Friday, November 27, 2009

Maddening ads

Lifebuoy soap claims to have the power to counter the swine flu pandemic. It doesn’t state that explicitly but leaves enough audio-visual cues to get most people to think so. I’m NOT trying to undermine the importance of washing hands with a disinfectant soap to prevent swine flu, but to loudly claim that it’ll give you 100% protection against the swine flu virus can be misinterpreted. I’m sure Lifebuoy has the capability to incapacitate or remove the H1N1 from its area of application in a certain way for a certain period of time, but this can lead people to wrongly think that swine flu can be stopped by using Lifebuoy alone. True, one should not forget that an infected person’s hands are likely contaminated by the virus and whatever this person touches becomes a source of infection for others. Therefore you should wash your hands and try not to frequently touch your face without thoroughly washing your hands first. But unless you read between the lines, statements like “SWINE FLU SE DARNE KA NAHIN, LADNE KA (you shouldn’t fear swine-flu, you should fight it)” can make common people rather careless to other ways of contracting the infection. Of course once the virus enters your body, you will have no option but to fight it, for it will fight back to turn your body into breeding grounds for its posterity. Swine flu, like any other flu is an airborne infection. If an infected person sneezes in your proximity, the virus directly enters your lungs via microscopic droplets in the air as you breathe, washing your hands with Lifebuoy isn’t gonna help. Once that happens, maybe washing your mouth, trachea, bronchus, bronchioles and alveoli thoroughly with lifebuoy might help but let me tell you that that would be impossible without killing you first…or in the process. I feel that the ad should be more vocal about this fact. It is the way these people highlight one fact and downplay other, equally important ones, from the whole story that gets me worried. Please inform yourself more about this disease.
Another ad I do not like: Idea cellular. 26/11/08 the day terror knocked straight at the Gateway of India and entered The Taj Hotel. We were all shocked and in disbelief as the events unfurled. We are all still emotional about it. One year hence, Abhishek Bacchan appears on the T.V. screen with a serious face and requests the viewers to pick up their idea cellular phones and go crazy making calls on 26/11 (today). He informs us that the money thus generated will be given away to the police (in lieu of the sacrifices they made on 26/11/09…I do not remember if it’s hinted at or explicitly stated in the advertisement). I wish this ad were a little more informative. The ad neither tells whether the money would go to the families of the policemen who died or were injured in the incidence or to Mumbai police or to some other police force. I’m especially restive because recently it was in the news that some of the police officers did not report to duty when called in the emergency situation of 26/11. Are these people gonna get a share of the collections as well? I request someone to tell Abhishek Bacchan (whoever can), that the next time he brings a somber face on the screen to conjure up our emotions in the name of national integration, generated out of a crisis situation, to please request the people, who pay him crores for an advertisement, to give us (the viewers) a lucid insight into what they’re requesting us to do and who does it help and in what way?
These ads either contain only hints to something that the common’s psyche automatically builds on in presumption (which might be incorrect) or hide important facts from the complete story; both are unfair practices. I think I’m gonna try and find out how to use the RTI, I’m sick of so many things happening around me. Call me cynical if you must.
Only last week I received a forwarded mail giving incomplete details of some woman claiming to be in a financial crisis after her husband suffered total paralyses. It gave no details of the city, no details of the place the husband worked. The mail said the woman had two kids whereas the picture showed three. I couldn’t help but raise my skeptical eyebrow at this. I mailed to all the people that were on this mail’s mailing list about this doubt of mine. As I was typing this email, I googled the name of this lady in another window…lo and behold…the name was found in the list of hoax mails. Every time the mail was forwarded, it added a few paise in the account of the conman, who devised this great plan. People just ignored it and said, “it doesn’t matter to me for it doesn’t cost me money and hardly takes time to forward it to a 100 people”. Why would you help a thug to even earn one paisa? Why would you even spend one second of your time to do that? How bloody careless and lost are you? It’s surely good to be kind and benevolent but is it not good to also be attentive and vigilant? How long are we gonna be a bunch of idiots, fooled by every Tom, Dick and Harry who plays on the strings of our emotions?
SORRY I DIGRESSED, I’ll get back to the mad world of ads. There’s one genre that conquers the rest (in my opinion i.e.); comedy. I love comedy, at times sarcastic (though I feel it is best avoided), goofy, slapstick, witty, any kind of comedy. When I hear the bingo mad angles song playing on TV, I stop all other activity and watch the ad. The pretty girl and the lovesick boy gesturing to each other from their balconies with the melodious song playing in the background, it all makes me happy. The mischievous flying kiss of the girl that is slyly and skillfully captured into the shirt pocket by the boy is a treat to watch. The expressions of the girl hence say something’s gone terribly wrong, and the first time I saw the ad, I was sure it would be another girl but wait, the next shot captures the boy’s shirt pocket on fire. He hastily slaps it out. Then the girl looks at the packet in her hand…and the music goes BOINGGG!!! The reason of the fire is ascribed to the fiery hot flavor of the mad angles that were transmitted to the boy’s shirt via the flying kiss. The next part, which is mostly omitted from the shorter version of the ad, shows that the two meeting with the hot mad-angles still in the girl’s hands. This rightfully (obviously) alarms the boy and he lowers his welder-helmet that he’s wearing, to cover his face and hence protect is from the fires in the girl’s mouth. WOW! I’d suggest that the boy eats the hot mad-angles too and they both can thus get cosy; fire beats fire.
We talked about two kinds of transmissions, swine-flu and fire. I’d go with the fire transmission. If I were you, I’d go to the CDC website and read more about swine flu to learn how to protect myself rather than trust a bunch of currency-note hungry businessmen, trying to mislead me in the smallest way in connivance with the ad-psychologist they call “dream merchants”. I’d call them nightmare salesmen. Call me cynical…ah! A cynic that loves comedy!

Boot camp Harley

I registered myself for Harley Davidson boot-camp on the internet yesterday. There was a button that said “win your place in the boot camp” so I opted for it because being a part of the Harley Davidson boot camp costs 3500 bucks! I just had to give my name, address, age and the bike I own and punch in 30 words saying why I deserve to be in the boot camp. I didn’t know what boot camp really meant in this context but I figured I’d get to ride a Harley (maybe for a couple of days) so I wrote something like this (I don’t remember the exact words) “I’ve done long roads, many a time, bad ones on my Bullet. I’d like to know what it feels like to do it with more power, control and technical finesse.” I remember that the one I actually wrote was also 29 or 30 words.
In all probability, these lines were unimpressive but what the heck, that’s all I could manage surfing Harley website for a few minutes, hiding from my boss. I really don’t know of any person who knows about motorcycles and doesn’t wish to ride (and of course own, if possible) a Harley Davidson. I especially like the SPORTSTER; it impresses me with its bobber looks and crouching posture. It seems like it’s ready to spring into action at the twist of that throttle.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Bondage

As far freedom of expression and liberty is concerned, living in this part of the world is difficult sometimes. No, I will not thank God that I’m not living in Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not do so because India has a system is place that gives me the freedom to exercise my will regarding what religion I follow, who I marry, who I vote for etc without being under any kind of pressure from any quarter. I know someone who resides in the US with her parents and was slapped viciously by her father when she expressed her desire to marry her boyfriend in India. The reason was that the boy wasn’t from the same caste as her. This is the ugly truth no matter wherever we go, we carry this attitude with us. I know someone who is facing difficulty picking his girlfriend up from near her place (they both work at the same place) because people the people who’re present there every morning stare and gossip about them, and not wanting to be left behind, the neighbours are out spying too. These middle and old aged culture vultures are out on the voyeuristic prowl, imagining things that they fantasize in their dark dreams. If you’re one of those vile hypocrites who’d point their fingers and say that the girls parents must not be aware that she goes with the guy, I’d say you’re true and it’s because of people like you that they don’t know. There are people busy hard-wiring their children to live a certain way and to think a certain way; it cripples the kids without them ever knowing about it. I’m not against teaching good habits to your children but that is an aspect barely touched upon as seen in the kind of creatures that have entered youth, roaming in the city streets. Only in the beginning of this week a brawl broke out at the local KFC in which a boy was stabbed. People like talking about high principles and morals but lack basic manners and courtesy. Today CNN IBNs office in Mumbai was attacked by the Shiv-Sena workers. The reason was that this news network criticized Bal Thackery for criticizing Sachin Tendulkar for saying that he was an Indian before he was a Marathi. That’s the deplorable status quo of the national pride as seen in the leaders of political parties.
What does liberty mean in this society? It seems to mean that so long as you have money and contacts, you have the freedom to do as you like and the liberty to pay your way out of your deeds. Who are the people enforcing the law here? Gluttonous, greedy perverts that take ages to reach crime scenes and when they do, they’re inept doing what they’re supposed to and adept at committing unscrupulous acts themselves. I’ve known girls who’ve called up the police station to report acts of eve-teasing only to be discouraged by the voice on the other end of the line advising them against lodging a formal complain stating that it would be a tedious and a messy process that they should avoid. When I lost my wallet a few months ago and went to report it to the police station, the policeman was rude to me and said that he had a whole lot of work and careless people like me were increasing his work load. He went on to show me his wallet saying “see this, I have it for the past 20 years, I’ve never lost it.” I politely replied, “Even I hadn’t lost mine for the past ten” at which he frustratingly told me to go back and come the next day. I was lucky, that night, a gentleman walked up to my place with my wallet that he’d found in the parking lot. Last year in July when a bus ran over my father’s toes (and ripped the whole sole off his foot) and he was lying on a bloody stretcher in the hospital waiting to be taken into surgery, the policemen arrived. My father wasn’t in a state to give any statements. These bastards were being rude to him and pressing him to sign a paper that said the accident was all his own fault…UNBELIEVABLE! This was happening in front of my eyes. I was too shocked to see my father in that condition to react. A friend advised my dad to do so and not get into the mess for now because there was another important thing we needed to concentrate on; keep him alive.
Its sin to have a girlfriend but it’s ok to go around eve-teasing because in the former case, you’ll face the wrath of the society and in the latter case…well no one will bother to catch you. This is the liberal democracy I live in. People take the law into their own hands to punish people for falling in love and marrying (“Haryana’s Khap Panchayats), where nuns are raped to punish a community (how do these bastards get aroused in front of a resisting, crying helpless woman?), where goons try to gag the press, where a surprise check would reveal a staggering number of inebriated on-duty cops, where the common man is busy hard-wiring his/HER kids to be like him or something he/SHE always wanted to be but never was. Where is the bloody freedom to speak or choose, where is the liberty to develop and follow my own thought? We’re all slaves. I want more bloody freedom; this is not enough for me.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

I just woke up to a song playing in my mind “Just Good Friends” by Michael Jackson. I used to love this song as a kid. Way back in the 80s my sister and I used to listen to a lot of music and MJ’s tapes were on our favorites list. I don’t remember the last time I heard this particular song, it was probably in the 80s only for when we shifted to our present home in 1991 February, we’d lost many of tapes including BAD. Besides I was getting into other kind of music by Guns n Roses, Eric Clapton, Color Me Badd and even rap but MJ was still one of my favs. It was time I was in school and never had money to buy original tapes so I’d spend the last rupee (of the very few I had) to get songs recorded on blank tapes; a true music pirate. MJ bombed the world in those days with his album Dangerous and the songs like Black or White, Jam, In the Closet, Remember the Time, Who is It dominated the charts.
Anyway I jumped out of bed and headed straight for MJs MP3 CD that I borrowed from my friend. It’s a pirated CD but I had no compunctions about enjoying it; Why? MJ’s dead, he doesn’t need money anymore to pay of the debts that he died under.

The first MJ song I heard was Dirty Diana in 1987…or so I thought. There was guy who had a locally-made stereo, and he kept two of the four big speakers inside two big earthen pots that raised the bass to a level that made you feel that the bass-guitar and drums were playing right inside your tummy and yes, they weren’t hard on the ears at all). I was sitting in his room and when he played Dirty Diana and the music raised the hair of my head (didn’t have any body hair, hey I was seven half years old then). I never liked the way the song ended but then again, this was Michael Jackson and the slightest twitch in any part of his body would lead to a couple of dozen people fainting in awe (at least back then), who was I to pass a judgment on him. Then I looked at the cover of the cassette and went WOW! There was Michael Jackson, light brown stretched skin, dressed in “are you for real” studded jacket embellished with chains and whatnots wearing his propriety glove in one hand. This picture’s not the same as the typical one you get to see on a BAD album in which MJ’s is looking like a white man (Woman?!?). The confusion was generated when after going back home I heard the familiar “Beat It” again and exclaimed HEY THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG HERE!!! This guy sounds the same as that guy but he is black while that one was…well…brown! Then the revelation, both cassettes had Michael Jackson written on them (yeah! I’d never paid so much attention before, hey!! I was a kid). So my sister told me that he’d had a cosmetic surgery done. I asked her why, she replied as a matter of factly “to look better”. Of course throughout my life I was made to realize why White is better than Black, at least in this part of the world. So I understand why Michael did it. Though he maintained that it was vitiligo…maybe it was…but I’ve never seen such an even progression of vitiligo, I thought it spreads in patches but since MJ says to it must be true. Later I learnt looks didn’t help sell his records better as his Album Thriller holds the Guinness Record for the largest selling singles album, the time when he was black.
Anyway he got message across in his songs and when I heard the lines “I’m not gonna spend my life being a color” in the song Black or White, I sighed and said “I understand MJ”. Living in the US (the land of liberty and freedom) and being popular ever since he was kid, if one wrote and songs “They don’t really care about us”, we here, can only wonder what was plaguing him.
Though there was a time when I was filled with scorn for MJ (late 90s through to the time he died), his creative genius seemed to be taking a nose dive, so did the way he look; ALIEN. But just like he did, I thought that he would never die. When he did I realized for myself that death is the ultimate truth. There were other people who lost their lives around me, but I really thought that MJ would never die. A lyricist, singer, dancer, a creative genius, there was but one Michael that was also a Jackson. What a sad end! I have no shame in shouting it out loud “I’M A MICHAEL JACKSON FAN”. Now as thoughts overwhelm me and my writing becomes more of a nonsensical and incoherent, I’ll close this post (I’m getting late for work) and continue listening to the MJ songs playing on my computer while I get ready (Ha! It’s so much easier to obtain music nowadays unlike back then).

Now's moving


My head’s dizzy, just enough,
to hallucinate that I’m in love
the one that was never mine
the one that happened
twenty times nine

My eyes see things unseen
It’s pitch dark but these trees
look so green
the lights flashing at the distance
tell me to go on, despite
my resistance

tell me my friend, do you want advice?
I’ll give it from the bottom of my heart
Though it might be filled with vice
Tell me too, what to do of all this despair
Tell me why life’s to me anything
but fair

The night is cold but I’m not
I’m on fire
right now I’m The Zealot
these visions make the real surreal
being alive right now is no big deal

Death wouldn’t end me now
I’ll leave this flesh,
and live on somehow
I’m intangible, I’m a soul
Right now, I’m with myself
I’m complete, I’m whole
Tomorrow I’ll be another book
eating dust on the shelf

A book with many chapters
One of which deals with rapture
a time when it’s just about me
beyond which nothing else I see

That’s the last one I’m sure
Dear friend I’ll have no more
Time to drink just got over
Must hurry back home,
though I would’ve like it slower

I’m just another beggar on the street
An invalid trying to find his feet
A voice from a throat parched and dry
Or maybe a mind that’s just gone awry

The surreal now looks more real
With regret for things I just said
I admit, I’m better off alive
than dead

I don’t care Heaven or Hell
This is my time I’ll spend it well
I see them both every now and then
I see them in the form of men

Tomorrow I’ll start another day
in the empire
and live with angels that switch
over to vampires
But who am I to point fingers when
my dear, I’m just one of them

Monday, November 16, 2009

Tables of the Universe

There they stood, beautiful statues of the deities, high up on the carpeted stage. The devout followers seated below on the ground were listening to the holy words of the preacher seated at a height between the people and the Gods. As I passed on and reached the rear side of the stage I was quite astonished at the sight. The stage was built of tables, piled one on top of the other. The kind of tables that are a familiar sight on this side of the planet (at least here in Chandigarh). These are ones that are most commonly used by tent-services. Each one has a heavy, crude cast iron frame and legs with wooden boards on top. Most of them were (probably) designed and manufactured 20-30 years ago. I’ve never seen a clean table (one of these) till date. The metals finish is rough and uneven and it has some cheap greenish paint brushed on it (most that I’ve seen have lost much of that too). The wood is…err…I don’t have a good word to describe it. It’s dirty, unfinished (I mean crude) with big nuts running through it on the vertices. It’s not a big single piece of wood either, there are two to three planks fitted to make one ugly table top. The ghastly cast iron legs are foldable and the sound that these tables make when being loaded or unloaded from a truck is something I can recognize instantly. I once attended an extravagant, outdoor wedding dinner. The set up was beautiful. I was happy to see no signs of the ugly tables anywhere. Then while taking the nth helping of the dessert, I  got curious and lifted the skirts of the table....and found the same sickening, semi-painted, rusty cast-iron legs. “YYeoww!!” I let go off the fabric immediately after my fear was confirmed.

Pathetic, these tables are just pathetic but I wonder who designed them. They’ve been so successful because of their strength, design (foldability…ha ha I just added a new word to your vocabulary), resilience to torture (oh I’ve seen them being treated like they were less than tables) and of course their ability to function in a beautiful way without actually showing up their ugliness. They’d hold your Gods, you food, your politicians……did I say politicians?

Yes that brought back something that was strolling in my mind. I think that’s the reason I started to write this article. Today’s breaking news “Laalu Prasad Yadav hurt while addressing the people as the staged caved in”

We like to place our politicians high up, alongside the gods. The problem of being so high is so aptly described in the old adage “the higher it goes, the harder it falls”; Laalu was hurt alright. They also showed some other political leaders that took the fall when the stage gave way. These were:
Uma Bharati
Amar Singh
Varun Gandhi

So while the Indian news channels were showing the memorable masala moments of all these people falling down as the stage crashed, the camera captured an interesting detail; guess what the stage was made of. That’s right, our very own Universal Table. Oh I’ve started to love these table now. They hold steady when they have to and cave in when they must. Muahh!! I love you tables.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Rain on

As they creep up and cover the sky
I watch the ominous sight and sigh
These ones are not that give just shade
these ones are here to show their rage

A blanket dark and dense
One that has no pretense
Down below the gale gesticulates
Nature's opening its floodgates

Thunder roars with a message clear
Lightening flashes the message of fear
"take cover" every life that moves
or be struck by the bolt's hooves

Then as they start to fall
They hit the big and the small
Sneering arrows of the Cloud
Relentless as it glides by, proud

And then it all mellows down
The green shimmers, now rid of brown
Its shower time for things immobile
I was foolish to think of it vile

There must be a farmer, happier now
The sweat washed off his wrinkled brow
There he dances in elation
As I worry about reaching my destination

I see that Love too celebrates in the rain
Gone is the hurt, and the pain
As they walk holding each other’s hands
Now resolute, they’ve taken a stand

As they fall the drops touch me too
And reveal two points of view
As one sits and accumulates rust,
Another washes off it’s dust

So is everything else we face
The same moment’s for one to rest
For another to race, as he
reaches out for the crest

But let me not get stuck in the
Human wisdom’s muck
Let me see, smell, feel, hear and taste
These were not given to me in vain
They were only gifted, for me to
Enjoy the rain

(Started 09/09/09, when it was raining heavily but left it midway. Completed on 12/11/09; I was hungry so I munched on this leftover food for thought)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Your high(headed)ness

I just cannot see your point of view
Your words are like the grains of sand
Good points in them are but few

You talk of the time that you were young
You talk of the times when you went numb
You talk of the time your dog died
Still smell the aroma of the first fish you fried

You say you know that He is right
If I say no, you’re ready to fight
You claimed to have seen their miseries and plight
You wanted to help; they just wouldn’t follow the light

You claimed you know your inner self
You’ve traveled the road from heaven to hell
Enlightened; when you lost that friend
But still revel in the glitz of brands

I hate you not, I don’t like you either
In you I see my own reflection
Just like you, my words are heavy
My works, light as feather

Let us both stand in front of the mirror
Let us try to open our closed eyes
Who are we?
Can we ever see the truth
a bit more clearer?

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Anchor

Yesterday I shared the anchoring of the Freshers Formal Show with my batchmate Anmoldeep Randhawa. It was the first time I was hosting a show of any kind. Here's the sequence of events in a nutshell:

(2 days to freshers) At 12 noon I called up Anmol. She did not answer. I kept calling her till 6p.m. in vain. Then I lost my patience and fired at the other organizers (apparently she's their friend). She finally responded at 7p.m. and told me that she'd fallen sick. The med had made her drowsy and she'd slept off. We sat down till 10:00pm outlining the script.

(1 day to freshers) We sat for sometime and made some changes. Anmol's very creative and intelligent but unfortunately doesn't give a shit about other people's time (she's anything but punctual). She asked me to meet her at 6:30p.m. and disappered till 8:00p.m. She also took the script with her. My fuse blew out for the second time. Again I went to her friends and gave them a piece of my mind. They frantically searched for her and brought her back. I reckoned it would be no use getting angry at her for she'd probably make me suffer more later. We sat down and edited the script till 10:00p.m.

(D-day, freshers at 5:30p.m.) We hadn't finished editing or even completing the final part of the script. Anmol for busy with the presentation that was supposed to be played in the background. I gave her my deadline of 2:00p.m. She couldn't get back to the script till 4:00p.m. We worked on it till 4:30p.m. and by that time she was in tears, cursing me that I was taking her precious dressing-up time! We both rushed to the hostel to get ready.

According to me I took ages to get ready but it was a microsecond compared to what Anmol took. By 5:15pm I started to get calls saying that people had started gathering in the auditorium and that Anmol and I should rush ASAP. I reached the audi only to find Anmol missing. She didn't take my call again. When she finally did, she asked me come and pick her up on my bike. By now I was ready to kill. I rushed to the girl's hostel and called up her roomie. Anmol was getting ready.

Then I called out as loudly as I could "Anmol if the Director reaches there before us, we'll be history!"

She shouted back "It's all your fault. You didn't let me get ready on time"

I replied astonished "Are you bloody crazy. What would you do looking pretty on stage when you woudn't have anything to say out there?"

She shouted, "Shut up Jesse"

By now it was 5:40p.m. and I was on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. She finally came out and we rushed to the audi.

She said she needed more time as her saree wasn't tied properly!

The audi was full with our hyper-critical audience ready to hoot at the first chance. We pulled off the begining pretty ok. The director gave a rather candid speech about life of PhD student. Addressing the juniors he said that that they won't face ragging at the institute but the five or six or even seven years that they are in the institute will more than cover up for its absence. I am no stranger to that bitter reality as I've seen many students lingering on for more than five years to complete their PhDs here.

Anyway, after that started a series of non-cordinated moves with us announcing an item and the performers shouting from the backstage "We're not ready yet!!" and the crowd booing and hooting at us. I managed to paste a smile on my face and laughed it off but Anmol got really emabarrassed. She started cursing the other committe that were supposed to coordinate with us, not realizing the mic was right in front of her face, raising the hooting even more. I tried to pacify her but kept my distance from the mic. I wasn't so fazed and was surprised at that, for it was me (not Anmol) who'd been losing sleep over this debacle. Not that it was happening, I was standing there, totally calm. Then came another performance by the juniors that can be described in one word as "catastrophe". A group of 10 students standing on the stage holding candles (nearly setting each other's hair on fire) and only one of them singing "Heal the world". An inappropriate song for the ocassion. The crowd went wild with laughter and shouted funny comments. I was finding it exceedingly hard to control my laughter, and Anmol, her temper. Poor people, they walked off the stage holding their heads down in shame. The lead singer felt so humiliated that she didn't come up on stage to introduce herself later.

Then there was a solo song which too was booed off the stage. The two dances that followed settled the audience down a little.

Then two skits saved the day. They were hilarious and crazy and one of them can be aptly described as one of the best choreographed skits ever at IMTECH. This one had a guy playing an affable overconfident dwarf. The same guy also went on to win the Mr. Freshers title. He had his fair share of booing too when he introduced himself in his south-indian accent (he's from Andhra). Fortunately he didn't let all the stingy remarks get the better of him.

By the end of the ordeal of the show, I was pretty relaxed; thankful that we managed to pull it off without any untoward incident. Later I felt that Anmol wasn't so bad afterall (apart from the disappearing act that she's adept at). She had single handedly made the whole presentation that was played through the show. She had been running around to get her dress made on time and had a lot of trouble dealing with the tailor at the eleventh hour. She was unwell throughout the three days that we'd been preparing and executing the whole thing. Considering that we both are short tempered and we actually managed to finish the job without killing each other or even having a bad feeling it was a big success. Surely this event taught me a thing or two about working as a team.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Blogger's Park

Yesterday, five of us met. "We" are people who blog. The mundane day passed rather slowly and by the time we all met I still had some bit of energy left that I spent in cracking wise jokes. By the time people actually started to talk sense, I was a spent force. I went into a trance like state, oblivious to the conversation and started to observe the sights and odours around me.

From whatever little I heard, here are some of the topics that were dicussed (with my answers in brackets, wherever I could answer i.e.):

Veronika decides to die by PC!
How difficult it is to help the destitute! (Very, that's why not everyone can.)
Sigmund freud Vs Sigmund fraud! (I know just one thing about him; he's dead.)
Dalhousie is beautiful. Please comment! (Must be)
The electricity problem in Punjab! (Heck! it's ok... what about the overexcess of electricity inside a random punjabi...you gain some, you lose some)
Sizzlers cause air pollution. Can they also harm your body then? plz comment. (Doesn't matter as long as they taste good)
Why would an African tribal not want to climb Mt. Everest? (Err!! because he spends all his time to gather food and protect himself from lions using spears??)
Why would a New Zealander want to do so? (Errr!! Because he's probably rich and doesn't have to gather food/protect himself/ family from animals and has the time to think of doing so??)
What's the similarity between Whitney Houston and a canine? (Both can howl at high pitch)

Other topics I would've like to discuss were:

Why do dimly lit places make me sleepy? (Unless of course I'm on a date with my girl)
What is the need to have a huge mirror placed in front of a urinal? (Don't know, I kept standing there trying to figure out why...in vain.)
Why I do not understood psychology like psychology students do?

Why are some noodles flat? (I guess I have the answer to that...because they can be made like that...just like Mt. Everest can be climbed)
If neurotics start writing, do they turn into psychotics?

If psychotics start writing, would be treated as idiot-savants?
What kind of a conversation does a neurotic have with another neurotic?
What kind of a conversation does a psychotic have with another psychotic?
What kind of a conversation does a neurotic have with a psychotic?

Why do some people make use of so many hand gestures while conversing?

By the way I just received a mail while writing this blog and it shows The largest flower is of a plant named Amorphophallus titanum...if you see the flower, you'll immediately understand why the plant has that hilarious name.
Ok Ok so I'll end the joking session now. On a more serious note, it felt good to know that there are others like me for who writing is the road to their inner self. It is sporadic, intense and compulsive. The big question was "how can we possibly retain the 'intense' and 'compulsive' part and replace 'sporadic' with 'consistent', I think we all took it home as holiday homework for it was never discussed. My problem with doing that is that for me to write, I need to be alone for sometime. A quiet time when a chain of thoughts start to move, part reality, part fiction generated by my opnion on a particular subject. Strangely when I start to indulge socially, the 'need' to write vanishes. Probably because the thoughts generated over conversations are immediately put across as words in real time. Since I'm not a quick thinker, I find it difficult to strike good conversations. Writing however gives me time to ponder over my thoughts and analyze them for their logic. Anyway this post is exactly like a one sided verbal conversation. Besides, my guide has just left the lab and others in the lab are playing music at loud volume, the kind that can be aptly described as jarring cacophony, so I must end this post. GRRRRrrr!!

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Have a nice day

30th October 2009
I am really angry right now. I’ve been angry for a long time though I haven’t been able to figure out why. Its 2215hrs, my head is dizzy. I think I’ve been a little overexposed to radioactivity in the lab somehow. I think it was when I was using the vortex machine.

But the anger started to seed in the morning when the neighbour was being cocky.

Or was it when I realized that the motorcycle tyre was loosing air pressure despite my replacing its valve. Or was it when I read that blog-post “dirty education” (http://iamplural.blogspot.com/2009/10/dirty-education.html) and remembered the time I worked as a lecturer in a private college.

Or maybe it was when I had to get the puncture fixed and I was overcharged by the guy. Or was it?

I think it was when boss sarcastically suggested that we’d sit and discuss about what I’d been upto lately.

Or was it when the security guard asked me to park my bike in a certain way. That was totally dumb because he told me to park it 180 degrees to the way in which I was parking it, so it takes the same place…why the difference in orientation? Does the motorcycle God live in that direction and all bikes must be parked facing that direction?

But that’s not something that’d make me lose it the way I’m fuming now. Maybe it was in the evening when I nearly got run over by a bus, then by a car for no fault of my own. None of the aforementioned people gave any indication of turning but just did so at high speed. Thank God my bike has a disc brake or I would’ve been down with some broken discs. I wanted to pull these people out of their vehicles and wring their necks.

Or maybe it was that stinker friend of mine who made fun of me when I told her that my BP was surging, she said that it was perfectly normal to happen in old men; I stopped myself from wringing her neck.

Maybe it’s because that lazy-ass (my best friend) hasn’t still gotten the paper work done of the scooter he purchased from me one and a half years ago; I’ve been reminding him lately, in vain. Today, like everyday, the reminder popped and like everyday I sent him a message and like everyday, he was perfectly deaf to my reminders and blind to my growing restlessness.

Maybe it was mom, every night she brings me a big mug of milk that she’s clasping with both hands and doesn’t let me touch it saying “It is way too hot, you’ll burn your hands.” I snapped back at her today, “Your hands aren’t burning right? So just let go of the cup ok!”

No I think it was the radioactivity for this was just a day like any other.

There goes our hero

August 29 2009
After arguing with myself for over 30 minutes that it was/wasn't time to wake up and oscillating between the sight of my cupboard and the man eating lion, I tried to force myself back to reality of the cupboard by trying to move some part of my limp body. I slept on my tummy (like always) such that my head was facing one of the sides of my dorso-ventral plane (as always). My mouth was open, lips dry but the lower side of my mouth was dripping saliva that was making its way out onto the pillow. My arm weighed heavier than any weight I'd ever lifted, half numb due to lack of circulation. I tried to revive it in a slumbering, slow-motion panic attack. I sat dazed and relieved that I wouldn't have to fight the lion afterall. I waded through the morning air and located the newspaper in the haze of reality that looked more beautiful, pleasing and non-ominous than what I had been seeing a few minutes ago in fantasy world. I picked the paper and was shaken by the condition of my sight; I was seeing things in decaplets. Or was I? No, these were real estate ads, ten of them, by different dealers about the same apartment building and consequently (and strangely) they all carried exactly the same picture but with different dealer addresses. I flipped the pages hoping to see something other than political unrest, murders, rapes, defalcations, cricket etc etc...all in vain, even Michael Jackson managed a very small place despite it being his birthday today. Except that section on Dhyan Chand, the legendary hockey player from our country. I remember reading about him in high school. I reckon all (probably) language text books, at some level in high school, do have a chapter on Dhyan Chand. I guess that's the only way to keep the memory of a legend alive and not mentioning the cruel apathy he faced in his last days. Everyone knows what a wizard DC was at his game, if you don't then spare a minute to read about him but we were never ever taught in high school that he died of liver cancer lying neglected in a general ward!

face it

Yesterday night I was reading the Royal Enfield Manual by Pete Snidal and I quote:

"Let's face it- India is basically a third-world country, and their high-tech (If that it may be called) exports, such as the Enfield Bullet, are an entirely different kettle of fish than most other motorcycles."
It was embarrasing to read this line, it had nothing to do with the Royal Enfield: a British vintage, and everything to do with me being an Indian. It embarrassed me; it didn't enrage me, for the statement cannot be generally rubbished.