit-stop and that's it.Actually I used to think that cars are a criminal waste of precious natural resources. Having a bike which itself has one seat vacant, I harboured no desire for a four-seater.To such a person, me, it dawned suddenly last month that learning car driving might be a good venture. It turned out to be an adventure, later on. First I approached a sidey driving school(!). One old man was the master. He spoke chaste Malwi or Hindi, I couldn't fathom. And my distance from that language, I've already blogged about. It was a frustrating experience for both of us, in his Maruti 800 with more than 800 dents. I couldn't get him. He couldn't make me understand neither the language nor the driving skills. He won't take his hand off the steering wheel, and his leg off the brake pedal on his side. Slowly he started reducing the driving time for each session. When it came to be about a very long 10 minutes I stopped going to him. But I, not being one to let go things that easily, found another guy, a young boy to teach me driving. He managed to convey things in mauled English, things that I should do, if I was not to be hauled up for man-slaughter. But disastrous things continued to happen. When riding a bike, I go through traffic like water going through sand. So I found it difficult to keep the car's bulk in mind. Every day, I'd come dangerously close to hitting a person, nearly always a girl. And I'd get verbal abuse in Hindi. I didn't bother such profanities during my initial stint with the old man, as I could not understand. But this young guy strived to teach me Hindi too. Once somebody'd shout at me, he'd start, "Sir, Do you understand what "Bewakoof" means?" I'd with my teeth clenched would grunt out a "No". He won't stop. He'll rub it in, "Sir!, Bewakoof means Idiot". And wanting to catch the import of it, he'd repeat that two more times. I have learnt a few other words too. Every time on my return home, my flat-mate'd enquire, "Today what kind of abuse did you receive?". My driving master, the young guy'd take the car through bylanes and market thorough-fares where idle people, cows and dogs will stare at me and the crazy car (or the crazy me and the car).Then he began to ask me to drive on the highway too. The Agra-Bombay highway goes through our city and the traffic there is insane, to put it mildly. After some ten or twelve sessions I begged a sabbatical off him. I'm due to continue it from tomorrow. God bless young things venturing out for early morning tuitions. :-)
I dedicate this blog (too much MTV does it) to my friend N, who always talks about cars and driving alone on a highway for a long stretch. That is her dream.

I wonder.......

I wonder
whether the means matter
more than the ends

As a kid

Trying to touch the flame,
As hawkish mom screams

Wallowing in the mud,
knowing that'd anger mom

Does curiosity thrills?
than the actual acts?

I wonder
whether the means matter
more than the ends

Growing up

Peeking at the lizards
copulating on the wall
despite dad's diversions

Smuggling things in class
under the teacher's nose

Is breaking the rules
satiates more than actual acts?

I wonder
whether the means matter
more than the ends

Adolescence

Trying out a smoke
that'll raise a storm at home

Fixated on the gender opposite
swept under the carpet at home

Are you proving to the world
the unspoken can be done?

I wonder
whether the means matter
more than the ends

Work

Taking breaks at work
when boss is not around

bloggin' from office
knowing you could be caught

Getting back at people?
Who own your un-slept hours.

I wonder
whether the means matter
more than the ends

I wonder.........

A peep into Mumbai!

At last I found a net cafe in Mumbai. My first visit here, and I like this place already. Mainly because of humidity (reminds me of Chennai), jostling crowds (reminds me of chennai, though the magnitude is big), suburban trains (Chennai again) and the way people rush about their work. Maybe I see the Chennai in Mumbai to like it. I was surprised at the Sensex LED display at the ChurchGate station! From laidback Indore, it is a welcome change. Had one free day to roam about and I chose Crossword, the popular bookshop touted as the biggest in India. Disappointed me, as I expected something gigantic, used to Landmark at both Spencer's and NH road. Crossword doesn't stock deep like Landmark does. Not all the works of Feynman, No John Gribbin, Not even Ukridge in the Wodehouse shelf! Bah...Mumbaites! Come and see Chennai! Our place truly rocks in the reading scene. Anyway I bought two books, one an academic book on Derivatives and another called "Maverick" by Ricardo Semler. And it's time to go back to Indore. Missing my office. :-)

At the receiving end

Today I attended a function. A colleague of mine had become a father recently and hence gave a dinner at a city hotel. A party, one can say.Or whatever one calls that. When we can say luncheon, can't we say dinnereon?To bachelors like me these occasions are a god-send.
7.30 pm was the starting time and I made it there at 9.00 pm sharp! In a cradle, the child was there (ofcourse, what else to expect, the Father himself? redundancy!). My colleague took me to his wife sitting beside the cradle. Here came the critical moment, that I wanted to blog about. To give the gift. I don't know why, I become jelly-kneed when in attending functions, the time to give gift comes. It always happens that when I handover whatever I brought gift-wrapped, the host is looking somewhere else, and I end up extending the gift limply (limply?? I am not sure, anyway, you get the meaning, right?) in the glare of arc lights to be recorded for posterity. This happens unfailingly everytime. I am more comfortable in private chats where you don't have to do the gifting in so theatric a manner. The smooth art of handing over money or a gift in functions is beyond me. Clumsy, thy middle name. :-( Today it happened the same way.My colleague was fiddling with his digi-cam (in addition to the videography) His wife was looking fondly at the child and I was holding out the gift with the hosts blissfully unaware, and the videographer recording my discomfort. Like every other time, before. Murphy's law: For embarassing situations the law of averages takes a leave. So I am afflicted with GiftkodukkOphobia, it seems. "kodukka" is Tamil meaning "to hand out", why diseases do always have to be greek? Actually in functions it is a little better in that when one goes upto the hosts, they eye the gift in one's hand too even though the timing, I manage up to mess up. If one goes to a house with a gift, the host has to go through an elaborate charade of refusals, "why this formality? why so costly a gift (at a trinket!,sarcastic, i doubt)" and so forth.In ceremonies at least, they expect gifts and even a person is allotted to take care of the gifts.Hmm...after that it's business as usual; take a plate, have a swipe at whatever is in offer, false-smile your way through acquaintances, catch up with friends and drive back home.Thank God for small mercies!!

Losing my religion

I was in a fine mood, till the day before yesterday. Only worries were (i.e. worries that can be shared here) upcoming project's nature and scope. Additionally I was whiling away time supposedly studying, but definitely not. The morning news paper that day changed all that! "Attack on Temple" screamed the headline. I broke into cold sweat reading that. I realised it's implications and the following day, yesterday, proved them true.
All those right wingers grabbing their chance, the opposition getting worked up trying to prove its credentials, all and sundry issuing their statements and finally nation wide strike announced the next day! Mr.Billy Rubin was in everyone's statements. And the next day was even worse. religious places attacked in vengeance, trains stopped. Yuck!! People (if I can call them that) in my place, Indore, stopped a plane!! Millions of money lost, all over the country.
What gets my goat is the issue itself. First, I don't agree with what happened on Dec, 1992 itself. The aftermath cost the country dearly. And why people who proclaim the omnipotence of God should have to strive to build temples, break them and go forth? If at all the Almighty wants to have a temple at a particular place, can't he have it, being The Almighty? I am a deeply religious person and hence I am very angry, for they ( the arsonists) take up the representative stance of the faithful. I don't have to do anything with persecution and plunder in the name of my God. As vultures swoop on a carcass, these beasts pounce on a chance on take the country to ransom.
Of course the attack on the temple is to be condemned. But it is not the starting point in the recent history. I am a patriot too, and I'll accept any demolition of any religious areas, IF they are going to alleviate my countrymen from poverty, generate jobs and create bounty and happiness ever after! And my God Ram too, then will support such activity, I am sure! Religion is here being used to keep the common people fighting with each other, keep them from trying to arrive at a solution for livelihood. Religion is being used as anaesthetic, while the political leadership steals away the vitals of the people, their wealth, rights and livelihood! I am grieving at that, at my ignorant and kept as such countrymen, who assault property, sensitivities and pride of our nation.
" If this belief from Heaven be sent; If such be Nature's holy plan;
Have I not reason to lament; what Man has made of Man"
:-((

Top 5 excuses when I am too lazy to blog:

1.My flat-mate is using the system and it is not available
2.Too much work in office that I'm tired to sit and blog
3.I have hit a blogger's block
4.When I see other persons' blogs, they shame me into shelving my poor piece of a blog
5.I don't have time to fulfill my personal and official commitments, leave alone blogging.
I am planning to join Procrastinators Anonymous. I'll join it some time later, for sure. :-)
Actually, I intended to blog on one area of concern for me. Was lazy enough to sit down and blog through. Pretty serious matter. And I am quite worked up on that, too. Maybe tomorrow! It's another day! Watch this space! :-)

The Dali in me

Sitting in my cube,
I am fighting with my work.
All at once my body goes still
The monster within takes control
Rather goes mad; out of control
Seeing things that I cannot feel
With blistering pace explodes asunder,
My ribcage, cube and the ceiling.
It travels out in the open sky
Bones broken, to surge and fly
My head is throbbing to no avail
Frantic is the soul, flailing,
thrashing about and trying to flee.
Mighty ship, the anchor weighs in
My monitor stares at the futile cry
Startled, I awake as my whole subsides in
Knowing not what happened, the world passes by.

Inspection

Today our land lady made a visit. She's in Delhi and she hasn't seen us before.A pretty decent lady ( She hesitated on how to inspect our house without being considered an invasion). I understood and then offered her, which she with relief accepted. She saw the hall, kitchen and my room (only mine, not my room-mate's) She said "Badiya" which I understood to be some form of praise and beamed at her.Good for me that she spoke and understood English too. By the way, I should inform here that our servant maid is now adept in sign-language!
When we occupied the house it was bare with no shelves, nothing at all (Indori ishtyle). Our land lady rubbed it in saying that they had "given away" the almirahs and other wooden furnishings when they moved to Delhi. I seethed inside at this, while she, as if reciting a shayari, repeated that!! Any way, I bragged on to my room-mate (after our land lady left) that having seen my room and only due to that, the land lady was satisfied! My room-mate having emerged from his dark room(I forgot krupa , the word for that), snorted at this. Yeah, he has converted his room into a cave by imposing a black-out, while the rest of the home shines in light. Actually I'm lazy to buy curtains, but that's another story. Coming back to the main topic, (I digress a lot) we exchanged cards and then our land lady left having politely refused my gallant offer of "coffee ya complan".
Oh, I'm leaving out an important thing. The land lady was accompanied by her daughter!!!!! The daughter made an early exit, though. :-(

Community of Communities

It's a marvellous place at orkut. For the uninitiated ( I don't believe there are any such bloggers), check out www.orkut.com. I am just a passive member having only 7 friends :-( But the warmth over there truly gets to you. One can window-browse through various profiles and communities.Excellent time-pass! Interesting people, communities, one is certain to meet. I recommend a story in "lollu pasanga" community (yeah! that's the name) by Karthik. Great read! By the way, that guy is a friend of mine. I am not plugging it for him, though! :-) Orkut is the place I go, whenever I am bored (frequently).

Wordsworthian world

Woke up at 5.45 am. Cloudy and pleasant climate.
Took bath, dressed and ventured out.
Slight drizzle! Ah...... Cool wind fondled my face.
Drove to the temple. Prayed in peace.
All around wet, wet, wet. Sublime start of the monsoon.
Got reminded of Kerala. :-)
Came back and had hot filter coffee, with newspaper, to bolster the enjoyment.
What a start to the week!!
God is in his heaven and all's right with the world!

Melancholy

"He tries to please them all
This bitter man he is
Throughout his life the same
He's battled constantly
This fight he cannot win
A tired man they see no longer cares
The old man then prepares
To die regretfully
That old man here is me
What I've felt What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never be Never see
Won't see what might have been
What I've felt What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown
Never free Never me
So I dub thee unforgiven "
- Metallica

Sudoku! Here I come!

I have caught on Sudoku! It is a problem of a 9x9 square, where you will have to fill them up in a particular fashion by 9 sets of numbers from 1 to 9. The number in a cell should not be placed again in the row, column and 3x3 square of which the cell is a member. You can see the puzzle in a way, like, a particular number would not allow its type in the row, column and square of which it is a subset.It is pretty much like mafia family carving up territories. You have to arrange the gangsters(numbers) in a way that they reside peacefully.Almost every news paper worth its pulp, now publish Sudoku. I started with Hindu which has the easiest puzzles. Hindustan Times has a bit more tougher puzzles. Sudoku website scared me stiff! Easier puzzles bore me. I am lazy to try the tougher ones! Anyway, I end up leaving them after, say, 120 seconds!!

Manly musings!

The other day,I saw a curious article in the newspaper. It reported that actress Cameron Diaz was threatened by a model when she accidentally stepped on her dress, and how!.The model threatened that she would take away Cameron's beau Justin Timberlake!! Whoopee...! That set me thinking about the status of us men in the mind of women. Are men a commodity to be stolen? That too over a trifling thing as stepping on a dress? Men are not known to boast their abilities and intentions to steal a woman. Even if they do, they do without a matter of advertisement. No Sir! The men are publicity shy of such achievements. Hmmm.... It may also be because of the punishment that they get when it becomes known about their peccadiloes. Either they come to grievous bodily harm due to the woman's husband or they get to keep what they pilfered, the woman, I mean. Which punishment is more inhuman, I cannot say. But I can say onething. Men are more honourable in fights. They may punch, they may spout only devil knows what. They won't speak of "pickpocketing" women, like that model spoke of Justin Timberlake! Hope Justin doesn't betray manly self-respect.

Tongue tied!

You can survive in any office anywhere, even though you don't know the language of the region. But once you are outside the office, you are sunk if you don't know the lingo of the land.See my plight, here i am ensconced in heart of Hindiland without the power of communication to the natives! It gets even more pathetic when you have to deal with the servant maid, barber, shopkeeper and so forth. The servant maid comes to work like a state visit by the President! Clothes unwashed and vessels uncleaned vie for her attention for God knows how many days. No, maybe even the God doesn't know. Only she, our servant maid almighty, knows. The problem is to convey to her that she is not in a software company to visit us as she pleases and work when she deigns to.It is we who are employed in a software firm, she doesn't comprehend! And my deeply thought and planned "kyon" and "kya" gets hosed down by a barrage of her Hindi which flies past me like a Chennai bus past the waiting people. She comes once in 10 days and works for an hour during her visit. Her salary, I am not about to reveal, for software professionals may queue up our house to earn that kind of money for a 4 hour job per month. Anyway any feeble attempts to reduce her salary for her continous absence fail miserably. My room mate whose Hindi is better than mine tried to do so, this weekend. He sidled up to her and placed by her, whatever amount that we had decided would give her. She snorted at him, gave him an earful (of Hindi, of course) and didn't even touch the money which my roommate very respectfully placed in front of her ( Almost like an offering to a deity, I think). He scampered away. She after finishing her one hour work managed to inform me ( My room mate was no longer in the house) that we were to place whatever amount that was due on the kitchen shelf by the next day! I nodded meekly. Nodding, I can do in any language. A multi lingual nodder, you can say.How I manage to deal with other people like barber and vendors is altogether a different story, nay, novel in the making!