Think, and let think...

A weight off my chest...

2011-09-14T00:40:00.004+05:30

It could be a catharsis of sorts, though playing out on an unlikely stage (well, it's actually just a bench).

When I walk into the gym (and I must admit, the frequency is dropping to unhealthy levels), I am all weary and bleary. Though by the time I have warmed up, the battery levels seem to be inching up from the red zone.

But what really does the trick is the act of pushing (literally) all that weight off my chest. Every rep is like a transferred epithet, as if the day's heavy events have somehow moved away from me, and piled themselves alongside the weights on the bar, while I exhale with all that I've got; the exercise exorcising the day's evil spirits out, to be consumed by the thick, sweaty air.

The end of every set is a step towards resurrection. The phoenix slowly pushing against the debris and coming up for oxygen. The pause between sets forces me to hear my heartbeats, and of course, the mirrored walls definitely lead to some close encounters with the self.

Gym is a great equalizer. You could be anybody outside that door, but inside, you are just another mortal who is huffing, puffing, gasping and grunting like the rest of them all. No matter what your bank balance is, somebody will walk in and add a weight to the bar you left behind, and suddenly make you realize that you've been over-rating yourself, and that there's still a lot of work to be done. A lot.

Finally, at the end of the hour, the catharsis is complete. The hot shower awaits, and yes, it's been a great wonderful day, and tomorrow will definitely be better...

N9–What were they thinking

2011-06-24T21:16:00.001+05:30

When I came to know of the launch of Nokia N9, my first reaction was - What????, and followed by a slow, sigh-flavored Why??

Imagine you are on a stage delivering a speech, and your pants suddenly come undone, revealing your red polka-dotted underwear, you have two choices - you can either gently apologize and excuse yourself, and announce to the audience that you will be back shortly with a new pair; or you can attempt some form of humor about falling pants and polka dots and such...

It is obvious that the latter choice doesn't count as "saving grace". It counts towards "making matters worse". Sometimes its wiser to not do anything and just wait it out till you get a chance to wear a brand new pair of pants again.

It's surprising that Elop and team are not able to fathom that stop-gap arrangements are just that - stop-gap. No matter how elaborate and wonderful the arrangement -- the N9 has a new design, no buttons, NFC, a new OS (the first and last phone on MeeGo), 1 GHz processor -- but all smartphone fans out there are today more aware of their AMOLEDs and qHDs than ever before, and can therefore be quite ruthless in shunning a phone that they know has no future.

It would perhaps have been more sane to just announce to the world that Nokia will not launch any phones till Fall of this year, when it finally comes out with WP7. All great companies have to reinvent themselves once in a while. Even a complete reset perhaps if the market so demands. But if done with some forethought and clear thinking, the market can actually respect a company that announces significantly reduced sales for two quarters, followed by revised revenue guidance for the next few quarters. Much better perhaps than to invest resources in creating a new phone that won't sell much.

They believe they are stoking a fire. What they have ignored is that there's a difference between the fire burning down your house, and the fire slowly burning in your hearth. The actions taken now will determine whether the house remains or not.

Wait for your new pair of pants, Nokia. It's worth it. We have sworn by your phones, and I am sure it's not very difficult to regain lost ground against those iphones and gingerbreads if you can get your act together again - in time.

Or this Fall, could be your final fall.

Twelve

2011-02-11T18:24:00.001+05:30

Just read about a 12 year old suicide bomber killing 31 soldiers in Pakistan. I don’t know what is more heart-wrenching – That 31 soldiers died? Or that we now have really young children being used as suicide bombers?

And what is more criminal – To kill soldiers? Or to brainwash a twelve year old into throwing his lunch box and books out of his bag, and instead stuffing it with explosives? What level of an animal is required who could even think of finishing off a young life for the sake of an imaginary war?

Though I can never, ever fathom (and I hope I never do) what would actually be running in the mind of that young boy as he moved ahead to carry out the task, nevertheless here’s an attempt at what those thoughts might have looked like --

This load I carry,

Am I too young to comprehend?

And too shy to ask my crying mother,

Is there any way I can make amend?

Will God ease the pain,

As I blow myself to pieces?

And which parts of me, will they finally find,

When they start to count, the missing bodies?

Will my brother believe,

That I have actually left him alone?

Won’t he be waiting at the ice-cream shop

Buying for me, a fresh chocolate cone?

School is off, so they said,

I have learnt enough for this lifetime

How and when, to press the trigger

My last lesson, before the finish line?

My mother packed, my lunch for me

But they said that food, won’t be needed anymore

The other side of life, is a very different land,

The pearly gates? Or the bloodied door?

Will there be redemption

For my sin of being born in this place?

And won’t there be condemnation

For those who want to win, this deathly race?

And to my father, I still will ask,

This very last question

Though twelve years, isn't a very long time,

But wish you could tell me, was I a worthy son?

There is hope...

2010-12-24T23:32:00.002+05:30

...For humanity it seems.

Came across this incident while driving back from work today, and it really put a smile on my face throughout the journey. Here's what happened -

As I carefully turned my car onto CST Road (Mumbai), my colleague and I saw a man running on the street, as if being chased by someone. Until we realized that he was the one engaged in the chasing activity -- trying to catch the BEST bus so that he wouldn't have to wait for 20 minutes to catch the next one (those somewhat familiar with life in Mumbai, will probably empathize). But of course, the bus was a lot faster and he missed it.

And that's where came in our good samaritan. He was riding a bike, and he had probably seen this man's struggle for quite a distance. As soon as he realized that the bus had departed for the next stop, he drove next to this man and asked him to hop on, and after that he took upon himself to ensure that he reaches the next bus stop before the bus itself (which, those somewhat familiar with life in India, will realize is fairly easy).

I was following the biker, partly out of compulsion (read traffic), and partly out of curiosity. Once the biker reached the next bus stop, I saw that he actually stopped for a while, as the bus rolled in, and our man safely jumped aboard. I took the extreme liberty (and dangerous, given the dynamic traffic conditions in Mumbai) of actually concentrating at the expressions of "Thank you" and "You're welcome" being exchanged as both these gentlemen moved on in their respective vehicles.

"There is hope", I mentioned to my colleague, and we both smiled and thanked God that all is still not lost. ARK (Acts of Random Kindness) still exist, even in a world infested with parasites such as kalmadi, radia, raja, and others who can be summed up as "a group of anonymous, Latin American meat-packing glitterati" (from Fletcher Memorial Home, Roger Waters).

If a stranger on a bike can make someone's evening, what stops the rest of the world from being nice to at least the people that they know, are related to, and supposedly love?

Disconnected…

2010-11-21T23:18:00.001+05:30

It is said that you realize the importance of something only when it is taken away from you. I had never thought that I would say the same thing about the internet some day.

It’s 23:15 as I write this, and since 19:00 hrs approx. my home internet connection was not working. Now I am not really a chat or email freak, and I really don’t keep hitting refresh on Facebook just to see what everyone in the world is up to; but just the inability to go online IF I wanted to, was enough to make me uncomfortable in the last four odd hours.

Not a good sign. Though certainly not as bad as complete reliance upon the facilities that internet provides, but enough to give that feeling of missing something vital, like a phone signal. There were no important mails of course (it is Sunday afterall), no long-lost friends who were waiting desperately on the other side of the chat servers, no girlfriends on the edge of breaking-up at the slightest hint of non-sincerity, and no breaking news that would become obsolete in four hours, but still the effects of that funny feeling lingered on.

And then the huge sigh of relief when the status on my laptop showed “Connected”. As if I were a drug-addict, and somebody had just handed me the much-needed whiff. But one thing I am sure of. I am not alone in having these addicted kind of feelings. The world is a much smaller place today, and being disconnected from it for even such a short span is not an idea that today’s generation is used to. And the situation is only going to get much much aggravated with really high speed internet coming up on all phones all over the world.

I wonder if someone would survive for even four minutes being “offline” when that happens. But right now, let me go online and publish this….

Our Father, Who Art Where?

2010-09-29T10:45:00.001+05:30

We have been searching for God for quite sometime now. Some in temples, some in mosques, some in churches, each in their own chosen place of worship. And somewhere during this search, we forgot what we were actually looking for. We got confused between the object of worship, vs. the symbol of worship. Between our faith, and the entities representing the faith. Ironically, religion started drifting farther and farther away from God.

And this is when the politicians came in. They knew our confusion, our weakness, our ignorance. And they played us. Against each other. Each with their own agendas. Each eager to cook their broth on our funeral pyres. The more we burn, the more they gain. And as for God, He was as usual relegated to being nothing more than an archaeological entity.

And this is what surprises me. The fact that we still find it hard to wake up from this hypnosis. That if after all these years, we have actually not been able to find God in temples and mosques and churches and so on, then maybe, just MAYBE, we are looking in the wrong places? And that if we continue to look in these artificial representations of faith, then that’s exactly what we will get back in return – artificial Gods, inciting us to an artificial faith, inviting us to an artificial belief-system, fucking with our minds, and in the process, fucking with our entire entity. And we allow this to happen, maybe because we enjoy it.

Can we actually stop the charade, and for once, look beyond brick and mortar for the final answer? And show ourselves that we are more than mere puppets in the system? And convince ourselves that we can think beyond the cleverly crafted definitions of religion?

Roadkill

2010-09-03T00:41:00.001+05:30

I read about it this morning -

“A drunk 30-year old hits (and kills) one on Marine Drive”. And I thought, not again…

Actually, he killed more than one. The aunt of the unfortunate deceased also mortally succumbed to the shock of the news. The father of the culprit probably can’t believe this is the kind of son he had raised. Though of course he will throw a minor percentage of his net worth and get his son out in no time. The incident will be relegated to the pages of scrap newspaper, and we, who have no choice, will move on.

But I am equally sorry for someone else. She is quite young, and is therefore blissfully unaware that she is actually the cause of all this. The 2 month old daughter of the drunken monkey. They were celebrating her birth when everybody got high, and our man got so high, he ended up believing he was flying a Cessna along the muddy coastline.

They will keep this news from her for as long as they can. They will hide it behind wads of cash, cover it up with Barbie-themed lies which will fill up her room till the cows come home. You know, money does cover up a lot of scars and shortcomings. But someday somebody will tell her. That her birth led to a few families being ruined, apparently because her stupid-ass father couldn’t hold his joy. Love can kill, really.

And from then on, in spite of her silver-spooned life, every time she blows those birthday candles out, there will be a tinge of sorrow as she remembers the lights that went out that night (assuming her IQ is somewhat higher than Barbie’s). She wouldn’t know whether to thank her father for that year’s huge birthday gift, or search for some shade of remorse in his eyes. Maybe her best gift would be if daddy dear quits drinking. Or at least quits flying after drinking.

We know that this won’t bring anybody back to life. Nothing does. But at least a faint satisfaction that for some time to come, this family’s celebrations won’t lead to a few funerals the next day. Until of course, she grows up and her doting father gifts her a Merc, a pink cellphone and a bottle of p.i.n.k vodka. History will probably repeat itself then. But until then, have a safe night…

All in good time…

2010-09-02T13:46:00.001+05:30

You might find the reasons,

Why God was placing dice

Or who you thought were real friends,

Were just brilliant actors at playing nice

You might run into that old friend again,

On the other side of a man-made line

You might find that love was actually never lost,

But all, in good time

You might reach, the moon someday

Or perhaps realize, that it’s too far away

Whatever path, you end up taking

You will travel, to the same cross one day

You might hit, the very same blocks

Even with enough bread, women or wine

And you might be pleased, to see the light

But all, in good time

You might double, your salary overnight

And haughtily surpass, even your best friends

Until you find, you will have to leave it behind

That one fine day, your time ends

You might win, more than you lose

And one warm summer, you will probably shine

And you will live, to cherish and savour,

This all, in good time

The fair of life, may appear unfair

Until the tides appear to turn

And the reality of dreams can be seen,

When the veil begins to burn

So far, so good, and thus it goes

Between the start and finishing line

Crests and troughs, you touch each of them,

Though all, only in good time

Another good idea

2010-08-08T16:50:00.001+05:30

“Making more money” is probably right at the top in the popularity charts for pretty much everyone on this planet. And there are perhaps as many schemes to make more money as there are people on this planet. Though it’s obvious that out of the six billion odd such schemes, only a few seem to work most of the time.

The world of stock markets is one of those “get rich quickly” worlds. Though of course, what takes you up quickly, also has the potential of pulling you down equally quickly as well. And this is where the concept of stock tips come in. A concept on which the entire community of stock analysts thrives and earns a rather sumptuous livelihood.

Traditionally the interaction between consumers and analysts has been more of a one-way, compartmentalized communication. With a consumer having to select a particular wealth advisory and management firm, and that firm then deciding which relationship and wealth managers to be assigned to this customer. While this methodology has its own advantages, a “stock tips broker” kind of online website makes a lot of sense to give this analyst/consumer interaction a new feel.

One such online website is Hi On Stocks @ http://hionstocks.com/w/home.aspx. This provides a good platform to the freelance as well as professional analysts to earn money by offering their services of providing stock tips, and consumers obviously stand to gain money if those tips work out for them. To understand simply, it’s a kind of magicbricks.com or makaan.com, except that in this case the buyers and sellers are not dealing in properties, but in stock market tips.

Quite an interesting concept actually, as consumers are not bound to any specific wealth management firm and instead can pick and choose from amongst all those analysts who wish to provide their recommendations. And at the same time, analysts make money everytime their recommendations deliver the goods.

Definitely worth it.

The controller-free world – Part II

2010-06-18T21:06:00.001+05:30

Here’s a very different view-point on the topic that I was referring to earlier.

I am absolutely sure that we will certainly achieve the most efficient and perfect communication methodology between humans and machines (it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when). But meanwhile, what about the communication challenges between humans themselves?

With machines we will have wonderful relationships, but when will we achieve the same with our fellow humans?

With phones we will have all kinds of touch facilities, but when will that most important “human touch” become a part of our basic mentality?

With all kinds of machines we will break every possible barrier in the way of our smooth communication, but when will we break our needless, artificial barriers of race, ethnicity, social stature, color, creed, and all the other bullshit that we have surrounded ourselves with?

In this world where everybody tends to become a “control-freak” (your boss, your spouse, your landlord, your neighbor, your political representative, your train co-passenger, and so on…), when will we actually achieve the “controller-free” nirvana?

The controller-free world – Part I

2010-06-18T21:01:00.001+05:30

I believe the concept started with touch-screens. As a replacement of the traditional mouse kind of pointer. So in your smart-phones you could start using your fingers to achieve the same results as what was earlier achieved by moving various keys on the keypad to select the right application.

The same concept was carried forward, albeit in a different way, into the world of console games, with the Wii providing strap-on controllers to give a realistic feel to your tennis and boxing games on the console. There was something tied to your hands, but yes, it was different from the traditional game controllers with 10+ keys and your thumbs getting sore after delivering huge blows in Dead or Alive.

In the world of touch, there was more evolution, with the latest entrant being something called “multi-touch”. The first idea in that line was “Surface” which featured a Minority Report kind of interface, as users could literally play with all that they could see on the screen. You could simulate an entire blackjack game with those flicks of hands that you would usually see as a trademark of a dealer in Vegas.

And then the iPhone entered the world, and it completely did away with the concept of any pointing device on phones, giving full usability only via fingers, no stylus and no pointers.

They took the multi-touch concept further ahead straight into iPad which actually looks just like a bigger phone without the phone call facility, though of course you can see pictures and movies and books on an almost laptop-sized screen, and again, have no place for any kind of pointers or pointing-devices.

Meanwhile, back in the gaming world came another major leap as Kinect was announced, promising the gamers no strap-ons, no keys, and no need to exercise your thumb muscles as you pound away your opponents. Instead, you exercise the same muscles which you would otherwise do if you were in a real boxing match. The concept being that of “gestures”, almost analogous to the multi-touch concept, except that there is obviously no touch involved.

In between we of course had various other attempts at “non-intrusive” technologies such as voice dialing or voice commands, but till date they haven’t met with much success due to severe differences in accents and pronunciations across the world.

Though I believe that in that combination (voice + gestures) is where the future lies, in terms of dissolving any remaining differences between the human-machine interfaces. The rationale is very simple actually – If what we are trying is to simulate as near a human kind of experience then the obvious choice is voice+gestures, because that is exactly how humans interact with each other. We talk and we simultaneously move our hands and head etc. (the whole science of body language) as we try to “communicate” and it is this final code of communication that all the technological powers in this world are trying to crack.

Let’s wait, and watch the death of the controllers…

If we said No to Drugs…

2010-06-09T22:04:00.001+05:30

A strange thought crossed my mind as my conversing with one of my friends this afternoon. We were talking about the necessity of surgery etc. in certain cases and it struck me that if a doctor can actually cure a patient by also suggesting alternative therapy such as exercise and meditation, then that doctor stands to lose a lot of revenue which he/she might have otherwise obtained had the patient been forced to undergo the complicated (and obviously expensive) surgery.

Now I obviously have nothing against doctors. They are doing a good job no doubt. But this trail of thought makes me wonder that all the things that they do with money (buying food, clothes, Merc S-class, second homes in Alibagh etc.) are actually a result of somebody being in pain or distress. What if there were no diseases at all? No injuries, no lifestyle symptoms, no cancer, no tumours, no infections, no allergies, nothing at all? The only reason why people would come to hospitals would probably be for child-birth and nothing else.

It is way too far-fetched, I agree. But for a moment, hypothetically of course, what if it would really happen one day?

What would be the economic impact of this utopian human condition?

- No medical colleges (and their obscene donations), no more struggles for those coveted degrees from Harvard Med and other Ivy League institutions, no research papers on obscure infections of obscure body parts, no symposiums and no seminars in huge hotel ballrooms.

- No Pharmaceutical companies, no Big Pharma and their autocratic misdeeds in the underdeveloped nations, no clash for marketing rights of generics, no patent laws, no million dollar legal fees, no billion dollar blockbusters, no billion dollar investments in NCEs, no clinical trials, no contract manufacturing, no medical representatives, no pharmaceutical supply chains, and the various software packages to manage them.

- No hospital chains, no major healthcare facilities, no pathology labs, no ultrasound, no MRI, no X-ray, no blood tests

- And of course, no Rx, no OTC, no syringes, and no drugs.

Unbelievable? The thought itself is so unlike anything you would have ever surmised. I guess saying no to drugs ain’t so easy after all…

No mafia

2010-04-21T23:47:00.001+05:30

I don’t play Mafia wars. Not anymore. I couldn’t play Farmville. Or Fishville, or Vampires, or any of those Zynga games that are now hobbies of so many people on Facebook. I have nothing against them actually. It’s just that after a while all of them are pretty repetitive and predictable. And the bigger reason – I am not one of those FFs (Facebook freaks) who always have to stay online just so that they can catch every single status update (A remote acquaintance just changed from blue to red underwear – and of course, the whole world needs to know about it).

For these super-frequent flyers, these games are necessary. A must-have time-pass while you eagerly wait for something to happen (your friend needs at least a few seconds to change the underwear, right?). It’s now the lifeline of so many. They wouldn’t know if their mother fell unconscious in the next room, but the status of underwear across a thousand miles – now that’s a super critical piece of information.

And to fill up the gap, you can become the Mafia in multiple cities and do the same things over and over and over and over again… Or feed the fish somewhere, or have cows and sheep all over the desktop and gloat on it. Or suck the blood off vampires. And by the time I am done writing this, there would have been a million underwear status updates. Please refresh…

Redelivering. High performance.

2010-04-21T23:06:00.001+05:30

It was a wise thing to do certainly. After all, when your brand ambassador is busy delivering all other kinds of “performances” with steadily changing “clients”, you’ve got to move on. And what astonishing performances they were. 18 at the last count. Couldn’t stay away from the magic number of golf, I guess. And they say it’s now 19. Achieving higher goals no doubt.

To have elephants and deer and trees conveying the same message is much safer. For one, you break away from the whole concept of brand ambassador entirely. After all, you don’t know what antics might these special people be up to. They are after all, still human beings. It’s ironical that perhaps only animals are the ones who are not prone to animal instincts these days.

Two, your costs go down drastically. Only paying the animal trainers perhaps; with no more multi-million dollar deals down the 18 holes. And they are easier to capture on film as well. Easy flowing, natural movements, no pretensions. None required. Because with the more evolved two-legged species, it’s always a case of who is wearing a better mask.

And no tantrums, no where’s-my-one-third-cranberry-and-two-third-pomengrate-juice expectations, no touch-ups, no sunscreens, no mascara, no brushes, no lip-gloss, no nothing.

Now would you say that that’s what all marketing teams should be thinking? Can’t be. If you are selling a beauty soap, you need an Aishwarya or Priyanka to get the impact. Can’t show animals there really. Even though some of them are more good-looking. Same is true if you sell branded clothes for that matter. You can’t have peacocks wearing Reid & Taylor suits. A Gandalf-like Amitabh is your best bet.

So here’s the moral of the story – If your brand can do without a human face/body to convey the message, then it might be worthwhile taking that route. The Zoo-zoo is another wonderful success story. Same principles apply there as well. It’s a phone service. And if you can avoid associating a personality trait to your brand, then that’s your solution. No doubt humans are more easily identifiable with personality traits and that’s where the strength of that technique lies. And that’s what they were trying with Woods. Though unfortunately, that’s where lies it’s biggest weakness as well.

The “animal” cure is good, but lesson for others – prevention is still a better strategy.

Home again…

2010-01-31T00:57:00.001+05:30

This is going to be a short one. Like many other super critical things in life.

Just visit www.backtohome.com, and you will see what I mean. A healthy dose everyday (once you register) to keep your mind on that one track where it should always be, but where it is seldom allowed to be.

Home, it seems, is within reach again.

The Hangman

2009-12-19T15:54:00.001+05:30

The day has come, for another one,

To be sent across to the other side

And I am called, to do my part

To pull the lever, to end the ride

His eyes meet mine, as he is brought

Onto the pole of final redemption

And I am answering, through that glance

Those last doubts, that closing question

He is asked, to say his prayers,

Before the veil covers his face

And I am forced, to listen again

To an unknown God, he makes his case

They place the noose, around his neck,

As he says sorry for a life of crime

And I get ready, to clasp my hands

Another blood, on these hands of mine

They give the signal, to move the lever,

He moves a little a few more times

And I close my eyes, as those muscles flex

Some unfinished words, many unheard lines

His soul departs, and crosses mine

His last breath mingles with my sigh

And I am left, confused as ever,

The purpose of my life, is to make sure they die

Is there a retribution, for what I do?

Is there a place for me up there?

As I am still, struggling to find,

In this world of sin, my sinful share

Worthwhile?

2009-10-03T20:02:00.001+05:30

Peaches, melons, and dark purple grapes,
Our life should be crystals, pearls and heavy drapes
Trapped in the pile of past, untamed desires
Burning through our million lives' funeral pyres

Writ by us, and un-writ by us as well,
Our destiny follows us, but we can't tell
For our beliefs, are turned upside down
Did our smile come first? Or was it the frown?

The tidal waves of multiple dreams so colorful
Wash us away, with overwhelming push and pull
And we allow ourselves to be dragged around
By random thoughts that are lost and found

It might hurt, but imagine this way,
Your Merc and BMW, if they take it all away
Would you still be defined by what you really are?
Or are you just the total, of a yacht, a house, and a hand-crafted car?

Strange it may seem, that you will leave it all behind,
All that you have fought for, this life full of grind
And then you return, to the same river with a different bend
A million uncertain dreams, and one certain end

So will this end be the actual final departure?
Or will I be searching again for a greener pasture?
I know the choice rests right here in me
But when the light shines, will I be there to see?

Secrets...

2009-06-25T13:20:00.010+05:30

I am currently reading four somewhat inter-related books these days (though on the face of it, they may not necessarily appear to be linked) -- Bhagavad Gita, The Secret, The Science of getting rich, and Master-key-System. Our religions and probably our elders would not obviously allow us to associate the words "rich" and "Gita" very closely. But if we go a little deeper, we realize that no God has ever been against the concept of prosperity in a positive sense. Or abundance, which is actually what really being rich is all about.

And that is where these four texts seem to merge. A common theme running across all of them is the presence of an Omnipotent, Omnipresence power existing all across this universe. A power that is actually very favorable to us (if we believe it to be). A power that strongly advocates lavish abundance. Look at the way Mother Nature creates things -- the vast expanse of really lofty mountains, the unending Oceans, the extremely, over-the-top greenery of trees, and not to mention the millions of species present only on this Earth, which is but a very small component in the entire universe. And the Bhagavad Gita clearly articulates that the owner of this entire creation (Lord Krishna) is present everywhere and anywhere (Omnipotent, Omnipresent). The other three books have a very simple premise (and something which we keep hearing in various shapes and forms) -- "The answer lies within". Very simple, very powerful, yet something which we all keep forgetting.

This infact, takes me back to an earlier post where we were discussing choices, and that there are really no accidents. These books actually delve deeper into why there can actually be no accidents, and that every single thing or event that happens around us, has it's origin inside us. And this is precisely where they become contradictory to all that we have experienced and been taught. We are happy when something good happens to us, and we are not so happy otherwise. In short, our beliefs tell us that the cause is outside us, and the effect is what happens inside us. These books (including the Gita) clearly turn this illogical concept upside down and point at the final truth -- The cause is inside us, the effect is what happens outside. And if we are in tune with the Universe (or God, or Nature, or whatever it is that we believe runs all across), then this Omnipotent entity will definitely cause things to happen in accordance with whatever thoughts we harbor).

This simple thing is actually the only Secret we will ever need to know...

Crazy..

2009-05-11T21:37:00.005+05:30

Some people are worried they might go crazy one day. What with all this recession (and yet a somewhat positive stock market) and all kinds of people turning into statistical percentages. Percentage of people who lost their homes, percentage of people who can't dream anymore about owning a home, percentage of people who played around with other people's homes... you get the drift.

And who would you trust around you? The about to be enthroned UPA? Ketan Parekh? Those analysts on NDTV who claimed in Jan 08 that "markets would have support at 20000 in the short term"? Who is really keeping the markets afloat? Or would you think that Obama is the saviour? Nasdaq and Dow are inching up rapidly. So is the worst for the world over? Even if GM files for bankruptcy, even if credit card defaults are supposed to increase? What exactly does "consumer confidence index" measure? How do you measure optimism?

And all this accompanied by increasing problems on the personal front. I mean, just how many marriages (and that's another interesting statistic by the way) were actually based on "love", and not on the expanse of your downtown Manhatten villa? How many friendships are actually not based on social status, and the ability (mainly financially) to be "cool"? Would you respect your uncles as much if they turned up at your doorstep without a wallet-loosening gift stashed away in their coat pockets? Would you?

This has got me worried. And what I am worried about is not whether I will go crazy. But that I will never know when exactly did I cross the line...

Price-tags

2009-04-30T22:35:00.003+05:30

I have been house hunting (No, that's not the excuse for not writing anything in March of 09). And I have begun to realize that you can attach a price tag to almost anything and everything.

One of your rooms has a view to what looks like a huge drain (they call it a Lake), and the per sq. ft. price goes up.
You can watch fifty pigeons bathing and shitting in the common pool below, and it's called "pool-facing".
There's one rotten tread-mill in the basement, and you have to pay "Clubhouse" charges.
The vaguely audible sea-waves, lashing a few kilometers away, would come with a "sea-facing" tag.
The convenience of watching huge movie posters and clothing banners would easily lead to a "mall-facing" qualifier, which translates to an additional Rs. to the psf rate.
And if from your window you can watch the crowd pouring into Siddhivinayak, then you must have paid a real hefty premium (God ain't cheap, certainly not in Mumbai)

The only consolation is that they haven't (at least till now) asked me for any premiums if the window opens into the bedroom of my neighbor...

Immoral police

2009-02-26T23:41:00.001+05:30

Ancient mammoths imposing their will
Myopic vultures scooping down upon all
Fictitious religions, governed by fictitious Gods
Dwarf-minded dinosaurs, standing tall

Fighting to win their own wars,
The army of wall-builders arrives
Each bearing a sign they don’t understand
Fed on one large truth, of cumulative lies

Carrying bird-cages in their creepy hands,
Finding faults with those walking free
Destroying all hints of progress,
Self-claimed visionaries, who were not made to see

Hallucinating on ego-strengthening trips,
The tyrants claim they are more learned
In a time when shadows rule the bodies,
Illiteracy becomes a virtue of the over-educated

These quacks are playing, with fiery medicines,
Turning guinea pigs out of the innocent
Forked tongues, unleashing venom
Until their preys are fully spent

And so they haunt the unsuspecting millions
Specters marching, waving scepters
Bones of contention left in every plate,
By scheming villains, and glorified rainmakers

Choices...

2009-02-21T20:57:00.006+05:30

I have been told (and have read the same) that all that takes place in our life is our own choice. Even Master Oogway reiterates this so many times to Master Shifu - "There are... no accidents". Though Shifu of course has a tough time believing that. I can understand that feeling.

I guess we all can. It's so easy for us when all that takes place in our life is not really attributed to us, but to a larger scheme; called "fate" or "destiny" or "God" (that is infact usually the first resort). I mean, how can there be "no accidents"? Our whole life began with a (literally) fucking accident. And they don't really stop as we move on through life. Sometimes accidents come in our way, and then there are times when we come in their way.

Like we all obviously remember the last time we just got "lucky", or the time when we were consoled with "Better luck next time". Like the time when you darkened one extra right circle in your CAT exam, or the time when you "somehow" missed the 8:25 Churchgate local, and your client walked into a different meeting by the time you reached... "Luck by Chance", as they say in Mumbai (and they even made a movie out of it -- where would they get all that money if there was no subject such as luck). And the biggest example of them all, is of course Slumdog... (Remember the catchy line - "It is written"?). But what was really written? The fact that there would be thousands of people born into the slums of Bandra, or the fact that a movie about them would go on to win 8 Oscars...?

And to proclaim that all those are our own choices - there's some disbelief bound to happen. I know there's the concept of Super-consciousness, consciousness, and sub-consciousness. And all our choices are made at either of these, or at a combination of these levels. How much have I chosen consciously , is something I have never consciously thought of though. I only have one thing to say to my super-conscious -- "You better be making some good choices mate. We are in this together afterall, aren't we?"

Back to the past...

2009-01-01T11:33:00.003+05:30

There is hope, yet again. As the most common emotion floating around between the late hours of 31st December and 1st January. And for 2009, people do need a lot of hope... to get back into a mindset of thinking in terms of futuristic figures...
...It is interesting to note that most stock market indices are back to 2005-2006 levels. So are the inflation and GDP growth figures for a large number of economies. The FRR is back to 50s level, and gasoline prices are US are at 2004 range. And of course, the root cause, the real estate prices are trying to achieve a meaningful bottom.
Which is good, in a way. 2006 and 2007 had seen an irrational exuberance fuelled by severe greed amongst almost all businesses. 2008 dealt a rather harsh, sobering financial blow. Reality has that habit of hurting. And all these shocks, coupled with the demonic terrorist attacks on Mumbai, further affected the general sentiment.
Which is again, the reason why the common populace needs more than a bushel full of hope to lead their way into this new year. But like always, we are a resilient race. The size of the fight doesn't reduce inside us. The future, though unknown, can still look good if viewed with the right lenses. And here's the best part -- the choice of that lens, lies with us.
Happy 2009.

Insomniac..,

2008-11-22T10:34:00.000+05:30

Every night, there’s this fear
That something strange, would cross my mind
Wading through, the darkest hours,
What will I lose, what will I find?

The sun has set, but not upon my thoughts
A lot within, a few without
I sit at rest, through with it all
My mind at peace, is what I doubt

Creating visions, pictures and scenes,
Just like me, working overtime
Fighting with itself, to see who would win
It’s my very own, but no dreams are mine

The morning comes, and the hangover remains,
The nightmarish cocktail of all that I passed by
And when they’ve given up asking questions
My brain’s busy answering, the What, the How, and the Why

It’s right to rest, it has forsaken,
A strange mission, it has embarked upon
Chasing itself, never catching up,
Still undecided, has it lost or have I won?

Breaking news...

2008-10-12T19:48:00.003+05:30

...Fucking disturbing, that all news channels since yesterday could not find anything better to report than Mr. Bachchan's digestive system malfunctioning (to be precise, they reported it was intestinal inflammation). How fucking illuminating to get this news, there couldn't be a more severe national calamity, so much so that Mr. Prime minister found it important to convey his concerns to the entire family. Our obsession with the make-believe world is almost complete. Perhaps that explains why we have let our real world be as fucked as possible.

Not the media's fault perhaps. What do you do when you have to run 24 hour shows of "news". Just how much news can be cooked up in a day? That's where celebrity illnesses come into picture. Or some stupid inspector's senile dog being lost in the city (and of course, another breaking news when the same dog is found by the police, who obviously have no balls to catch the real dogs out there).

Reporters need a job too. And what's more enriching a career than standing outside the hospital reporting which tablets are being fed to rich sexagenarians, or the visuals of people offering prayers to make sure that their earthly gods can survive stomach cramps...

There are perhaps still enough people who believe that if these gods are cured, then maybe there is a chance for the salvation of a billion plus people in India. It's worse than the coverage of wardrobe malfunctions. Because there the fuck-crazy Indian population (how else did we reach a billion so fucking fast?) still has hopes of sneak peeks at coveted body parts. In this case, the only hope in the mind of some perverts would be a spycam fitted to the doctor's glasses, as he/she would attempt to correct the misbehaving intestines...

We are still far behind on the road to rationalism (the recent example being some anti-Nano politicians). On a scale of one to ten, we are sub-zero. And until we stop these super-star-intestinal-fetishes, we will remain there. Though as always, I am still hoping that someday there would a breaking news that we have crossed to the other side of zero....

The house that Jack built...

2008-10-07T13:21:00.008+05:30

If there's any news these days, it's that of market crashes, fears of recession, failing bailouts, excessive government intervention in the money markets, and similar stuff which is becoming the talk of every disgruntled town.

Never has Wallstreet been given such a bad name as before this, for triggering off such a widespread financial disaster. The 19.1% fall in Russian markets is an indication that was not a mere flu which had gripped the US economy but a cancer spreading to every limb of the global economic ecosystem. Because this time, there are no political reasons leading to investor concerns (note that there was a 9 odd percent fall in the Russian markets when Mr. Gorbachev was overthrown, but there were no major fundamental economic changes then). What we have now is a once in a fucking lifetime situation where the most basic elements of finance have been casually neglected.

Risk and return are always interlinked. All Jacks know that. And yet, when it came to building the grand financial house that everyone has been living in since the last IT-led recession, they all forgot the equations. Balance sheets are still balanced, but with artificial values. Hypo, Fortis, WaMu and AIG have shown us that even institutions which deal in individual consumer money paid no heed to any risk management ideologies, and conveniently rode the sugar-coated mortgage gravy train. High risk, very high initial gains, and then one day they found termites crawling all over the foundation-less house...

Multi-multi-billion dollar bailout packages are suddently proving to be too less to hold the contagion. Within one month, economic slowdown has assumed higher priority than inflationary concerns, and as is always the case, governments are now racing against each other to see who cuts interest rates the most. The only problem with this solution is that it is inherently cosmetic in nature. It's like providing an analgesic to someone who has just been shot in the knee. The pain might subside for some time, but the wound will only fester if the bullet is not removed in time.

Is there any other recourse we can take to ensure the house is brought back up again? For now, Jack doesn't seem to have any answers...

Bricks in the Wall (Street)...

2008-09-18T00:53:00.003+05:30

Everyone's talking or writing about it. The jeremiahs are having a field day. Every fear suddenly appears justified. Every news looks like bad news. Words like "moral hazard", "too big to fail", "bail-out" are now becoming as common as that one word which started it all -- "subprime".

And the US Treasury is certainly caught between the scylla and charybdis of tax-payers' money and the state of economy. If they don't help the biggies, then the after-effects will be disturbingly widespread. And if it does, then it's certainly taxpayers money going down the drain.

And what is hurting the US citizens currently is that their money is simply saving the asses of those rapacious financial chiefs who should actually be publicly lynched. They saw it coming. They all did. And yet, inspite of (or perhaps because of) their deep understanding of the markets, they kept quiet, all the while shouting out slogans such as "we will ride the storm, we have done it before". True, they had definitely survived tsunamis earlier, but this one was different. This one was the result of all dangerous explosives put together underneath a fuel tank. There were ego-boosting cries of "American dream" by Mr. Greenspan, resulting in 1% FRR and loans handed out of trucks and trailers. There were the regulators who just looked the other way when the shit was inching it's way up to the fan, there were rating agencies who were doling out AAAs faster than AAA batteries, there were real estate players who were making everyone believe that when it came to house prices, Mr. Newton was wrong, and then there was greed, the desire to make more and more money at clearly a huge cost to those who had no idea what trap they were getting into...

Even then, as they say, hope is a good thing, perhaps the best of things.

And so everybody is hoping that the bottom is reached (but we know it hasn't). Everyone is hoping that the cancer doesn't spread any further. Everyone is hoping that the falling bricks on the wall street find their way back...

Dances with wolves...

2008-08-31T15:22:00.003+05:30

They say you can throw a man out of a dance bar, but you can't throw the dance bar out of the man...

Perhaps the recent, extremely shameful incident at Lonavala is just a proof of that. A bunch of really old men (median age was 45+) had gathered to watch dancing girls who are of the same age as their respective, respectable daughters. It would still be considered ok if it were limited to normal girls, wearing normal clothes, dancing to normal songs and then everybody going back to their own respective, respectable homes. But this get-together of custom officers was conveniently converted into an event which was as raunchy as a bachelor party, which is perhaps an indication that these officers were perhaps facing the 20 year itch in their marriage.

Good husbands these were, you would say. And doting fathers too perhaps. And God-fearing, Rakhi-tying brothers as well, you might add. Fucking schizophrenics, is what I would label them
though.

What is more disturbing is not that these men committed this strange act. But the fact that thousands of such sick people, with multiple personality disorders, are running loose. The ones who are instituted in mental asylums, or undergoing neuro therapy, are just a minor fraction of those that actually need a mind-changing treatment. They are out there, your relatives and loved ones, the human avatars of your five-in-one electronic gadgets. The father, the brother, the rapist, the lier and the crook, all rolled into one neat, laundry-fresh package...

Perhaps it is time to realize that the apple of your eye, might be nothing more than a safe home for worms...

Distance...

2008-08-17T12:25:00.003+05:30

We don't always measure time in units of seconds and hours. Sometimes we inadvertently collide the dimensions of space and time and calculate the elapsed period in terms of miles. I have been counting my separation from alcohol in perhaps the same terms these days.

We were friends (indeed, in need as well as in deed). Good friends. A relationship that was mostly "on the rocks". Always through "thick", never thinned by adulteration of any kind. But it's not that we were drifting apart. Perhaps we needed our own space, our own precious distance.

In terms of time though, it's close to a couple of months now. Certainly our maximum separation in the last thirteen odd years of a rather close acquaintance. Today it sits still inside it's bottle. Ageing itself. Waiting perhaps, for those secrets to start pouring out, at almost the same rate at which the drops flow.

There are withdrawal symptoms as well. Though I don't know what those symptoms are, but I am sure I can attribute a few stomach cramps to my abstention policy. But just like all such side-effects, these too shall subside as the distance between us grows further...

Frankly, I don't know if it's really over, but one thing's for sure --- the hangover still remains...

Puzzled pieces...

2008-07-24T22:52:00.002+05:30

My mind went wandering back to this whole Big Picture thing... That we are entities within the whole system having our own purpose which is in line with the purpose of this "system". That we are little souls which are parts of that One great soul which is God. That we are that one litre of water in the ocean of Oneness... Lots of similar theories, each having basically the same outlook, content and message.

The aspect to which I got stuck today, was the viewpoint of these little pieces. "Our" viewpoint (as individual humans) is what I am referring to here. If I were to think of us as pieces of this huge jigsaw puzzle, it is true that when we all kind of gather together, we do solve this puzzle. The problem is -- do each of these jigsaw pieces know how this picture (which they have solved) looks like? The "outsider" view, so to say, is missing. No wonder that each puzzle piece is so fuckin' confused. Fat pieces, thin pieces, long pieces, short pieces, some jagged at the edges, some smoothened at their corners, some colorful, some shades of grey, all of them equally unclear about the collage that emerges when the Big Picture tries to assemble itself. Unclear about the result of their activities. A lot of higher-than-normal spiritual beings have often indicated that the purpose of our existence is to complete this picture...

Perhaps a glimpse of that picture would have been helpful...

The Great Indian dream...

2008-07-24T19:15:00.002+05:30

...We are a strong nation. Strong in beliefs. So strong that we are always on the edge (and mostly on the other side) of obstinacy. And we are optimistic. Sometimes, hopelessly so. And a lot of this hope stems from our amazing forgetfulness. "The old gives away, making way for the new..." is a perpetual belief we hold. Sometimes that good for us. But sometimes, it can hurt.

Consider the fact that we have latched on to the India Shining dream for quite some time now. Till January 2008 we were actually thriving on dreams. Just like everyone else in the world. Every single analyst out there had touted that this dream run would continue. Pigs were flying, and we were all clapping, making money and making merry. Then reality punctured our inflated pigs, and we stood gaping at the skies. "It's a temporary phase, the market fundamentals are intact", and similar words were now the main content of every analyst speech and report. That we still had P/Es of 35-40 for almost every industry, was still not cause enough to be worried. The "decoupling" theories were falling apart. That we are very much a part of this economic world was now slowly becoming clear. Till the subprime shit hit the fan, and there was stink all over...

But we obviously have too many other things to keep us occupied. Our strange political system, for instance. The Indian Parliament has been converted into a zoo-cum-circus, where all animals are happily feeding upon the growing tax collections. We have jokers (this one is obvious), and "horses" being traded freely, and ring masters, and lions and sheep, and of course, in abundant quantities - wolves. But the market was happy. 800+ points happy. Here is one decoupling which is really obvious -- The market is only concerned with the end, and never with the means to that end.

And we too, perhaps out of our hope of the market turning bullish again, or perhaps out of forgetting the fading images of MPs waving big bundles of thousand rupee notes, will focus again on the rising share prices. I am not saying we should not. Inflation (along with the oil prices) needs to come down. Home loans certainly need to be back within human limits. But just a wish (and nothing more) that in some way we should build within our system a Morality Index (Mordex, if you please...) that does not allow our nation to even briefly forget the nonsense which our leaders are perpetrating. A big soul mirror, which does not allow the means to run a different course from the end that they lead to. A system which will force us to take note of (and remember, till the next voting date) the dangers of a fake democracy. I believe that a benchmark of this nature, would some day, hopefully, guide to us a more realistic, well-rounded, and equitable Indian Dream...

In God's own ears...

2008-07-02T23:15:00.002+05:30

To those who are frequent visitors of the Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai, the two silver mice located within the temple are not an unknown sight. And though this was not my first visit to the temple, yet for some reason I had perhaps not noticed them earlier, or (and this is actually more true) had not noticed the behavior of people towards the two silver statues. They were flocking towards the statues (nothing strange about that), and they were touching the feets of these mice (nothing strange with that either, since it is customary to pay your respects to every God-related idol in a temple). What was strange, however, was the fact that these devotees were bending down towards the ears of these mice and apparently saying something, as if speaking into a microphone.

And this is when a fellow devotee explained that since the Mouse is the official ride of Lord Ganesha, it is believed that whatever is spoken into the ears of these mice will be communicated to the Good Lord Himself, thereby resulting in a higher probability of that wish being granted. It was also interesting to observe that while speaking into one ear, the devotees were closing the other ear, with the intention that nothing should perhaps "leak" out to the other side.

I stood in the line. Observing. People speaking with all their earnestness (and hope), rattling off their wishes, all their dreams converted to some words. To no one would they have told these wishes (perhaps no one would have listened). But here, these silver idols were listening to all they had to ask. Metal messengers were their messiahs. After all, God is like senior management (or so they believe), you need someone to get your "file" in...

What did I wish for? Of course I am not supposed to tell. My secret lies with one of those mice. All I can disclose is that my statement consisted of less than six words. A six-pack of sorts. It must have been the shortest message the mice would be delivering. Perhaps it has reached Ganesha by now. Maybe it's on it's way. But reach it will. At least that's what belief is all about.

But one thing I again learnt that day. The human desire to have a face to talk to. To speak out what's hidden inside. To have anyone to open up to. Even if you have to close the other ear yourself. Even when you are never sure. Even if you have been asking the same thing over and over again. Even if there are tonnes of wishes, waiting to be fulfilled. Even if one of the mice is a donation by Mr. Bachchan...

The Air-borne identity

2008-06-08T00:05:00.004+05:30

It's arrived a little too early for everyone's comfort... The smell of moist earth (or moist slush, as is more usually the case in this city) has hit the nostrils almost a month in advance. The sales managers at most Umbrella manufacturing/distributing companies are downing their drinks already. The average, proverbial, common man has started worrying again. And in the reality of our roads, cracks (literally) have started showing up. Not that the BMC needed any manifestation of Murphy's law (everything there is anyways fucked up...), but nevertheless, God, while playing dice again, has decided to play a different move this time.

In addition to the cumulonimbus clouds craftily placed over one of the runways of MIAL, just to make the game a little more interesting, our dear who-art-in-heaven decided to add a canine chaos to the drama. And "All the king's horses, and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again", or in this case, all the ATC's resources couldn't drive the creature away from the other runway for a good forty minutes, which were enough to make almost the entire airport staff, as well as the pilots (and not to forget the passengers) feel as if a mad dog had bitten them, and a severe strain of rabies had spread all through their respective systems...

"I believe I can fly... I believe I can touch the sky..." is probably what that helpless creature would have been singing. Perhaps every day of observing useless jokers fly high would have inspired the dog to claim "If these creatures can do it, then certainly I, who is much more faithful than the average traveler, can also do it. All I need therefore, is a good airplane". And good airplanes - they are aplenty, so many that you can keep four of them flying indefinitely, and yet have enough remaining on the ground to be filled up.

Of the five hundred odd passengers who remained in the air much longer than their cheap fare permits, there must have been some dog-owners certainly. I am sure at least a few of those would now be giving second thoughts to their undying love for whatever sub-species they own...

And it has also been heard that the MIAL ATC has outsourced the dog-catching operations to a SWAT team that has been specially trained to deal with precisely such kind of extremely dangerous situations....

एक बार फिर...

2008-06-07T23:49:00.003+05:30

पता नहीं यह कैसा लगेगा... मात्र-भाषा जरूर है, पर फिर भी एक दूरी सी है हिन्दी से... शायद इसलिए कि आखरी बार हिन्दी में कुछ ज़्यादा लिखा था करीब १२ साल पहले... तब से आज तक कहीं कुछ लिखवाया गया है तो इंग्लिश में... शायद ये इसी देश में होता होगा। कहते हैं किसी चीज़ की एहमियत तभी पता चलती है जब उससे दूरी काफ़ी बढ़ जाती है। आज हिन्दी में ये ब्लॉग पोस्ट लिखते हुएऐसा लग रहा है मानो किसी और को लिखते हुए देख रहा हूँ। ज़्यादा लिख भी नहीं पाऊँगा। चार वाक्यों में ही ऐसा लग रहा है जाने कितना लिख लिया हो।

लेकिन सच कहें तो एक अलग ही मज़ा है... बस देखना ये है कि कितनी बार हम ये आनंद उठाने के काबिल पायेंगे ख़ुद को...

Sunday Afternoons…

2008-06-01T21:29:00.000+05:30

It’s close to 3 on this Sunday afternoon, and there is something traditionally familiar about this afternoon as well. As if we had all gathered together to sing oft-sung hymns in the praise of oft-praised Gods…

The soft warmth in the wind, being spread around by the ceiling fan; the faint post-late-shower drowsiness; the sight of the reduced numbers of vehicles on the road, as if the traffic itself is taking an afternoon nap; the cozy smell of garlic and pepper being used in probably the apartment next door; the taste of potato wafers eaten in passing; the occasional rustling of the newspapers, as if adding a minor note to the afternoon symphony, which (unlike a traditional symphony) is an experience affecting all the senses…

For some reason it feels as if time stops for a little longer on a Sunday afternoon. Looks like Time itself is busy remembering every other Sunday, and is perhaps pausing to reflect on times gone by. And every single thing looks like it has happened before. Like a photocopy of earlier moments. Almost the same everytime, regardless of the years gone by, or of the change in the entire set of surroundings, like a photograph, only a little affected by the weather but overall still the very same.

And it’s with the same photo-album-viewing anticipation that one waits for these afternoons, to relive the same, simple sensations that thankfully, somehow seem to withstand all the other stuff that time throws in our way. As much as people believe in TGIF, perhaps a different kind of positive belief should also be attributed to TGISA…

The scales of life...

2008-05-07T21:30:00.009+05:30

"Try to remember where you were ten years ago", said the wizard.

"But when was ten years ago?" I replied, baffling myself and the wizard at the same time. "Because it feels like forever, except that the forever was just another short moment." The wizard by now had regained his composure (perhaps wizards have a hobby of regaining composures).

"Let's go year-wise then", he suggested wisely, trying to give a solution when I hadn't even realized that there was a problem to be solved.

Or perhaps there was. I myself was responsible for starting this dialogue. It could very well have been a monologue until the wizard came along and I blurted out my thoughts, like a magician using an ink-pen instead of the wand to cast spells.

"Why does everything feel so different now?" is what I was trying to answer. "Have I changed, or has the world? Maybe it's another proof of relativity. We both have changed, relatively speaking."

Ten years ago, I was in a different world.
A dial-up connection used to be a prized possession. Today I brand 256Kbps as a "slow" link.

Ten years back, I almost measured the alcohol I was pouring onto the ice-cubes. Today I count only the ice-cubes instead.

India's performance in the cricket world cups was a topic of discussions over coffee cups. We probably discuss Sreesanth vs. Harbhajan with the same flavor today.

We used to walk around before dinner so that we could have a healthy appetite. Today we walk around to compensate for the unhealthy appetite that we live with.

We used to find ways to while away the hours, today it takes only a while for all the hours to vanish without our cognizance.

And come to think of it, back then, I was free, but not independent. Today I am independent, but perhaps not free...

There is perhaps one thing however, which at a macro level at least, hasn’t really changed. Ten years ago, there were enough reasons to keep me awake at night. Ten years later as well, there are again enough, albeit very different reasons to lead to the same state of wakefulness.

So then, am I better off, or is what’s weighing me down, not my own weight…?

The wizard was smiling. I had turned around while I was mumbling, but the wind from the sea was strong, perhaps strong enough to give shape to those mumblings and let the wizard see what I was thinking. "You must be very worried about those scales, I suppose", he offered, and it was again my turn to be taken aback. He could figure out that I was thinking in whose favor the scales would be tipped, if it were Me vs. World, what if it were Me vs. You, or even Me vs. Me.

Perhaps specially, Me vs. Me.

“So what’s your verdict? You seem to know everything”, a hint of exasperation obvious in my voice.

“The grass is apparently greener on the other side, and greener grass is generally heavier”, pat came the nonchalant reply.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean? I was looking for something deeper than that. I don’t expect this grass-stuff from a wizard, for Heaven’s sake…,” my tone had considerably deteriorated, and there was a drop of desperation mixed into the exasperation already present. It was as if I had been waiting for a divine light of revelation, and all that had shone upon me was an eight-watt fluorescent lamp.

“If it is always Me vs. Me, then does it really matter who wins? In the end, you will be the winner, and you will be the loser as well”, the wizard also showing signs of annoyance, but still very much contained.

But there is something even he doesn’t know. The scales are always tipped. One way or the other. The joy is mine, so is the sorrow. Life’s never a zero-sum game. But it’s a game nevertheless. Like Monopoly. What you win is sometimes what you would never need. And what you need is sometimes what you never get to win. The equation is always unbalanced. “And all I am trying to do here is to fit in some numbers and logic to make it even”, I almost shouted back, as if in retaliation. But by now the wizard had started walking.

I realized he was following me, on the ground, moving smoothly over rocks and grass alike. And floating on water, like a true-blue wizard. Growing taller with the setting sun, even stretching onto the other side of the road. Being run over by the speeding traffic, but never dying, always committed (until of course my tryst with the proverbial dust or ash), to be my formless, desire-less, weightless alter-ego, making sure at least this scale is always tilted on my side…

Chor Police…

2008-04-27T01:26:00.000+05:30

There are some very children-specific activities which sound and feel good when only children are involved in those games. The moment a few grown-ups enter the fray, they ruin the show.
And it is this precisely this ruin which a number of our government personnel are causing. I am referring to the (yet again) moral policing efforts by various “educated, cultured and honest” members of the state and national government bodies. I heard a minister on the TV confirming that in the IPL match in Mumbai, there would be a hundred-plus policemen keeping a “close eye” on what the cheerleaders are wearing. Certainly a much needed activity for the welfare of the nation. So now we know why the policy force has a little trouble in controlling crime in our country – they are busy checking out babes (as an official government duty).

These social guardians believe (even now) that the moral framework of our nation’s populace is within their control, and if the cheer leaders are removed (or more clothes are added), it will bring about a moral upliftment of our society. They believe that if our children do not watch these women, then they will focus more on their studies and will not indulge in the various sexual activities at which they are so adept already. They forget that we are a billion plus nation, and we wouldn’t have ever reached this target had our earlier generations fucked around a little less (pun absolutely intended).

If only these blackholes-of-our-tax would learn to identify what needs their attention (it’s somewhat disturbing to note that a murder or rape convict would be roaming free for years, while all kind of notices would be served on the teams’ managers within a few days).

In the end (as is usually the case), let’s again hope (this resource is fast depleting too) that some day better sense will prevail. Until then, keep on cheering…

Noiseless in Mumbai...

2008-04-22T22:20:00.003+05:30

'Twas a strange Tuesday morning. The never-sleeping city woke up early from it's disturbing dreams. There are souls who feel comfortable in the noise that cocoons them, like the reassuring sound of the AC which perhaps serves as the backdrop for one to sleep. But there was something amiss this morning. As if the bass, or perhaps the treble control of Mumbai's ever-boisterous stereo had conked out. A set of frequencies could not be heard. The auto-rickshaws were on strike....

I had never thought it could get so un-nerving, the absence of a constant sound in your life. A particular color that runs through a fabric had been selectively washed off. The streets below looked disturbingly empty. Like someone had walked away with the screen, and had kept the projector running...

Perhaps no other city relies so much on public transport as Mumbai does. And just like all things which are taken for granted are sorely missed when they are gone, the three-wheeled, non-electronic-metered, CNG-operated lifeline of this city was missed. Both by those who avail of these ricks, as well as by those who don't, cause the latter variety was particularly surprised by the sheer absence of traffic on the roads. Where have all the people gone, was what I was thinking. Apparently quite a few decided to work from home today (what a wonderful excuse...). The rest took a forced leave. And those without whose presence things don't move in offices had to perhaps contend with the super-crowded buses, or the superlatively-crowded trains (yes, hanging onto a fellow traveler's collar, with one foot in the air and the other on another fellow traveler's foot, does qualify as "commute" in local Mumbai lingo)

Nobody of course was really bothered about the rick-guys. Some really convincing, well-oiled, well-politically-connected senior sales manager of the Electronic meters company did a good job of convicing the local authorities as to why all these fellows should shell out 3K INR for something that is as easily tamperable (visit Lamington road for more details) as the mechanical ones in use today.

Of course things didn't fly for long, and the strike was called off when the government promised to create yet another committee (all part of the afore-mentioned sales manager's plan) to look into this urgent matter. As is usually the case with government committees, it will take them two months (and a few crore rupees will again exchange hands) to decide whether to introduce these new meters or not...

At least till then, this city can find comfort in the noise again...

IPL - Fringe benefits...

2008-04-21T21:19:00.002+05:30

No doubt it's an interesting game format. A la superbowl, or NBA, or other American and English forms of sports which rely as much on gameplay as on the hoopla surrounding the entire exercise, whether it's Katrina waving to the fans, or Mr. Mallya walking with his team in an exclusive RC ad, or ofcourse the interestingly-attired cheerleaders.

Talking of advertisements, there have been quite a few which appear to have been recently created perhaps just to catch the eye-balls during the matches (and there certainly are enough eye-balls, if the packed stadiums are anything to go by).

There's of course the new Vodafone "Happy to help" series, which seems to be an effort to ward off the evil aura surrounding customer care. Traditionally, customer care (of Vodafone, or any one else's) has been given the same treatment as people would give to an unhelping, old, cranky doctor at a lone hospital (the types who prescribe strange injections and then smiled fiendishly?). And it is this "visit-only-when-about-to-die" image that Vodafone is trying to wash away. Quite a cool ad...

The Max NY Life pension plans ad is another nice one which touches a cord somewhere, reminding one of decisions taken with everyone but yourself in mind. It is noticeable that the basic message is the same as SBI Pension fund, viz., live "your" life at some point...

There's the Samsung Freshtech thing, focussing on the freshness positioning (with a particularly creative act of the lady pushing in green plant leaves inside the refrigerator towards the end of the copy).

I suppose the advertisements have to necessarily follow the innovation and "newness" theme, given the creative, fresh (albeit copied from other worlds, but nevertheless very new from an Indian perspective) nature of the entire series itself...

And the four lights did illuminate...

2008-03-25T09:46:00.001+05:30

So yesterday I got the replacement for my broken XBox (The one which died in the ring of red-lighted fire...). Kind of quick service I must say, and at some point I was a little surprised (and worried too -- the kind of feeling you get when you enter a bank and the entire staff is smiling at you and offering you beverages of your choice, almost convincing you that they have lost all your money).

I found later in the day that my worry was not totally unfounded after all. The games started normally, and I did play for a little over an hour, after which I suddenly heard strange noises coming from the console, and it went blank... I said "f..." or words to that effect, and checked for smoke... There was none. I then restarted the box and realized that the disc drive had given away, cuz for all my discs (games/dvds) the screen is proudly displaying "disc unplayable".

I must confess that this was (till date) the most short-lived replacement of any product that I have ever seen (touchwood)

And thus the exchange process begins again... :(

And the three red lights illuminate...!!

2008-03-17T19:09:00.001+05:30

... Just a couple of days I was raving and ranting about my XBox experience of playing Lost Odyssey and PGR4 etc... Not that I believe in it, but as they say in my circles, "nazar lag gayee", which is an old superstition indicating that someone's curse has befallen upon a particular aspect of happiness which I was experiencing.

It started on Sunday morning when I tried to start my XBox (Sunday mornings are such a wonderful time to play games). All I could see on the console ring of lights, was the flashing of red lights in three of the four quadrants that make up the ring of lights. I thought this was just something normal and a restart would probably fix it. But same result after the restart. Then again, and again, and again...

I went off to sleep, a very disturbed sleep it was. Tried powering it up after a few hours (after the F1 race to be precise). It did power on with the green lights, but then froze (or hung, like an old computer) within a minute. And then it didn't come back.

Now I started my online hunt for finding a remedy to this (it was like a baby searching for his candy online because it's suddenly gone missing...), and was surprised to see complete web-sites dedicated to nothing but solving what is a global phenomenon -- "The rings of death" as it is known among the XBox circle.

Was further surprised to find that Microsoft acknowledges the same and has agreed to extend the warranty of those users who have experienced the three red rings..!!! So we do have a silver lining there...

Overall, the bad part is that my "Lost Odyssey" is really lost till I can figure out how to get this fixed.. :(

Don't go in Go...

2008-03-15T13:34:00.001+05:30

I had an extremely harrowing experience in my last flight on GoAir. My baggage was damaged to such an extent that it looked like it had been rammed with a hammer. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I will just let a couple of snaps of the damaged suitcase do the talking --

And as if to rub salt on our wounds, the GoAir team at the airport offered us the princely sum of Rs. 700 as a reimbursement for this loss, indicating that somewhere in their policy they have a rule which allows them to provide Rs. 200 per kg of the empty baggage, if the baggage is damaged beyond repair. There are three sides to this --

First of all, it surprises me to think that an organization could have a policy for reimbursing only for the weight of the empty baggage, when what a passenger checks in, is of course the suitcase with some stuff inside (duh, really...).

Secondly, till date I couldn't find this phrase of "empty baggage" written anywhere in their T&C on the GoAir website.

And thirdly, there has to be some correlation between what is offered as a compensation to the original price of the product. The suitcase in question was approximately 10000 Rs. and is of course rendered completely unusable.

Needless to say, all the trouble at the airport and my consequent emails to the GoAir Customer Service department have met with the same response -- falling on deaf ears. But I have taken the pledge (and would recommend the same to all near and dear ones)to never ever travel by GoAir again.

I guess the word "low-cost airline" actually means "cheap airline", in every sense of the word...

Lost Odyssey - Business skills

2008-03-15T13:10:00.001+05:30

It's interesting to see how a video game can provide the much needed (and often ignored) business skills to an unsuspecting player (Refer the earlier post).

Here are some gems which I could gather --

1. Know your friends well, but know your enemies better. I am referring to using the right rings, accessories and items to target your enemies' special skills. The whole sequence of water against fire, fire against wind etc. is so important to be kept in mind throughout, just as in a real business, you need to target different competitors with different strategies, one size doesn't fit all.

2. Not everyone in the team should fight from the front. This is evident in the way you arrange your team's "formation". At all times you need someone in the back providing you the necessary spells (black, white etc.) to assist the party going while your front-line players wield their attacks. Easily replicable in a real business scenario.

3. Sometimes, you need to sacrifice your interests for the benefit of the entire team. I am referring to the "taunt" skill, which directs an enemy specifically at one of the players, so that a potentially weaker player doesn't get hurt. A rule often forgotten in business, where we end up sacrificing the team so that we (as an individual) can stay afloat.

4. Attack the core. There are various "BOSS" battles where the most powerful enemy member is flanked by his/her minions and this boss can keep on recharging these servants, or can keep calling for more help, or keep inflicting significant damage upon your team. It is important in such scenarios to try and damage this dangerous guy, even though the more frequent attacks will keep coming from the enemy's front-line. Ditto in business.

Lost Odyssey...

2008-03-15T12:43:00.001+05:30

Enough information is there on the internet on this amazing game for XBox 360. So I will not attempt to create another walkthrough or guide here. I would provide more of a review than anything else.

I have been playing LO for the past two weeks now, and I have to admit that I don't mind losing all the sleep that I have lost for lost odyssey.

This is one RPG of the highest order. Brilliantly crafted (yes, crafted is the right word), with all the perfect ingredients to provide a challenging and engaging experience. The story (whatever I have covered so far) is well thought-of. The cut-scenes provide a good break from the frequent battles.

And what steals the show are the "dreams" of Kaim. Each of them is a superb short story, set with the right background music. The stories in these dreams have almost have a O' Henriesh (for want of a pre-existing word, I had to come up with this) touch to them, with the right emotional content to immerse the player deeper in the role of Kaim. Because (as is usual with any game involving some kind of battles or fights), it is easy to forget the characters while you are focusing too much on the enemies. These dreams prevent just that -- your focus returns on the mission and the life of the protagonist, as he tries to find himself through the environment around him. And finding thousand years of lost memory is certainly no mean task...

Another striking aspect of the game are it's business management like techniques, while I will list out in the next post, since that's a separate topic altogether.

Of course, there are some shortcomings which do make the game a little tedious at times. The worst experience (so far) was the flower and branch finding sequence for Lirum's funeral. It was interesting in its own way, but did not provide any motivation or challenge to let me take any interest in the activity. And the final activity (in the same funeral sequence) of matching the torches to the rest of the crowd's torches, was where I almost felt that Lirum certainly didn't trouble anyone as much when she was alive than now that she was dead.

Another area where the game could have improved was in keeping battles and puzzles separate. In Experimental Staff for instance, while the player is trying to figure out the maze of platforms and levers, he/she doesn't want unnecessary random battles to distract and frustrate.

But these glitches apart, the game is marvelous in most respects, and should become an inspiration to other RPGs out there... Meanwhile, I can't wait to get back to where I last left Kaim...!!

Bring in the towels...

2008-03-15T11:43:00.001+05:30

I have absolutely nothing against women in short clothes. I am not one of those self-confessed moral policemen who have disturbed (and continue to disturb) what I believe is a very open-minded, forward-looking equilibrium which is beginning to get established, albeit very slowly, in our societal framework.

I was however, a little surprised and intrigued the other day during my thumb-exercise routine (a.k.a. channel-surfing), when I saw a VJ (it was either of MTV or [V]) sitting quite pretty in nothing but a towel. Interestingly, she carried out the entire show in just that. Admittedly, a very different concept for dressing up a VJ. In any case most of the VJs don't wear too many clothes, so the amount of skin exposure was roughly close to the channel average, with of course the added titillation of a constantly high probability of the towel knot giving away...

And how cost-effective it is... With the shortest of dresses costing a bomb (I still don't understand how a total of 50 sq cm of cloth can cost a few thousand rupees), the towel would certainly not be an expensive item. I mean, it looked normal (and trust me, I was looking quite closely..:) ), with no signs of any gold or diamond hidden somewhere.

Overall, a cool concept, nicely carried out. Good work...

It's race time...

2008-03-15T11:19:00.001+05:30

The Formula 1 series is here again, with the first race tomorrow. It's a wonderful feeling, year after year, to witness the action-packed drama that F1 always promises to be. And this time, we of course have another reason to cheer - Force India. Though I am afraid this might turn out to be a similar enthusiasm what we had when Narain was racing. The first few races we would have expectations of seeing an Indian driver somewhere close to the podium, but later on in the season our attention turned back to the usual suspects - Raikkonen et al.

But as they say, there is safety in numbers, with an entire team (the race drivers, the test drivers, the technicians, engineers, pit stop personnel etc.) being now a representative of the Indian dream, there is more hope, more expectations, and most importantly, more excitement, which is ultimately what the F1 grand prix is all about anyways.

Here's wishing the teams (and the race crazy audience), another wonderful season... Of course, from my side, a special good luck message for Raikkonen (who, irrespective of which team he drives for, is in my opinion the most talented driver ever -- being calm and cool at 300 kmph is a very rare talent).

Happy racing!!

Weathered...

2008-02-26T19:11:00.003+05:30

I love video games, and since the day I have started playing on my xbox360, my love has only grown...
There are tons of games out there. You name the category, and you will have games catering to the minutest niche within that category. But every once in a while there is produced a game which makes you respect the skills of the game designers and developers. One such game is PGR4 (Project Gotham Racing) which, while belonging to the mother genre of Car Racing, does many things differently than the other racing games out there.

The first (and the most obvious) differentiator is the mixture of cars and bikes in the same race. At one go, PGR4 has become another competitor to MotoGP and other bike racing games, in addition to anyways competing with other car games. The choices are huge, the games are tough, and this mixed racing grows upon you as you experiment in the game with your choice of vehicle.

The next unique quality of PGR4 is the slightly reduced focus on simulation. Frankly, PGR3 was a pain as every single car used to veer out of control at the slightest touch. Here, it's much better, and at the same time they haven't moved on to a total arcade theme, thus retaining the best of PGR series.

And the most revered feature in PGR4 is the weather effects. Amazing stuff. If it's raining, you can feel the car getting out of control at higher speeds. If it's foggy, you can still feel the non-dryness of the tracks, something which might have been overlooked but wasn't. And if it's snowing, you need to keep a tight reign on your thumbs as a little extra move can give you cool drift points, but at the same time can also take the race away from your hands.

Though one feature which has constantly been missing from the PGR series is the lack of customization of the car. With these realistic weather effects, avid racers would definitely want to try their hand at customizing the car to the weather (have wet-track tires for example). Or change the steering control depending on the curviness of the track. These are areas where I believe NFS is still the leader. Though with ProStreet it appears that NFS is moving closer to simulation, but since I haven't played the game I will not comment any more on that game.

Overall, PGR4 is a very cool game. Hats off to the PGR4 team...

Family and food...

2008-02-23T13:33:00.006+05:30

...Actually for the past few months I have been trying to justify the consistent increase in my weight. I mean, I certainly can't adopt a fate/destiny etc. kind of outlook here and pretend that this is something that's just happening to me without me being in total control. Although that does put myself completely culpable because the logical conclusion that can be drawn is that if this is under my control, then why on Earth am I not actually controlling it? Wierd, but that's what weight increases are like...

Coming to the point in question, which is the analysis of this phenomenon, I have figured out one of the more weighty reasons of my figure going out of shape -- the volume and quantity of food consumed (by me of course) within the premises of my parents' and my in-laws' residential compounds respectively. And some of my prudent readers would have understood (some out of personal experience, the others out of surrogate information), as to why this is labeled as something "not under my control".

There are various techniques involved here, some of which I am sure have obscure, oriental origins. Techniques of persuasion, that is. The first technique is a well known marketing gimmick knows as "spoilt for choice". This is something similar to the Great Indian Mall Revolution, wherein there are at least a hundred varieties of the same thing are placed before the buyer confusing her out of her wits resulting in significant unnecessary items being dragged into the shopping cart. With five curries, four dry "sabjis", two varieties of rice (the "steamed"and the "fried"), and a few mashed items served before you, it's difficult to keep saying "No, I think I am full" repeatedly. The net result being that your plate does get full with little quantities of every single item.

The next technique is "persuasion by motivation". This involves demonstrations of food consumption along with cajoling and cheering phrases such as "come on, you can do it", "you have it in you" etc. After a while it becomes a "you vs. you" kind of situation where you end up competing with your own previous best records at eating large quantities of food.

The third, and the most potent is the "persuasion by temptation" technique. A la-Jughead kind of scenario ensues, with some of the most mouth-watering delicacies kept at the precise angle to your nose, ensuring that all the right olfactory nerves are affected, leaving you with no option but to commit the real "original sin" (remember Eve first took a bite of the apple, and then she and Adam did whatever it is that they were anyways supposed to do)

But whatever the techniques, and whatever the increase in weight, the tongue, oesophagus, stomach (and other organs whose names I am not aware of), certainly enjoy the treatment.

Airports @ Bangalore…

2008-01-16T16:20:00.000+05:30

When I first went to Bangalore about seven years back, I had only heard that the weather’s brilliant in Bangalore. It was. And it surprisingly stayed so even while the entire city outgrew itself in a very disturbing fashion. It is this weather which made Bangalore India’s Silicon Valley, and propelled the city on a trajectory that caught everybody (especially the infrastructure and government authorities) by surprise.
I was at the Bangalore airport last week. There were (I had enough time to count) a total of 127 people in the queue ahead of me for the security screening. It appeared as if we were all going for a “darshan” or something. At least the feeling after the screening got over, was something quite similar.
The new International airport shall be operational soon, and while currently it takes about 1.5 hours to go from the airport to anywhere, it will probably take at least 3 times more after March ’08. Those of you who remember having seeing Shrek, would recall the kingdom of Far Far Away. The new airport at Devanahalli (incidentally, the birthplace of Mr. Tipu S) is exactly there – Far Far Away…It is believed that a few localites (perhaps in honor of Mr. T Sultan) have started new ventures (with 41% stake being held by Karnatic Local Groceries Capital which is based out of Bilekahalli) of horse-rental services, which is causing great worry to the CxOs of Avis and team.
Perhaps the early morning flights (yes, the ones for which you have to wake up at 4 AM) won’t be good enough to attend meetings starting at 11 AM. Because it will probably be already 7 PM by the time you reach your destination, and it will be time to catch the return flight. This flight, of course, would be at 4 AM the next morning, and for you to reach in time for the important security screening mentioned above, it would be advisable to leave almost immediately, on horses or other modes of advanced communication.
It might be a good idea for the tours and travels companies to start special “packages” catering to this new segment of “Airport Journeymen/women”. As our popular CNBC analysts would say, it is perhaps time to invest in KLG Capital, as it is about to start carrying it’s due diligence exercises on these companies...

Thinking of thoughts…

2008-01-10T19:26:00.000+05:30

Sitting here, not so pretty,
With pen, paper and ink…
Shepherding those meandering thoughts,
With a mild, cold drink…

They wandered, aimlessly,
Each, an endangered recluse…
As I sort them all out,
And put them to some use…

Ideas, hovering around surreptitiously,
Searching for landing space…
They heard the gun at different times,
Running their own, unhurried race…

Days passed, in unheard agony,
They shot past the finishing line…
I wonder how I missed them all,
Considering they were all mine…

Signals, hurtling slowly,
Colliding in the electromagnetic battleground…
Some diminishing, some diminished,
My own thoughts, unrecognizable when found…

They stare back, questioningly,
What took you so long, they ask…
No excuses, just trifle remorse,
As I shift behind the mask…

I am back, honey,
Like a drunken lover, I proclaim…
Carving them out, from inside their graves,
To begin anew, the attempt to tame…

It will work out, surely,
We have agreed upon that…
Tranquility, harmony, and world peace,
Once again, with the writer’s hat…

Watch what you lose...

2007-12-23T11:10:00.000+05:30

'Twas a winter evening, and a few of us were roaming around in the city, when we chanced upon a hoarding proclaiming another of those wonderful gyms with a promise to tone up and flab down. There was (as is customary) a picture of a hot babe on the hoarding, and it became difficult to comprehend (as is also customary) whether the reason for attending this gym should be those oft-failing promises of 5 kg reduction etc, or should it be the chance of enhanced proximity to the woman.
It was then that one of my co-passengers blurted out his own experience. It so happened that he had come across a somewhat similar advertisement, and following his basic instincts he had turned up at the designated venue with the hope of losing his weight, as well as the hope of losing his virginity in perhaps the same premises. This was his first gym visit, and he had perhaps drawn a parallel between the grunts and huffs and puffs of a gym to the somewhat similar sounds that get generated between the sheets.
He decided to give his luck a try. But of course, in a very prudent way so as to not make his intentions obvious. "So, this gym, when was it built?" is how he started the conversation with the receptionist. A meaningless question of course, and the receptionist was quick enough to figure out that there was some other question behind this question. But she (like all good receptionists) waited for the train to come back to the tracks. "Nice glass all around, must have been expensive, no?" was the second question. The receptionist waited. "You have a lot of trainers here, huh?" was the third nail in the coffin, said with as much expectation as is generated upon the sight of imaginary water in the desert. The receptionist now figured out where this conversation was headed, and aptly replied "Sir we have trainers for both men and women."
Our guy was now charged up "Aah, of course, of course, you should have trainers. These days so many women are taking up various kinds of jobs. I like women trainers. Would I get this (poking his finger at the image on the pamphlet) woman to train me???" You could almost see the tongue wagging, when the receptionist poured cold water on his desires, "Sir she doesn't work here anymore". One should have been there to see the expression change... He had lost everything, except of course what he hoped he would have lost in there... So much for new year resolutions...

Another bus...

2007-11-26T22:42:00.000+05:30

Seems like I have been bitten by this bus bug... just can't seem to jump out of it...

So this time it's this very huge, gigantic, and roaring bus of real-estate...At the present rates in Mumbai, it looks difficult for a common person to lay claim to even one square foot of land, in his/her entire life. The other day they told me about this apartment (or perhaps it was a house) which got sold at 97000 Rs per square foot. The total deal size was 34 crore INR. When I first heard this, I got up from my chair and stood in the "at-ease" pose and looked at the area covered by my feet below. Not that I didn't know what one square foot meant, but perhaps I needed to do this little exercise so that I could bring myself out of the stupor caused by this news. The "ground beneath my feet" was literally slipping away...

This is one bus which I have missed. At least as of now, that's what the current status is. Land today is more valuable than gold. Houses bought for 15 lakh INR about four years back, are giving returns of about 200%. It's almost frightening. Like the feeling you get when you have climbed really high and find yourself perched on just a stone jutting out of a mountain. Leaves you out of breath. As if you rushed and raced to catch a bus but missed it, leaving nothing but wasted oxygen...

They say the US sub-prime crisis will hit India. Now that's one big bus gone on the wrong side of the road... and that perhaps will be a little too harsh for India, but seriously, somewhere this bubble needs to break. Before it grows any further, or, to conclude with our existing analogy, before the bus conductor and driver find themselves thrown out, out on the pavement (refer earlier article) where a few people are still waiting...

The "Bus" effect

2007-11-23T23:01:00.000+05:30

Just imagine a lazy Sunday afternoon, you are standing on the pavement (perhaps under a shade, just so that the laziness persists) and are watching buses go by. So far, so normal. I mean, what's wrong with just watching buses anyways. But now imagine getting phone calls from those who actually boarded those buses and are now telling you of the cornucopia unleashed as a consequence of that ride. Now you wish you too would have joined the bulls as they rode on their gravy "buses", the sound of their resounding bank balances echoing in their every breath. And then these stories become legends, and you start hearing of uncles who had bought L&T shares for a thousand INR, or of your friend's mom who (on a broker's recommendation of course) had stocked up NTPC at 160 INR, and so on...
And then, it strikes you... here you are, with all those stocks somewhat out of your reach, while those aunties and uncles are buying real-estate with all that windfall, and while you impatiently wait for corrections, you realize you have just been hit by the bus effect (perhaps being hit by the actual bus causes less trauma).
This is what happened to quite a few Indian investors near Diwali, where more fire-crackers were lighted not to celebrate of Ram's victory over Ravana (how many of today's kids know those stories anyways?), but certainly because of Sensex' victory over the 20000 barrier.
The 20000 phenomena resulted in what is the opposite of panic selling -- panic buying. The equivalent of it (in our bus analogy) being a situation where you just hop on to the first bus that comes your way, without even looking at the route number. Though thankfully (as is usually the case), it were the upper middle-class retail investors who were the hardest victims of this malaise (remember, our FII and hedge-fund friends have everything planned out, well, almost...).
That phase is still somewhat in progress, though the risks of not reading the route numbers are now becoming evident as these investors find themselves in the middle of the desert, while FIIs continue to sell (and probably will continue till December ends), the markets continue on a partial correction course (some pockets of over-valuation still rule the mid-caps).
For those still on the pavement, it might be worthwhile to do some homework. Afterall, some buses come with only a one-way ticket...

One more, from the road...

2007-10-19T19:04:00.000+05:30

If it weren’t for the Mumbai-Pune expressway, my blog would perhaps remain a rarely-frequented shrine, with its owner not finding enough time to put plaster on its graying walls. The scene outside is gorgeous as usual (just crossed the Lonavala exit), the evening descending slowly upon the peaceful homes, and the gentle clouds trying to adjust themselves upon the lush mountains like a sales guy shifting and sorting his thoughts at the end of another day…

The roads are winding at this point, with the air exerting extra pressure as we get closer to sea level. A section of the road is segregated by big rocks, and declared unfit for travelers as the area is prone to rock slides, perhaps nature’s own way of reminding and commanding its presence. In the city below, lights are being turned on, like a landscape full of shady mistakes with few flashes of brilliance in between. Of course the problem with mistakes is that you don’t know it’s a mistake till you have committed it. It sometimes takes years before you realize, as those follies come back….. But…, we are digressing here, and just like tunnels on a highway, digressions should not be more than two sentences long…

Most of the directions on this expressway are in two languages, much like most of the signals life gives us, one in a language which we understand, the other which we don’t, but which we nevertheless wish to learn so that we could be better at interpreting them, without appreciating the fact that we would perhaps end up taking the same exits all over again…

We are whizzing away at 140 kmph, flashing dippers at the cars in front, so that we can avoid changing lanes. Same as what we do everyday, even when we are not on the road. Because we know that changing lanes is tricky, there could always be a blind spot, catching you off guard…

It’s getting dark outside, the expressway is ending in 500 meters..450 perhaps as I will type the ellipses at the end of this sentence… It’s in times like these when I thank my high school for enforcing the learning of type-writing. Who would have thought that another seemingly useless, marks-obtaining, academic exercise would come in handy so often, including now when I look outside while my fingers do the talking for me…

The traffic’s increasing now, and that is generally inversely proportional to my creative thoughts, which means I will close now. But as I do that, I hope my frequency of blog updation is greater than the frequency of my Pune visits…

A hearty start...

2007-09-30T10:18:00.000+05:30

It's not very often (infact, this is definitely the first time) that I log into my blogger while a Formula 1 race is in progress. But this race at the Fuji Speedway is somewhat different given that 8 laps are down even as I write this, and the safety car is still out there, for (obviously) safety reasons. Though I had set the alarm to wake up in time (this being a Sunday), but a well-wisher called up well in advance so that I could also listen to (and see) Paula Ali (she definitely was looking hot today) before the race began.
A number of players have taken pit stops already, and I have already gone through most of the Sunday Slimes of India hoping for the weather in Japan to improve (talk about being a global citizen), and this being the World Heart Day, I have started my day with a very appropriate diet of Lays chips, while contemplating a more tummy-filling pit stop (of course I am trying to think of more heart-friendly options).
A quarter of the race is over (there's no "race" still), much more than half of the chips' packet is empty (half is empty to start with anyways), I am feeling sleepy again, and my laptop's superlative battery is giving warning signals as usual (sometimes I wonder if they have put in AA cells in there).
And there's news finally -- the race has formally started, the confusion is on, even as cars start crashing...the safety car will probably be out again...methinks it's time I get back to the race... what a perfectly calm start to the World Heart Day...

Downtown Train..

2007-09-21T18:33:00.001+05:30

It starts with “Outside another yellow moon, has punched a hole in the night-time mist…” and goes on to talk about Brooklyn girls, and heart attacks, and thorns and roses, and of course, about downtown trains. I heard this song for the first time about 15 years ago, thanks to my sister who was into picking up the latest grammy nominations cassettes (and who is, as I might have mentioned in passing, responsible for my love of the English language), and perhaps thanks also to the fact that I hadn’t been introduced to rock (as I know it), and would therefore not look with disdain upon anything that was “pop”ular in nature.
I don’t know under which strict genre this song falls, but it has somehow stuck in what appears to be more than a corner of my brain; and every so often, as things move within my head, this song perhaps gets dislodged around, making me listen to it again. And as I write this (while admiring the extremely picturesque late monsoon view from the Pune-Mumbai expressway), what comes flashing by are not the exact years that have gone by, but the phases of life that touched and went.
The time when I was the age of those Brooklyn girls, till the time I moved out of my home to stay away, and have been shifting houses (not homes, thankfully) since then. Then the phase when I started earning (for myself, and for those “carnivals”). Then back to school (“I know your window, and I know it’s too late…”), and then now, dropped into a city where the trains (downtown or otherwise) are literally “full” in much more than the actual feel of the word.
And thus here we are, subjecting ourselves to the vagaries of these journeys, almost half expecting to hear an answer to “Will I see you tonight, on the downtown train…?”

P.S.: "Downtown Train" is a song by Rod Stewart

Of directions

2007-09-16T09:30:00.000+05:30

There's a certain kind of expertise this country's travelers have built into their DNA. It's a kind of daily practice of adventure activities like treasure hunting. Anybody who needs to visit different places in a city everyday (read salespeople :)) would probably agree with me that reaching a place in time is like finding that X which marks the proverbial spot. You get all kinds of pointers from anyone you ask. To modify a well-known adage, "directions are like ass-holes, everybody's got one".
From the very direct "just next to the CCD on SV Road" to the slighly obscure "take the left from where it says No Left Turn", to something more complex "after you have crossed the toll booth, keep going till you have traveled on two fly-overs and then take the second left from under the third fly-over just before the Shiv Sagar", to something so outrageous that it would take hunting dogs to figure out the damn place "take the first right after the children's school on the left, then keep going straight till you see the HP petrol station from where go straight till you reach a three-way fork in the road, take the right-most road till you reach the ladies' tailor, and then ask him for further directions..."
Part of the excitement of visiting a new restaurant is in finding the shortest path to it (of course the shortest path will go through a number of left and right bylanes of which if you lose count, you might have to just come back home and make an omelette for dinner). Reminds me of those obscure optimization problems we used to do in those courses on Operational Research. Except that it was on paper and you could literally go all over the place with your guesswork.
But gone are those days, and tonight I am planning to visit a new clothes showroom somewhere in Santacruz west. Any directions, please?

Independence Day...

2007-08-15T01:11:00.000+05:30

....Is here... and there would be half a trillion Indians (our population would be around that much, I suppose?) writing about it. It's a day that invokes a wonderful concoction of hues, shades, and colors (including those on our local tricolor). It's my second independence day in Mumbai, and the short, brisk shots of rain in this city are perfectly in sync with the equally unpredictable nature of our central and state politics.
There are fears of violence, and probably justified. Somebody somewhere is probably hatching their own jehadi plot, trying to drown the sound of fire-crackers with probably louder noises...
There are the Indian cricket team players, who have given us a wonderful independence day gift...
There are the daily fresh crops of potholes which seem to grow with alarming rates on the jungle of our roads, as if they have superior evolotionary advantage compared to the gigantic fly-overs...
There are the mindless Bollywood movies churned out like the exhaust from a crowded kitchen where too many cooks are happily busy spoiling the broth...
There are the daily dreams that get crushed, reminding us that rather than forgetting what has happened to us, we seem to remember more what could not happen to us...
There are also the multi-millionaires that are being created as this nation continues with repeated drumrolls on its acquisitioning march across the planet...
There are...
..well, lots of things as you can imagine... everything has it's own significance on this particularly significant independence day. And although 60 is the traditional retirement age across most Indian companies, we can always hope that this country will continue to work as hard as ever, whatever be the results...

Power of Powerpoint

2007-07-01T21:20:00.000+05:30

Some say "death by powerpoint", while some are actually alive because of it.

Take a look, you be the judge...

Attendance...

2007-07-01T21:05:00.001+05:30

Most schools have these rules of attendance. Less than 75% and you lose a point in your grade, or you can't appear for final exams (no one wants to, but that's perhaps a different matter), or some such stuff that is mentioned in one of those papers that you get when you have just finished paying your first semester fees and filling out details for registration.

These days perhaps even blogs have attendance. I read this report which mentioned that thousands of blogs are floating like dead cadavers in the cold ether of cyberspace. Just when you thought there was something that could defy the rules of permanence, comes the revelation that even blogs come with a shelf life. You don't visit your e-temple often, and they label you an e-atheist. An infidel. And the punishment is to write an obituary about something you always held so close.

Your "dear diary..." amongst all the other equally dear ones, from intimate personal details to strange confessions to factual reportage... thousands of words trying to paint a picture, like an artist busily creating a sketch on the boulevard. Somebody would walk down, take a look, pass a comment, and walk away. And if they liked that one painting, they might actually search for you the next time they are on the boulevard. Probably refer your work to others who would then stop to admire, until you get famous. Until they take your name with awe, until the knowledge of your existence becomes a topic of "General Knowledge".

You would hate to see it die, won't you? Probably might be worth visiting the shrine once in a while. Who knows, what prayers might spew forth, and who knows, some of them might even be answered...

"Unsent Items"

2007-06-29T17:48:00.000+05:30

There's a common feature in almost all of our communication devices called "Sent Items". You can see the mails and messages you sent just to reassure yourself (and probably to reassure others as well), or to serve as proof points in the terribly politically charged corporate atmospheres these days, or simply to reminisce over things you said (some which you wanted to, some which you were forced to, and some which you can't believe you said...)

But with all the technological advancements, there is one thing still missing perhaps -- a separate collection of all those unsent items that perhaps comprise an equally large volume of our communication. Every mail that you wrote but then deleted half way, every SMS that was typed with extreme deliberation, and then deleted (perhaps with even greater deliberation), and of course, not to mention the number of times you dialled a number and then abruptly cut it off before the first ring could reach the other side (Remember "...half a page of scribbled lines"?).

Who is noting down all those little pieces of thoughts that keep floating and sinking (and sometimes rising again), bobbing up and down, struggling with other thoughts around it, in the tumultous oceans of our minds? Who will be your scribe, your stenographer, and infact, who will be a patient ear to all those rumblings when you yourself can get lost within those voices?

They will make it one day. Like a vacuum cleaner for those tiny pieces of thoughts scattered along with the dust. Bring them all in at least... all that junk which is perhaps an essential after-effect of that very simple thing we do everyday -- exist...

Wool around Woolmer

2007-06-13T15:07:00.000+05:30

"Rest in peace" is so inapplicable to this poor guy... Somebody probably murdered him. Two months back they said he was strangled. Then came the poison story. All the while the ex-coach of Pakistan was turning in his unwanted grave, partly because of the amazing performance by the Pakistani team and partly because they couldn't really figure out as to how he reached his grave...
And now what they are claiming will probably bring him back from the dead to actually tell the story. The latest news is that he died a natural death. In the 18th century, it took an ordinary postmortem not more than 24 hours to ascertain whether a death was unnatural or not. In Jamaica, perhaps medical science is trying to catch up and is already out of breath...

Some of us don't quite get famous while we are alive. For Woolmer, his strange fate has made him larger than life, after his life...

“Greetings” - Version 2.0

2007-06-02T00:22:00.000+05:30

Everything these days comes with an upgrade patch. Sometimes you start getting warnings if you don’t. I remember till a few years back a number of congratulatory phone calls (that I would make) would start with.. “Hey….!!! This is so cool..You’re getting married..!!!. Tell me about him/her…How does it feel?” And similar questions to which I expected half-honest answers.
Things have changed now, somewhat. I find that a number of those congratulatory phone calls now start off with..”Hey…!!! This is so cool… You’re a father/mother now…!!! Howz the little one? How does it feel?” And similar questions to which I expect absolutely honest answers.
And when I have put the phone down I do tend to sit back, smile a bit, and think about the person(s) in question. About they being “ready” for this change. And then I realize perhaps none of us is ever ready for these changes. After all, most of us are going through this phase for the first time. Yes, being “world-aware” certainly adds to the ability to handle situations when things get tricky (and you bet they do…), but as I read long back, “experience is a comb that life gives you after you have lost all your hair.”
I guess the fun part is dealing with those bad-hair days without the comb. The inexperience is definitely worth it. So, hang in there… and by the way, congratulations…!

Again...

2007-05-19T12:50:00.000+05:30

For some reason, since this morning I find myself hearing refrains of "Dogs" (Floyd) with particular reminiscences of "...who was only a stranger at home...". And that's why I decided to visit this foster home of mine again this afternoon. Yes it's my blog I am talking about. It has started resembling one of those half-constructed, iron-rods protruding one storeyed buildings on a hot June afternoon somewhere in a village in Bihar. Basically, you wouldn't really stop by at such a place for a cool refreshing drink. I know it's been abandoned for a while now.
But things will change. Back to what they were. When somebody would pull over onto the drive-way and actually order a ginger ale at times.

I am using this a convincing ploy. They say what you write, gets etched forever. Somewhere in the digital sandbox perhaps I am drawing something. And hoping it will stay. And surive. And help me survive...

Thoughts of thoughtlessness...

2007-04-18T15:13:00.000+05:30

It’s funny when thoughts vanish just as you put the pen to paper. Or, as is more appropriate in these online times, as you put your fingers on the keyboard. It’s like picking up a furiously ringing phone only to hear a bleak dial tone as you make vain attempts to elicit some other response by repeatedly shouting Hello into it (and then looking at the receiver as if a ghost got the better of it).
Or when you switch on the TV to find a blank, blue screen (Although with all the crap that they show, perhaps the b. blue screen has its own use). Remember “Tom… No Answer”? (Brush up on your Mark Twain if you hadn’t done so in a while). That’s what it’s like. Like somebody putting a glass wall just before the waves hit the rocks, leaving them literally high and dry. A gush of feelings, ideas, emotions, like criss-cross shadows struggling to share the spot-light, not knowing that shadows don’t survive spot-lights…

Like a bunch of five year olds learning to play football, the aim being just to hit the ball somehow, the goal would take care of itself. Like me writing all this without any goal in mind. Only the shadows of those kids, like multi-colored laser lights at once blinding you, and leaving you in the dark simultaneously.

Sunday afternoon

2007-04-15T14:13:00.000+05:30

There are perhaps countless ways to spend it.
There are quite a few who use it to catch up on lost sleep during the week. On the other hand are those who sleep nevertheless, albeit to hoard a little bit for the coming week.
Some love to eat their heart out on a Sunday afternoon, others choose this day to refrain from eating, for the sake of their heart.
Some listen to loud music, others use this time to remember foregone shades of tranquility by abstaining from any external sources of sound.
Some go online to relive their virtual lives and “catch up” with all the action they’ve been missing, while others unplug themselves from all those bits and bytes that bite into their usual waking life.

In short, Sunday afternoon is perhaps the time when in time and space, you can observe the maximum number of contradictions (at least on Mother Earth, ain’t too sure about the other Mothers…)

Matter of fact, out of all those innumerable ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, chronicling the arbitrary possibilities in your blog is also not such a bad idea perhaps?

Home again...

2007-03-24T01:33:00.000+05:30

Hey it's me. Back again. Like one of those little kids who ring your doorbell and then run away... Only to come back later after half an hour and smile sheepishly. I know that's how it has been with me. Ringing familiar doorbells. Then running away, and then concocting smiles, sheepish or otherwise. But coming back nevertheless, almost religiously. Meandering, fumbling footsteps, finding their way to the altar.

But as I mentioned in the last post as well, some big changes have occured. Those once-in-a-lifetime kind (at least that's the premise that one continues to live with). One way tickets. You can only look back and wave your hand at your previous self. And look at the tracks you covered and the fences you have jumped over. Very interesting feelings if you actually start thinking about them.

And now that we have arrived again, that's exactly what I will do for a while...

Strange...

2007-02-28T23:40:00.000+05:30

...Ever wandered into an old room that's been locked for months? Ever smelt that air when you open up that left-in-the-corner box? Ever held that doll in your hands and became oblivious to the dust around?
And ever found your way back to your blog after more than a month?

It's a pretty similar feeling. Like losing your way around and then finding yourself walking into the gates of your garden.
Yes there've been changes. Rather big changes. But as Rush would say, "plu ca change, plu c’est la meme chose" (The more that things change, the more they stay the same). Perhaps the weed has grown a little bit in this garden, perhaps the birds have become more comfortable, perhaps there's some moss on those unturned stones... But my garden is still the same. Almost.

Isn't it strange that it's in the most unexpected of moments that we do what we had always expected from ourselves...
That it's in the nearest corner of our garden where we find the most overlooked flowers...
That's it in the eyes of that broken doll in which we find our deepest secrets...

"And if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last..." (Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin)

And in the end…

2007-01-25T00:28:00.000+05:30

…Some believe it doesn’t really matter. But maybe it does.

Sometimes it’s your past that catches up with you. And sometimes, it’s your future. But once the battle is over, that strange, haggard entity left holding a consolation prize, is your present. And the trouble with this poor present is that it can’t blame either of the two. It’s the past that has led to this, and it’s the future where this will lead to. It’s like staring at broken pieces of glass and finding the culprit therein. Doesn’t work.

And still we continue to believe that in the end, it wouldn’t really matter. But whatif it does… ?

…And all the men and women, merely players

2007-01-14T19:05:00.000+05:30

They say life comes full circle eventually. Only in this case, I suppose this eventuality occurs every week. Here we are again, at a distance of 7 days from the last post. The fading sounds of this weekend’s beating retreat.
I sometimes don’t believe the curtain has to rise. I mean, hold on… can’t you see, we are still fixing the fucking footlights… And the mikes, and the sound system, and the violin whose bow is missing again. I don’t know what I am going to sing when I am on the stage once more. Where’s the goddamn song? Where are all the actors? Where is my dress rehearsal? More importantly, where is my dress?
Where is my mask that I need to put on? Still lying broken in places, from last week’s overuse. And from all the acid the audience threw on it. In anger or desperation, I would not know. Maybe they wanted to know what I was hiding. Maybe they just didn’t like the contraption itself. But do you know what’s the worst part of wearing a mask? Apart from your makeup going waste (which perhaps, is trivial), your mirror fails to recognize you.
This is how it feels every time the doors finally close and as the last late entrants among the audience have stumbled into their numbered chairs. That’s when you start missing the musician who met with a heart attack yesterday. And the director who met with a road accident. And the script-writer who met with a writer’s block…
And as the players assemble to enact, you find yourself feigning ignorance for some, and recognition for others, as your eyes search through the holes of their masks.

Welcome home, ladies and gentlemen. Let the show begin…

Where have all the weekends gone…?

2007-01-07T20:28:00.000+05:30

Come Sunday evening, and this is one question I always ask myself. Surprising how fast they vanish. Like childhood friends who grow up too soon and settle down a few million miles away from you, leaving you with stories of Jack & Jill to talk about with your office colleagues on Monday mornings.
These two days disappear as if they never existed. Leaving behind another trail of things that you had said you will finish this weekend. Only to know that another set of unfinished promises and lunches and dinners have instead taken their place. Probably the leaking tap has been fixed and the blipping tubelight has been replaced, but there’s still that little plaster falling off the wall, the shelf has not been cleaned, and a pair of shoes that you were supposed to buy one month back…
And before you know it, Monday is knocking on the week’s door, too eager to gate crash into its short party. Infact even as I write this, I can see it lurking outside the window, creeping behind shadows, with that evil smile, as if Gollum were calling for its Precious…

The Taxidriver – A short play in one Act…

2007-01-07T15:20:00.000+05:30

…and 7 scenes…

Scene 1 – 9:30 AM – A suave gentleman in a Louie Philippe shirt and a Zodiac tie approaches a taxi to take him to his office. The smell of Gillette Storm Force is still lingering as he closes the door.
And as the journey begins, he pulls out his PDA and starts communicating with his colleagues on how best to close the next sales deal. The taxi driver is listening, attempting to understand “revenue”, “sales cycle” and “competition”, but never fully aware of the gentleman’s chronic Stage 2 of Hypertension…

Scene II – 11:00 AM – Two teenage college girls, in tank-tops and jeans, board this taxi to drop them at the nearest movie theatre. The smell of Dolly Girl and Ralph Lauren Romance perfumes is still lingering as they close the door.
On their way to the theatre, they chit-chat and giggle about overbearing moms, acnes, sunsilkgangofgirls.com, SPF lipsticks, boys…
The taxi driver is listening, smiling to himself at times, but never fully aware of one of the girls’ drinking habits…

Scene III – 1:00 PM – A middle-aged woman and her 7 year old son hail this taxi to reach home from the son’s school. The smell of mud, books, and Adidas PT shoes is still lingering as they close the door.
They talk about homework, angry teachers, the son’s friends and dad’s indifference…
The taxi driver nods at times and then disapproves as he searches for his own kid’s words inside his taxi, never fully aware of the bullies in the little boy’s class…

Scene IV – 4:00 PM – An old man in a light grey flannel suit calls the taxi to reach the telephone exchange. The smell of ruffled papers and Emami hair oil is still lingering as he closes the door.
He talks to the taxi driver about ridiculous phone bills, painful government offices, and his wife who never listens to him. The taxi driver seems to understand most of the old man’s gripes, but is never fully aware of that one stranger’s number, who his daughter has been calling for the past one year…

Scene V – 7:00 PM – A recently married couple calls the taxi to reach Bandstand.The smell of fading henna and thick ivory bangles is still lingering as they close the door.
And the taxi driver feigns ignorance at the sounds of quick breaths and swiftly moving hands in the backseat, searching, finding, hoping…
He trudges along on the jammed roads, never fully aware that the woman’s past is about to catch up with her…

Scene VI – 10 PM – Two mid-twenties girls step inside to reach an uptown disc. The smell of permed hair, stilettos, Chanel No 5 and Christian Dior is still lingering as they close the door.
They blabber about fake jewellery, the rates at Kaya skin clinic, anti-hangover pills, Cosmopolitan, and men…
The taxi driver is pretty much clueless about the entire conversation but can’t help adjusting his rear-view mirror once in a while, never fully aware that one of the women is a kleptomaniac…

Scene VII – 2 AM – A bar-girl is escorting a totally sloshed early 30s guy into the taxi. The smell of Green Label, butter chicken, kaajal and dried tears is still lingering as the driver closes their door.
The guy is staring up at the taxi roof, searching for the bar lights there. The taxi driver is staring at the almost-empty road, searching for sleep. The girl is staring out her window, searching for nothing. No words are spoken throughout, and the taxi driver is fully aware of what the rest of the night is looking like…

It must be odd, to catch a nap after all that. When disconnected fragments of the lives of so many people flash around you in a day. It’s like gazing through a huge, rusted kaleidoscope, looking at the light through multi-colored glasses, never knowing the complete picture, yet being drenched in every taint that the kaleidoscope has to offer. And these tinges change day after day, night after night, stranger after stranger, with the only constant companion of the taxi driver being the faithful meter, which of course never minds being turned over, and over again…

The year that was…

2007-01-01T03:50:00.000+05:30

.. or something similar. Because this night, every news channel, every print house, and any damn body (and their uncles) who are in showbiz would be summarizing the essential happenings of this year.
The point is, I don’t want this to be a summary. I don’t want this to be something that everyone does. Like a goodbye to a friend. Because this is not a goodbye. The friends might still come back, the year doesn’t. So what is this going to be? I guess the most logical genre would be – an obituary.
So let’s put it in that style then… and what better time than these wee hours of the morning. When the 31st of Dec 2006 has still not comfortably found its place in its grave, and the 1st of Jan 2007 is still slowly crawling out of its womb…
Let’s look at the dead in a different light. It’s as good as talking about something that doesn’t come to life again. No second chances perhaps. From the profound to the mundane to the purely materialistic...

Like the max educational degree that I will ever attain. The PG from India’s highest ranked B-school, received in the year 2006. And the death of a few chances with it, for not being an elite top-grader therein.
Like one of the highest ranges our sensex will ever attain. And my delays in opening up accounts with brokers to invest in it.
Like the amazing prices Indian real-estate is commanding. And my inability to still ride the gravy train.
Like the visit to US with a stop-over in Paris. And my lack of planning to end up just roaming around only in the airport.
Like the weddings of all those friends. And my strange schedules which prevented me to attend even one of them…
Like the Art of Living session almost behind my house. And my callousness to not attend even an hour of it.

But of course, I have to thank 2006 for introducing me to Mumbai. It's a screwed up city allright, but admittedly, Churchgate, Marine Drive, Bandra, Andheri, Santacruz (even Goregaon and Malad for that matter) have become essential ingredients now...

Well… may the year 2006 rest in peace. And may the early shrill cries of this new year serve as guiding beacons towards a more fruitful conclusion next time.
Until then, cheers to 2007, and here's hoping that 365 days hence, I shall be writing a eulogy for you...

Religiously yours...

2006-12-25T12:47:00.000+05:30

Calvin's at it again --

Missing…

2006-12-25T03:52:00.000+05:30

It’s almost 4 AM. Really. Although that’s how one of the Matchbox 20 songs goes… “The clock’s been stuck at 3 for days, and days…” No it hasn’t been stuck anywhere actually. Though frankly a lot of us would like it to break off somewhere. Cuz everyday they look at it, it’s the same time, but just another day.

It’s generally in the night that I sometimes think about my previous place. The location that inspired 2 and 80 and other musings about the sea. You see, in these parts, except for Bandstand, there’s not really much of the ocean that you get to live with. Perhaps that ‘s why South Mumbai still commands a significant real-estate premium (Though that is a different subject matter altogether and I won’t waste precious blog space with that for now). Neither the stretch that leads to Bandra reclaimation (separate article on that later).

You can’t sit down at Bandstand (or anywhere in Bandra, for that matter) and try listening to “You’re Beautiful”. Doesn’t work. It’s like watching oil on water. It’s there, but you can’t smell it without getting a whiff of the salt around. Nor can you experience those random memories that flash, as if your mind were a photo frame, and a stranger decided to shine some photographs through it. Figments of lost songs playing on a neighborhood radio. They are there, but you can’t sing along with them. Because there’s too much crowd in these parts. Everyone has their stories to share with the ocean. Though in Breach Candy, it were a select few who walked into that sea-facing park where they could open their heart out. And watch the crimson Sun sink in the waters.

In these parts, even the Sun must be bored putting on a similar show every evening. And so as I write this, I know I am missing those few silent words with the waves. And perhaps more than that, it’s that feeling that I used to walk away with, as I continued to listen to those songs. With the waves lapping behind me, with the stream of joggers/walkers taking their turns around the park, or in some cases, with the guards coming in to close the show, there was a faintly familiar feeling of just saying goodbye to a friend, a friend who had answers, and not questions to throw back at you…

Forever...

2006-12-17T00:44:00.000+05:30

From amongst a few million songs, some of those choicest lines that I will probably live with.. forever.. (No Floyd/Rush songs have been mentioned here since even within rock, they belong to a genre that cannot be summarized in a few words...)

"When we woke up, one of us was crying.." - Staring at your window (Jon Bon Jovi)

"She's got a lot of pretty pretty boys, whom she calls friends..." - Hotel California (The Eagles)

"Every song I had to play, while people sat there drunk..." - Lodi (CCR)

"I never thought I'd live to read about myself in my hometown paper..." - Nothing Man (Bruce Springsteen)

"It's all a lot of oysters, with no pearls..." - A long december (Counting Crows)

"The streets you're walking on, a thousand houses long, and that's where I belong..." - Swallowed in the sea (Coldplay)

"In this world of purchase, I'm going to buy back memories..." - Run (Collective Soul)

"Whether I'm drunk or dead I really ain't too sure..." - When a blind man cries (Deep Purple)

"And we have just one world, but we live in different ones..." - Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits)

"I know that you can love me, when there's no one left to blame..." - November Rain (Guns n Roses)

"And you cant fight the tears that aint coming, or the moment of truth in your lies..." - Iris (Goo Goo Dolls)

"This is all the heaven we got, right here where we are..." - Shangri-La (Mark Knopfler)

"She thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway..." - 3 AM (Matchbox 20)

"If you can understand the me, then I can understand the you..." - Unforgiven II (Metallica)

"Wrapped in a polythene, tucked away safe in my mind..." - But it rained (Parikrama)

"And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there..." - Drops of Jupiter (Train)

"Although I wasn't there, He said I was his friend..." - Man who sold the world (Nirvana)

"Every whisper of every waking hour, I'm choosing my confessions..." - Losing my religion (REM)

"And the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls..." - Sound of Silence (Simon&Garfunkel)

"Homesick, for the home I never had..." - Homesick (Soul Asylum)

"Cuz it's always raining in my head..." - Epiphany (Staind)

"He said he wanted heaven, but praying was too slow..." - Snowblind friend (Steppenwolf)

"Those three words, are said too much, they're not enough..." - Chasing Cars (Snowpatrol)

"And I'm a million different people, from one day to the next..." - Bittersweet symphony (The Verve)

"And I'm six feet from the edge, and I am thinking, maybe six feet ain't that far down" - One last breath (Creed)

"Wherever you have been, wherever you took cover, no arms that pulled you in could hold you like your mother..." - Babybird (The Wallflowers)

"There was a time when the pieces fit, but I watched them fall away..." - Schism (Tool)

"I can't believe the curtain has to fall..." - Persephone (Wishbone Ash)

Between absence…

2006-12-11T01:20:00.000+05:30

Would it ever be true…

When skill becomes more than just an absence of flaws?
And virtue becomes more than just something between the vice…

When closeness becomes more than just an absence of distance?
And warmth becomes more than just something between the ice…

When faith becomes more than just an absence of disbelief?
And trust becomes more than just something between the lies…

When love becomes more than just an absence of hate?
And joy becomes more than just something between the cries…

When peace becomes more than just an absence of war?
And safety becomes more than just something between the mines…

And God becomes more than just an absence of the Devil?
When meaning becomes more than just something between the lines…

Nice guys...

2006-12-08T00:53:00.000+05:30

...are believed to finish last.

But could it be really true that they are running an entirely different race perhaps?

Wednesday morning, 11:00 AM - II

2006-12-06T13:09:00.001+05:30

Working from home is strange at times.

Slept at 3 in the night (nothing quite unusual about that), woke up at 10 (now that's unusual). And decided to put some freshly washed utensils to good use. Seriously, how often does one get to make omelettes on a Wednesday morning? And though there is always some confusion about the required cooking resources in this house, it's surprising how much can one achieve without knowing the location of salt and chilly within the premises.

And for a while I will even ignore the fact that the following conversation took place between my flatmate and myself before I proceeded with cooking --
Self (with a greasy bottle which has some yellow liquid in it): "Hey man, is this cooking oil?"
Flatmate: "I believe so"
Self (eyeing the bottle with suspicion): "You sure? This ain't rat poison, is it? Cuz it smells funny"
Flatmate: "But there are lots of things in this house that smell funny..."
Self (all suspicions removed, and convinced about the humor content of things in our house): "Perfect, funny or serious, cooking oil it is..."

I was making an omelette after more than two years today. And my vague memory was telling me that salt should be one of the ingredients. But that brings us back to the existential question: "Where is salt in this house?". "The kitchen" is what some would answer. Very funny. I spent the next five minutes opening every bottle which had some white powder in it (thank heavens we don't do cocaine) and actually tasting it. Couldn't come to a logical conclusion though and decided to try my luck with the eggs in their purest form - No salt, no chilly, no onions. Ever heard of unadulterated eggs? Before this morning, even I hadn't.

The ultra-pure concoction was edible. With ketch-up of course. The person who invented ketch-up definitely had similar difficulties in finding salt in his/her house. How else would one come up with such a perfect substitute?

And now, it's time to get back to work, on this uncalled "holiday" bang in the middle of the week...

Wednesday morning, 11:00 AM - I

2006-12-06T12:39:00.000+05:30

Working from home is strange at times. Specially if it is an uncalled for "holiday" bang in the middle of the week. An entire state is shut down today. Because someone who wrote a part of our constitution was born on this day. A day that should mark more frantic activity towards a better (remember "Secular, Democratic, Republic" ?) India, is the day when there is an almost red alert in the financial capital. Some residents of Dadar area decided to evacuate their houses for a day because of the crowd coming in ( we are yet to understand that "free for all" is not quite the same as "Secular, Democratic, Republic"). It's almost surprisingly disturbing how the most active city can become the most helpless in times like these.

A statue of 6th December's birthday boy was violated in Kanpur last week, and that resulted in high drama in Mumbai. Statues taking priority over statutes. People are asked not to roam around unless absolutely essential. Not to do business unless absolutely essential. Not to be caught in the line of fire unless absolutely essential ("Secular, Democratic, Republic").

Converting a city into a fuckin' sanitarium is an art in itself. And we all are pretty talented artists.

Or...

2006-12-06T02:55:00.000+05:30

The misty air,
You stare in disbelief,
The poisoned wine,
Or the yellowed leaf.

The final race,
You try to fight,
The prisoned life,
Or the unending night.

The stillness around,
You grasp your dreams,
The chilling peace,
Or the shadowy gleams.

The silent pain,
You force a smile,
The graying rainbow,
Or the last mile.

The weakening magic,
You wave the wands,
The losing battle,
Or the changing lands.

The laughing hyena,
You pull the trigger,
The missing shots,
Or the tired grave-digger.

Amsterdam - Winter...

2006-12-03T21:23:00.000+05:30

I had always believed (or was made to believe) that Amsterdam offers a whole host of casinos, pubs, shops, and a few places of cultural interest such as museums, art houses etc. And of course the typical Europian style streets and settings.

But what I didn't know about Amsterdam was it's country side. Very dutch. Very beautiful. Very picturesque. The moment I alighted the train to Zaanse Schans I could get the feeling that this is perhaps the stuff that our desktop wallpapers are made of. And after I had seen the snaps from my camera, the most logical thing was to indeed make one of those snaps as the desktop background...

"Zaanse Schans" means Windmill Village, and the picture on the left gives some indication of what the village is like. Never thought electricity generating machines could seem to fit in such serene surroundings...

And now, I will just let the pictures do all the talking..

Dinner at 1:15…

2006-11-25T02:51:00.000+05:30

I don’t know how many cities in this country would allow you that luxury, or callousness, if you will. To be at a party till at least 1 and then figure out that you had been sitting and talking without enough food to take you through the night. To be confident enough that no matter where you are, some decent joint would be open to welcome and feed you.

Tonight, it was Papillon, in Juhu, which did the honors. And it wasn't just us, a bunch of young kids (though "young" is doubtful to describe us, but "kid" probably still holds true) who were contributing to Papillon's post-midnight revenues, but entire families who seemed to have deliberately missed out on their suppers.

Pav Bhaji at 1:15 can actually be an exhilarating experience. The few occasions when you somehow end up appreciating Mumbai for what it is. For not sleeping. For being happily, blissfully awake (albeit in that dreamy, zonked out way). For being powerful enough to disturb the circadian rhythms of all its inhabitants who then gloat in their ability to live without the essentials. To make super humans out of humans. Where insomnia becomes a strength of character, and not something that you go to the neurologist for (although you probably end up going there eventually, but by then it’s too late…)

It’s perhaps these abnormal things that we remember more than our dinner at 9, isn’t it?

Familiar strangers…

2006-11-19T02:19:00.000+05:30

They just sit there. Perhaps that is their purpose. And the moving waters keep lashing against them. Arriving. Departing. Sometimes in haste, sometimes in leisure. Like a bird casually alighting on a branch, and then flying away towards another. Or an eager lover who comes running in anticipation knowing that there’s heart-break right at the edge. Or a far-off acquaintance met at a gathering, says a word or two, and then mingles into the crowd, just like those absent-minded waves…

And they wait there. For the passers-by to come and watch the play. They are the ones who give the sea its sound. For without them, the sea would be silent. Without them, the water won’t break into a million pieces, and there won’t be anything at which the onlookers will look and contemplate, and seek solace…

They are the threshold. The waters can’t cross them. The levee. It’s an odd role to play perhaps. Being the horizon. Being the edge. The border. To see both sides of the story so closely. Everyday. Protecting one from the other. And getting blamed in the process…

Wonder what would those stones and rocks think at times. That they don’t belong anywhere. Everyday strangers to the ocean. Everyday strangers to the busy streets. And as they wave at the waves, they would never know whether they are welcoming the ones that are on their way, or wishing a safe trip to the ones that just went back home…

Welcome to the machine…

2006-11-14T00:58:00.000+05:30

It’s almost spooky when I think of it.
The out-of-control car that claimed 7 lives (5 plus 1 pregnant woman) in Bandra. The partying group had come out of Taj Land’s End at 2:45 AM. I was at the same place at 11 PM, helping a friend buy passes for the rave party about to start there. The meandering car lost control after taking a U-turn next to CCD. I was sitting with friends in front of the same CCD till 12…
It’s odd how often we ignore that it could be one of us. On either side of the wheel. The driver, or the driven.

And perhaps what is more disconcerting is the fact that while sitting by the sea that night one of the things we talked about was actually the extremities which define pleasure for most of Mumbai. So unless it’s an exclusive party where you get drunk till 3 (and then drive around with zero control), it’s not considered cool enough. Though admittedly, this farcical coolness is worse in the northern parts of this country, but Mumbai ain’t far behind in screwing up its standards.

Yes, it’s perhaps a one-off case. At least that’s what we hope. Perhaps a lot of us get away because we get plain lucky. We don’t kill anyone, or we are not killed. Usually.
But once in a while, one of those millions on the streets of Mumbai, could become victims of another crime they didn’t commit – being homeless.

And on the news channels, the police could be seen requesting people to not sleep on the streets. As if they had a choice.

The police could also be seen requesting people to not drink too much and drive responsibly. As if they will exercise this choice…

Returns of the day...

2006-11-11T16:44:00.000+05:30

So here's another one of those nights that has crept up to me, telling me that I am one step closer... The Sun is the same, (as Floyd said) in a relative way, but I ain't the same....

What should such a day be like? A day to introspect? retrospect? inspect? or just suspect?

What is more worth remembering on a night like this? The pocket full of marbles that I used to run with, or those games of summer, or those high-school Maths problems, or the races I ran, or the races I just watched?

How do you choose from amongst those memories? You can't favor one over the other. Even memories have egos. You can't ignore any one of them. What if one of them is hurt and refuses to come back forever? Can I handle that?

The whole process is a lot like looking in the rear-view mirror. Especially those ones which say "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear". I guess the same holds true for each one of those images in our mind. Much closer than they appear. And catching up fast. Sometimes rushing past to get ahead of you, till you become another object in the mirror of your memories...

And as I sit here I am trying to count something. Though I don't know what. I just found that it's so very difficult to measure a life only in terms of years... in terms of greeting cards, in terms of bouquets, in terms of phone calls... Perhaps it's also in terms of the times your hands didn't hurt someone, the lies you never told and the tears which don't have your name written on them... Basically things that we generally don't care a damn about. Meaningless episodes in our otherwise meaningful lives.

But is that bringing me back to the most basic question, the one people spend their entire lives without getting a hold on?

Many happy returns.
Of what?

Umrao...?

2006-11-04T22:06:00.000+05:30

As per statistics, my usual rate of watching Hindi movies is two per year. Since this year is coming to a close, I thought I should complete my quota and maintain a healthy track record.
And so today it was decided that the latest flick "Umrao Jaan" shall be the chosen one. After all, there was a lure of the Lucknow setting, perhaps the thought of classic dialogues, or something else...
And though there are umpteen number of reviews of the movie floating around on the net, I still decided to punch the keyboard for one more... Afterall, it's rarely that such a movie arrives which makes you feel that you have lost something valuable.
The valuable thing in this case was 220 Indian Rupees. 160 for the ticket, 30 for the auto, and 30 for what was claimed to be a Russian salad sandwich (just as an aside, whatever little plans I had to ever visit Russia were thwarted by this concoction).
The thing is, it's not very often that I walk out of a moviehall as soon as the screen claims "Intermission". This time, I ran out of the hall and paused only when I was sure that I was a safe distance away.
So what exactly happened during those crawling minutes before the break that caused this? One word - artificial. Too much of Urdu thrust into the movie as if compensating for the otherwise nonsensical dialogues generally strewn about. I come from a place which was frequented by some of the best Urdu writers of all times (Mirza Ghalib, for instance, was born there). And if I had a tough time figuring out half the words spoken, then I can't imagine the plight of those hapless Mumbaikars around me who anyway have their own distorted version of Hindi itself.
And the next thing artificial was the theme itself. An overdrawn love story, which looked too polished, too cloy, too Mills & Boonish almost.
But the clincher was that one 10 minute scene where our dim-wit son of BigB turns up drunk at the doorstep of Miss Saccharine. That was the end of patience. That's when I walked away...

...Mourning my loss of a couple of hours on a lovely Saturday afternoon... and yes, the 220 Rs. as well...

The pigeon and the statue...

2006-11-03T22:48:00.000+05:30

They say sometimes you are the pigeon. They also say that as per the laws of karma, you must be the statue at times as well. Something like a bad hair day. Happens even to bald people, or so I believe. Except that this time, I almost knew when the fast winds would start shuffling my otherwise "Setted-Wetted" hair.
Though frankly, for the past few days, my health has anyway made a comfortable, middle-of-the-road statue out of me, with the "common cold" (I wish it were somewhat less common than what it is...) and random fevers leaving me dazed through my work.

And then to top it all, as if the week was vying to end on a particularly irksome note, I suffered a small setback at work. Here the word "small" has been used taking full advantage of relativity and related concepts.

You win some, you lose some. Only sometimes, you lose some more. That's precisely what all pigeons and statues feel about their relationship. Every dog has it's day. And today as I looked up, standing in the middle of the road, "statuesque" and all, with things falling straight into my eyes, I realized that birds aren't too far behind in claiming their days...

Goodbye Syd...

2006-10-28T00:18:00.000+05:30

I know it's late for this. Obituaries are supposed to be written sooner. But I guess for some legends who can't die, you don't really call it an obit. It's more of an eulogy than anything else. A kind of Thank You note that you leave on the pillow. Knowing very well that the note also has GoodBye written somewhere over it.

I am talking about Syd Barrett. 6-Jan-1946 to 11-Jul-2006. The band he created wrote songs about him. They knew exactly what they were saying when they called him a painter, a prisoner, and a martyr. And Crazy Diamond.

They called themselves the T-Set, till he named them Pink Floyd. In a spur of moment. Like all good things, absolutely randomly out of the names of two blues singers. And the name stuck. Almost 40 years now and there are enough people who can vouch that "See Emily Play", "Arnold Layne", and infact the entire "Piper..." still sound as haunting as they perhaps did all those years ago.

Not to mention his singles, songs such as "Bob Dylan Blues" and "Gigolo Aunt" which were written when he had reached advanced stages of vegetation. A numb, white-washed brain that could still create strange rhythms, often forgetting what he wrote or sung. Thanks to Dave for recording all that. I guess that's the least he could do. After all, he probably wouldn't be in the band if it weren't for Syd cracking up one fine January morning in 1968.

He lived for music. He also died for it perhaps. We don't know whether he consumed LSD or did the LSD consume him. I guess being a legend is about leaving notes on pieces of paper, for others to figure and complete. And the Floyd did a pretty good job of it.

Everybody wonders what would Floyd be had he remained. We don't know. We don't want to know infact. It's a bit like asking how much sense it would make if fireflies could glow incessantly for an hour, and not just for those flickering moments. They wouldn't be fireflies then, would they? Syd was just like that. And that's how we want to remember him.

"Here today, gone yesterday". That's what it feels like. Hope you are good wherever you are. They knew everyone would miss him when they labeled his greatest hits "Wouldn't you miss me...?"

Thanks Syd for all the music. And the images. And the themes. And the words.
And for Floyd. Shine on...

While my guitar gently weeps...

2006-10-26T19:11:00.000+05:30

...Or actually it's me who's not so happy about the whole thing. I am not saying it's over. But it's been a strange friendship. In fits and starts. Like fervent telegrams sent to enquire about a friend's health. And then a long lull. And all I am left with, is unconvincing excuses to justify.

It began almost four years ago if I remember correctly. And there was an immediate craze with which I took up the guitar. Cuz being a rock fanatic causes your fingers to twitch very often and there does come a phase when you realize that playing air-guitars while listening to the likes of Satriani and Clapton, is just not quite cutting it. And so I went to a teacher. And I practiced. And yes, there was a big smile on my face when I could effortlessly switch from D# to Bminor to Emajor (not a very interesting sequence musically, but for a beginner, generally results in good finger movement).

And then the long exile. Accompanied by the usual excuses -- "Time hi nahin milta hai". The same words that I have oft repeated for so many other meaningful things in my life. Thus continued the Morse-codish behavior. Periods of sounds, with gaps in between. Uncertain, unplanned, perhaps avoidable, but gaps nevertheless.

I picked up the instrument again yesterday. Like an old letter that you don't want to read, but something draws your hands towards it. The second string was showing signs of rusting. I moved my finger over it repeatedly, as if the harsh surface would serve as an atonement for the neglect that I had shown. And then I tried tuning the guitar. Thankfully I could tune it in five minutes. Not bad.

And then I tried "Wish you were here" (Floyd), after a long, long time. I remembered all the chords. The intro solo as well. It came out decent. Consolation prize. Then the riffs of "Hotel California" (Eagles). Then the opening riffs of "Outside" (Staind). Then the intro of "Closer to the heart" (Rush). And this is where it hurt. Except for a few intros and riffs, there were hardly any songs which I could cover fully.

But as I said, it's not over yet. It won't ever will be. Can't be, actually. Though for the time being I suppose I have to contend with the air-guitars. But someday soon it will again be the melodies of songs that shall emanate from my guitar, and not the sound of muffled sobs...

Seven months...

2006-10-21T22:47:00.000+05:30

The time it had been since I had home food. And with every morsel came flashing back the memory of Mahalaxmi station's vada-pavs consumed as dinner. Or Garcias Pizza's garlic bread. And all the others whose numbers I have been dialling all this time.

There was this one time when I called up a restaurant and before I could finish articulating my order, the receiving party blurted the complete order and didn't even bother to ask my address. I had become a "regular" there. It's said that it's a matter of some pride when a bartender greets you as you walk in. But I believe it's a cause for concern when a home delivery joint can predict your order and doesn't need to wait for you to tell your address.

Today I could partake of all the items without having to stress my mind to identify what exactly was I eating. Or the "unbalanced" nature of the diet. Or the calorie values...

Very simply put, thank God for mom.

Working from...

2006-10-14T00:20:00.000+05:30

...Anywhere.

They say that working from home is becoming a rage. But there are those of us whose forty percent of working hours are spent in moving vehicles (the word "moving" becomes a misnomer at times, especially if Mumbai roads are the medium to "move" on). In the early days I used to look out the car window trying to enjoy the scenery. This continued till I realized that the city being Mumbai, there was no scenery really and I had therefore not been enjoying anything. Gautam Buddha attained enlightenment about the futility of everything, under a Banyan tree. I achieved the same under a metallic roof.

In Mumbai, even if you have to visit a place which is a stone's throw away from yours, you will take a stone age to reach there. There are folk lores in every Indian village. Most people are not aware that in Mumbai too, there are songs which old women sing at 4 in the morning mourning lost stones and pesticides. This particular song claims that a jilted lover tried throwing a stone from Malad towards his beloved who was sipping Coke by herself in Andheri on a calm Wednesday evening. But the stone got stuck in a traffic jam and the beloved died of pesticides.

And it is for this reason that I am not left with a choice but to type meeting minutes while inside the car. Amidst the horns and the slowly creeping trucks it is a remarkable experience. It is believed that your surroundings affect your thoughts and that in turn affects what you write. The readers of those meeting minutes have frequently commented that they almost heard a noise as the email opened up, like the desperate blare of an autorickshaw who has placed his vehicle perpendicular to the traffic. It has also been observed that the words seem to be somewhat cramped, like a biker squeezing between a cement truck and a BEST bus. And that the general undertones in "Action Items" are very similar to those that pedestrians on Mumbai roads can be heard mumbling -- a delicate mixture of prayers and abuses, both said at the same time...

Cinderella...

2006-10-08T23:26:00.000+05:30

...In an earlier post I had promised a separate entry on Cinderella because of my fascination for her. Let's see how far I can keep my promise.

...So once upon a time there was a girl who turned, from a daughter, to a stepdaughter. Though she belonged to a noble background, her stepmother made her run around for all the work and did not allow her to wear the good dresses. And this girl had nothing to sleep on but the heap of cinder collected in the scullery. They say it is for this reason that she was called Cinder Maid, or Cinderella...

But this is not her story.

This is the story of all the velvet shoes we step into, of the sea-colored dresses we wear to the parties, and of the golden chariots we ride in. And of everything that disappears if we fail to leave before the clock strikes twelve...

Because this is our story.

We refuse, even for a moment, to acknowledge that there will always be (as Goo Goo Dolls would put it), "the moment of truth in your lies...". We all have become modern-day Cinderellas, racing around with an artificial demeanor, till we lose track of time. Till we get to a stage where we cannot say with certainty as to what is artificial. Till we repeat our lies so often that not accepting them feels like a folly. Till we are left with no choice but to run over the fence, leaving nothing but a velvet shoe behind.

There's one difference though. Cinderella was justified. She didn't pray for it. But the gifts were given to her out of kindness. But what we carry around with us, are strange burdens. Mask after mask. Layers of it. Donning one after the other, but some traces of our real face still surfacing occasionally.

And then we become criminals. When it's not the soldiers of the Prince who come looking for the foot that will fit the shoe. But the minions of our disgruntled, paranoid Karma frantically catching up with us. And then we are too afraid to put our best foot forward...

Go home Cinderella, the clock's ticking...

October Rains...

2006-10-02T18:52:00.000+05:30

It's been raining again. Yesterday morning the lashing rains at six confused a lot of happily asleep Mumbai citizens. And it didn't stop throughout the day. The rains had revisited as if they had forgotten something the last time. Like an absent-minded scientist who forgets his umbrella and after having traveled half a mile, comes back to ransack his lab and disturbs the happy white experimental mice.

Of course, the umbrella was never in the lab anyways...

Moving experiences...

2006-10-02T00:46:00.000+05:30

Shifting house, or "moving", can be a rather moving exercise. So here I am, on Sunday night, typing away from my new house. Shifted to Bandra (East) from the heart of South Mumbai - Breach Candy. Felt like a culture shock the other day. Breach Candy looks like a car parking lot, because every house has at least three cars -- "one for the master, one for the dame, and one for the little boy...". Well, certainly not for the boy who lives down the lane, but there is no dearth of takers for that one extra car anyday.

I remember Pushkar mentioning in one of his posts about never underestimating the importance of home food and free laundry. Now home food is something that I have almost forgotten. I have learnt to live on pizzas, burgers, and strange oily veg curries from restaurants whose only identity I have with me, is their phone number. But free laundry, that's a different story. A PG acco can spoil your habits. And so it was with me in my last house. Clothes were washed and ironed and placed neatly near the bed every day. I guess those days are over. As I struggled with the washing machine and the erratic Municipal water supply today, and walked in the rain to pick up clothes for ironing, I once again realized the number of things we take for granted every day. Or as Joni Mitchell said in "Big yellow taxi", "Don't it always seem to go, That you don't know what you've got, Till its gone..."

My room doesn't have a curtain yet (another thing that most people take for granted). I can see everything that's on the other side. Obviously the same holds true for the onlookers on whose other side I happen to be. But with my room being on the third floor, there's not too much peeping that people on the road can do. Though frankly, there's nothing in me or my room that's worth peeping at anyways...

And of course, in all this flurry of facts and emotions, let me not forget my house-mate. He left for Uncle Sam's hometown the day I landed in this house (in case I haven't mentioned it yet, it was the last day of September 2006). And so the first evening was spent in what I call the "Discovery Walk". I do that whenever I land in a new place. It is a process by which a person, by randomly walking for a couple of hours, finds the eco-system necessary for survival. Places such as the local grocery store, the chemist, the roadside vada-pav joints, the bus stop, and similar places of tourist interest. Though as a custom, such a walk requires the participant to take any turn that catches his/her fancy with no regard to consequences. The net result being that I usually forget where I started from after two hours of such a session of brownian motion.

Needless to say, forgetting the road to home can be a rather moving feeling...

Lessons from the Mumbai Locals...

2006-09-24T09:23:00.000+05:30

Mumbai Local Trains are the lifeline of Mumbai. They are also great teachers. Some go so far as to claim that traveling in Mumbai locals builds character. One would therefore expect Mumbai to be as characterful as possible. Maybe that's what the Mumbai local spirit is all about. Maybe...

Anyways, today we shall cover some practical lessons learnt while undergoing varied experiences in the locals. Let's call these lessons, for the purpose of academization, "MLTs". We intend to take up five lessons from Mumbai Locals - named quite appropriately as MLT-101, MLT-102, MLT-103, MLT-104 and last, and the toughest, MLT-105. The courses are self-explanatory in nature, as will soon become evident. All these lessons will include the time of day, the specification of the train and the class of journey to be undertaken in order to successfully complete the course, apart from other trivial details.

Without further ado, we begin with MLT-101.

Time of Day: 9:30 PM, Sunday

Train Specification: Churchgate, Slow.

Boarding Station: SantaCruz

Alighting Station: Churchgate

Your class of journey: First

Handicap: None

Qualification criteria: Find the right platform, get in and out of the train at the designated destinations.

Notes/Comments: If you fail at this, you need to look again in the mirror, and then break the mirror.

A preliminary course, this is where one should ideally begin their training, though (as is the nature of human beings), we are all born experts and so we attempt far more amazing things much sooner in our life, with a few of us actually remaining alive to tell the world about it.

MLT-102

Time of Day: 6:30 PM, Monday

Train Specification: Churchgate, Slow.

Boarding Station:SantaCruz

Alighting Station: Churchgate

Your class of journey: First

Handicap: A bag (containing a laptop), an umbrella, and a swiss watch on your hand

Qualification criteria: Get in and out of the train with no damage to the laptop, the umbrella, to the watch and to self. Also, while boarding and alighting, there should be NO physical contact with any humanbeing/organism on the station.

Notes/Comments: You should be able to qualify easily after one attempt

MLT-103

Time of Day: 6:30 PM, Monday

Train Specification: Andheri, Fast

Boarding station:Mumbai Central

Alighting Station: Dadar

Your class of journey: First

Handicap: A bag (containing a laptop), an umbrella, and a swiss watch on your hand

Qualification criteria: Get in and out of the train with no damage to the laptop, the umbrella, to the watch and to self.

Notes/Comments: The author does not take any responsibility in case the swiss watch goes missing while attemtping the above operations.

MLT-104

Time of Day: 6:45 PM, Monday

Train Specification: Boriveli, Fast

Boarding station:Dadar

Alighting Station: Bandra

Your class of journey: Second

Handicap: A bag (containing a laptop), an umbrella, and a swiss watch on your hand

Qualification criteria: Get in and out of the train with no damage to self and laptop

Notes/Comments: If the umbrella and watch go missing, you will still be considered as qualified

MLT-105 (Only to be attempted after all the above 4 have been qualified. This experiment involves significant threat to life and limb)

Time of Day: 7:15 PM, Monday

Train Specification: Virar, Fast

Boarding station:Dadar

Alighting Station: Bandra

Your class of journey: Second

Handicap: Trust me, it won't make a difference

Qualification criteria: Get in and out of the train at the designated stations, with no major injuries to self

Notes/Comments: Since there is no way you can even think of attempting this at home, so I will do away with the customary warnings and wish you good luck. Also note that only for the purpose of this exercise, falling on your face while alighting does not count towards major injuries.

*Please note that whereever used, the expression "Get in the train" implies that no part of your system is outside the door (No, not even the shoe)

Touch and go...

2006-09-24T00:10:00.000+05:30

The problem with fleeting moments is just that -- they are fleeting.

You realize that the moment was just here, with you, within your reach. You could feel it, smell it, sense it, and then when you look around, it's gone.

Moments that you start missing even before they end.

Like that book that you hoped had fifteen more pages just as you turn to the last page...

Like that road that you turn around and look at with wistful eyes, just before the last milestone...

Like those last few minutes in the morning when you wake up to find the alarm is only twenty minutes away...

Like that song that you can't wait to play again just before the last notes are played...

Like that conversation when you wished something more was said just before your coffee is over...

In Quotes

2006-09-23T01:23:00.000+05:30

The best gift you can give to someone, is to forget what they should be sorry for...

The complexity of our life is limited only by the hyperactivity of our overworked imagination...

Hope is not about conquering your fear. Hope is about holding your fear by the hand, and walking with it...

Infinity is not something that doesn't have an end, but something that doesn't need a beginning...

The true measure of a useful life is not the number of tears left behind in death, but the number of smiles spread around when alive...

Run...

2006-09-13T23:32:00.000+05:30

It's an illuminating sight, in Mumbai, to see the kids growing up on the streets. They learn a lot of things this way. I saw it in movies earlier -- the effect of Mumbai on kids. I still remember, in most of them the camera would focus on the puny, running legs of a kid who just stole a piece of bread and then the scene would fast forward where the character now running is the hero who has upgraded to stealing a necklace and the followers have upgraded from roadside onlookers to the men in uniform.

That of course, was a dramatization, but not entirely unfounded.

The streets of Mumbai teach its kids...

...To run from one crowd, only to lose themselves into another crowd

...To run towards the next taxi, trying to coax rich strangers to buy pirated copies of "How to win" and "Rich Dad, poor dad" and "Heal thyself", the irony of the whole situation being so fucking blatant and you feeling so unsure where to look as if your mom just caught you with both your hands doing something below your belt

...To run into their road-side make-shift homes, to take shelter from the pimps on the streets

...To run from their road-side make-shift homes, to save themselves from a father who's too drunk

...To run behind the walls, to hide themselves from tomorrow

...To run against the rush, just for the kick of it

...To run with each other, to find a solace that is unattainable in this city while standing still

The streets of Mumbai teach its tomorrow...

...To run...

Fear and love

2006-09-10T10:51:00.000+05:30

"Conversations with God" talks about these two emotions being the only two emotions upon which every other human feeling is founded. Every thing that we sense and understand can be distilled into either of these. No more, no less. If I were to put it something along the lines of HP's latest ad campaign, I would say "The human is binary again..."

Because it is fear that makes you grip and grasp at things, while it takes love to let go...

Because it is fear that forces those promises upon you, while it takes love to just believe...

Because it is fear that leads you to find excuses, while it takes love to stop looking for reasons...

Most importantly, the concept of love in this context is not just the boy-girl type, but all the definitions hold equally true as much for a mother-child love, for instance.

And to conclude this small post, some extrapolations that I drew from what I could fathom --

Even if you have never been able to help yourself, help others so that they can live...

Even if you have never been able to reduce your own suffering, lessen it for others, so that they can smile...

And even if you have never been able to listen to yourself, listen to others so that they can share...