the easy option... not that easy

Saw Rang de Basanti last weekend, and came out a little disturbed. Didn't anyone else find anything wrong with the idea of a bunch of guys so scared of the real world they had cocooned themselves in a fantasy, a North Campus Neverland?

Idealism versus realism. Do you choose to follow what you believe is Right, even though you know it could end up destroying you...

or,

and this is scary

do you take the second option - of getting out of your fantasy world, getting into Life the way it is and fighting your way through.

Guess which is tougher.

Somewhere the stories have twisted inside out. Death and self sacrifice actually comes across as the simpler option, though this is probably nothing remotely near what Rakesh Mehra originally thought.

Look around us.

If we knew this is what we were going to be getting into, would we have gone ahead?

cute stuffed toys of nightmares

along the side of the road, this guy was selling stuffed toy dogs... usual, head-on-spring, beads-for-eyes... and suddenly I was confronted with a row of dozens of hideously grinning canine heads bobbing around, staring at me with blank white glittery eyes.
It was like meeting a clown at 3 a.m. in a deserted street in the middle of the business district.

what'll happen to any child who is given one of these monstrosities? he'll be screaming at the sight of a pup for years.

talking to myself, future tense

One unashamedly gross site is deathclock. I love it. the bit with the seconds counting down has me laughing for long periods at a stretch every time I see it (which might explain my last performance appraisal) but today I was going the final mile. These guys tell you when you're going to be dead; I was telling myself that I was dead.
I'm supposed to leave the world a better place on Jan 7th, 2020... And that's when I'm also going to receive a mail from myself today, telling me I'm dead. Wonder how I'll react.
It's not good being dead, but being told that in a spirit of extreme mirth by a healthy 26-year-old who's completely out of reach must be extremely irritating.

I shall share my timepass. I'm going to mail everyone I know to receive mails the day they die.

God Bless Google. With Gmail, they triggered an inbox war... and made an email address the true permanent address.

don't say a word

There was a guy standing in front of me in the train some days back, usual close quarters, looked completely normal, standing quietly, and with this STENCH of cheap country liquor around him. like he'd bathed in it or something.
This is not one of those things you talk about... your social conditioning makes you look up and to the left, breathe shallowly, and say nothing.
and then it's too late because the crowd's in and you're going to be face to face for the next 45 minutes and now you can't step back, or move away, or turn, or even throw up on the bastard.

So you stand in resolute denial while something builds, and builds, and builds with every breath until you know that when the next intake stings your sinuses, you're going to just push him out without a word.

Is this how domestic murders happen?

the pause before the ring

complete radio silence clientside.
cliched, but calm before the storm is exactly how it is.

In the really good, peaceful, intimate, or just plain relaxed moments, I can feel my phone watching me, and it's sniggering.

i am joe's heart attack.

Will I ring in the next ten seconds? or will I stay silent and let you relax and enjoy life... for now?

night of the evil dead had nothing on ringtone of the calling boss.

they are among us

went running at 5 a.m on Juhu.
completely dark sky, but there's a line of triple halogen poles all down the beach, like a kind of pedestrian marine drive. and it was packed.
all really old people, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in brilliant orange light coming from landwards so it looked like a world of half-people, walkng terminator lines between orange and black ambling around... some slowly, wrapped up for the arctic (with monkey caps) and some briskly in shorts... all old.

kinda creepy. alien.

and sleepy dobermanns, labradors, spitzii, a pissed-looking great dane and lots and lots of small unidentifiable mobile furballs, all completely silent.

happy new year

slept peacefully through new years', and feel all the better for it.

*blink*

saw a human forearm lying outside the station this morning, near the tracks. it's one of those twitches in normality... everything else is as usual, sun shining, crowded compartment, announcements, trains... and this.
just.
there.
is this how surreality begins? or is there all the time and we just tune it out because it doesn't *fit*?

dumb women

talking of pretty women, why is there such a low correlation between looks and intel? why can you hardly ever have a conversation with a good-looking girl?

There was one adsales chick last week who was actually as painful to listen to as she was easy to look at. Or had she got so used in the last ten years to let her butt do all their talking, that nothing comes out of her head now?

future bleak.

Why bad things happen to good people

You know what I want to do? Some nice quiet low-income, low-time job in some place where you can drive to work in less than 20 minutes but your house can be actually big enough to live in.
And then I'll trek, write a bestseller every two or three years, have lots of dogs, and tell stories to my kids.
No car, just the bike.

The PSU guys had it right all along.


My director made a very profound statement last week. He said, "If I think someone is good, that I'll try and improve him. If there's no hope for someone, I'll just say, ye to chutiya hai, and find another answer."
The price of being good at what you do... expectations of being better. work, love life, everywhere.

too intense. need to lighten up.

Just Blah

Man this is a long rant. When I started it was supposed to be a one-pager, but it's a duracell. keeps going on and on and on and okay let's just nuke the freakin bunny

But I guess this is stuff I wanted to talk about and never got around to.
Urban angst.
Anomic social circles.
Can you actually never have conversations like this once you're out of college? Or is the real reason you never have conversations like this is because you bore the pants off people?

On second thoughts, don't answer that.

Reality Bribes

Saw Apharan yesterday.
Story of a boy who pays a 5 lakh bribe to get a job after much soul searching and promptly winds up being the scapegoat in a political storm, which turns him to a life of crime and father-figure conflicts...
But the real question I felt was - when does life ever give you such a clear choice? It's very easy to define that line when it's an amount like that, but what about every time you slip a pandu a fifty to keep driving after jumping a dysfunctional signal or parking in an unmarked but apparently no-parking zone? The world is amoral and will never put you in a situation where you can make a moral choice; it always puts the question in such a way that the right way is always the most difficult, slow and painful way, and the reward is never ever worth it.

Like this incident that happened to one of my friends - someone hacked his online account, transferred out 21K. tTe bank put it back when he complained, but it was wrong, correct? So when Star called him and asked to interview him, he would have been completely justified in telling what happened, right?

And here's the rub.

The bank in question is also his media client, which means a completely separate unconnected division of that same bank is also paying him his income. Should he risk going public and maybe losing the client?
Remember, his business is new. this bank is the ONLY client paying right now. or should he shut up?

I guess it's an easy thing from an outside view. Life - unfortunately - is never from the outside. it's always all there, all round, and you're in it.

Back to Nature

The road in front of my gate is dug up, which means all travel is now on foot and public transport.

Who says living in mumbai takes you away from nature? I do less clambering over rocks and dirt and through mud while menaced by assorted insects and the Indian Wild Dog while trekking.

San Andreas

One major success.
After two months of chasing, I finally got a working copy of GTA. I was convinced that I'd been screwed by now, but surprise, surprise! and because the poor guy was giving me other games in between to try out and I was returning them all saying I don't like 'em, of course after copying them for myself, I've ended up with 3 games for the price of one.

Right bastard, ain't I?

But it's actually pretty scary. This is a game - like all others - which actually makes someone standing behind you go ewww within ten seconds of your playing it, but this prides itself on it's realism - which means the border between fantasy and reality gets all the more blurred.
I got up and drove down to the local waterhole 10 mins away, and I found myself estimating traffic not by 'can I get through here' but more like 'can I bounce off the Honda, hop up on the pavement, cut past the traffic and earn a $20 bonus on every person I run down' and I tell you, it's scary finding thought like that in your head even if you know where they came from.
The unknown source ones are even worse.
hehehe

My roommate is an antithesis. The only games he plays is solitaire and pool and he plays those with such singleminded concentration you feel like putting ice cubes down his neck.

Cleaning up

Somehow, every sunday I end up throwing out several kilos of newspaper, cans, bottles, packets, and rotting food and leftovers, and by tuesday it's all back. I don't know where it comes from.
I tried not touching it for 2 weeks to see what would happen and my room turned into a nest. there were no corners anymore, just a dusty paper bowl from where a tv and a desk were poking out. too scary to try again. but damn comfortable while it lasted.

It's a lovely feeling knowing that
1. you don't have to bother about a dustbin or cleanliness of anything... if you don't want something, just drop it. paper, junk, ash, cans, butts, bottles, anything.
2. you never waste any time searching for anything. no point. if you by any stupidity put something not in it's place, you know it's gone.

It's like a lifestyle of the uber-rich. do they bother with where they drop stuff or pick up anything either?
It's like being an oil sheikh, or Paris Hilton.

Internet@home... ISPS, Spawn of Satan

My net at home experience is moving from the bad to something that's practically surreal.
First, they cut it off for no reason. Ok, so there was five feet of water in VD Road, big deal. Still no excuse.

Then, they lose the guy who set it up.

Then, nobody has a clue why it's not working. My claims of it's dysfuncionality are apparently being treated with the extremely understanding and careful tone of voice reserved for people carrying dangerous objects in a confined place and foaming at the mouth.

Finally a 'Sir' comes online. Reaction; flat-out refusal to believe, but he will humour me anyway and send someone to see if it's really not working.
Yeah, I call helplines to make up for my complete lack of a social life, don't I, just to have someone to chat with?

When's he coming, then? Sometime between 10 and 4.
O-kaaay. I hate to break this to you, darling, but he can't do that, there's nobody home. I gotta work, you know.

Now 'Sir' is getting pissed. There's a distinctly peeved note in his voice that I should express such inconsideration for hard-working members of System Infotech by not having a family, or at least a full-time live-in servant.
We barter for time until we agree on a weekend. Nobody turns up.

I'm pissed now. I mean, there's better things to do on a Saturday off than watch TV in an overheated room smelling of pigeon crap, when there's 3 multiplexes respectively 5,10, and 15 mins walking distance away.

Now, this is going to get boring, so please read the following paragraph 3 times.
I call him again next weekend. He turns up. He sits at my PC, tries to connect, fails, and tells me mournfully that my net is not working. I tell him I know, and can he do something about it. He turns back to the keyboard with the air of an elderly labourer turning to a 45-kg sack. A dialer is attempted to be installed and does not. He stares at the screen and tries again. And again. Scratches his head. Tries again. I know the error code by heart now. Packs up his CD and tells me I have a hardware problem. I do not punch him in the nose. Instead, I think of clouds, mountain streams, Economics, and with a deep breath, and ask him what the problem is.

He doesn't know.

I tell him to find out so I can get it fixed.

He says he's not allowed to touch the PC.

Economics won't work. I run through a semester of Human Resource Management to keep myself out of jail and this guy in the land of the living.

...

It's been a month now. The above scenario has been repeated three times. I now try a different tactic.
11:45 pm. Saturday Night. 5 beers down. Find a quiet spot. Call 'Sir'. Vent all frustration. realize it's 12:30 and my throat is raw. 'Sir' appears to be in tears. Turn to go back into the restaurant and the doorman snaps to attention like a Presidential Guard. Walk in and there's silence, and eighteen pairs of eyes look at me. I come back to my table. _______ leans forward, asks me if I'm ok, says, "You need a drink, yaar" and passes me the beer. He also seems to be frantically signalling for the check, behind his back.

A different guy comes next weekend, this time with an assistant to carry his bag.

And repeats the performance.

I threaten them with consumer court.

Yet another guy comes. And repeats the performance.

Now I'm researching petrol bombs. That's still achievable, a quick drive-by, light, lob, and the fires of revenge will stretch up into the night sky with the most blissful sensation in my heart. If even one more engineer comes and does what they do, I shall have to start getting into biological warfare against the entire genealogical tree of the principal characters, and I can't do that level of research without the net.


Which reminds me, I need to get the net fixed.

Beginnings

well, here's one.
give me some time here, people! it's 11:15 and my eyes are beginning to sting.
no mood to write.