(R)ambling along..

Resurrection?

2009-03-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

I will make a conscious effort to start blogging again if anyone comments on this post. ANYONE.

(PS: Alex selling Viagra and Candy selling yourself - you don't count. Sorry)

When I grow up, I want to be a little boy

2006-09-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I would imagine that I had a gun with which I could shoot people I didn’t want alive. I’d take careful aim (one eye closed et al), point my forefinger at the culpable party, cock my thumb and pull the imaginary trigger. There were never any sound effects associated with any of the preceding or following actions so I reckon I had a silencer screwed on somehow. The victim would lie in a pool of imaginary blood and I would gloat in imaginary satisfaction for the rest of the day.

The following day, the victim would be resurrected, but my life would go on, unfettered. Their crime seemed immaterial now since I had purged their soul from pestilence through my little ritual.

With time, I seem to have lost my little imaginary gun. Or perhaps, I’ve lost my imagination. There are those that I want to shoot today. There are those I want to resurrect.

But most of all, I want that gun to shoot myself. To purge my soul. To be oblivious again. To be seven again…

Not so "fast car"..

2006-02-25T00:58:00.000-08:00

The Bangalore Corporation has faced severe disparagement in the last few months over the abysmal infrastructure and the lack of holistic planning. A myriad writers have sprayed their views on the number of potholes, narrow roads, road-works etc. on personal as well as public domains.

The one thing that is usually absent from this colourful graffiti is the role that the drivers and pedestrians, people like you and me play in making hell, hell.

With my limited driving experience in Indian and South-East Asian cities, I can safely say that Bangaloreans or Bengalurians have the least amount of common road sense – in the world.

Bangalore boasts of the highest dispensable consumer income per capita owing largely to the thriving IT and BPO sectors. This compounded with aggressive personal finance options has resulted in 800 new vehicles being registered each day in the city.

The following are some observations which clearly distinguish a Bangalorean from others. They can also be used as survival tips in case you are planning on commencing your driving odyssey:-
· Honking: If you don’t honk, you are not part of the cool-club. The moment the signal changes from red to green, it is mandatory to honk since the person in front of you might be colourblind and or mentally challenged. If the vehicle in front of you has broken down, honk continuously to show your disapproval. The generated noise might just spur the crippled machinery back into life.

· Shifting Lanes: Shifting lanes impulsively is perfectly acceptable and highly recommended to save precious time. Turning on the indicator is merely ceremonious since a large majority of vehicles don’t have working tail lights. If you are in a two-wheeler or an auto-rickshaw, stick out your paw at the absolute last second and make your turn in one swift, graceful maneuver.

· Road Rage: If someone has committed a traffic violation, it is mandatory to express your indignation. Stop your vehicle exactly where the violation has occurred, step out of your vehicle and approach the culpable party with clenched fists and red-eyes. (If possible, carry a bottle of glycerin at all times in your coat pocket – brings out the veins in your eyes beautifully). Once face to face with your adversary, do not give him a chance to confess or negotiate. Point your hand squarely at his nose, contort your face and hurl a barrage of profanities, preferably in Kannada (always the populist choice). After culminating the swearing match, spit groundwards as a symbol of sheer disgust and triumph. If the whole episode has to happen on the move, the raised hand and spitting maneuvers can be completed with some practice while one hand is on the wheel and the upper torso and other hand are inside the offender’s vehicle. Observing auto drivers is a good way of perfecting this graceful art.

· Traffic Signals: Most major junctions now have an LED display counting down to the green signal. Please take this as a challenge and not as a helpful indicator. When the countdown has reached 4, rev your engine, throw the vehicle into gear and speed off. It will be the intention of the traffic on the adjacent road to throw you off track but accelerate unfettered. The thrill factor is enough to pump much needed adrenalin back into the body after a long day’s work.

· Size does matter: The only traffic rule that one must remember is “survival”. Given the choice, buy a second hand vehicle, the largest vehicle and or a tank.

· Pedestrians and Cyclists: It is my honest opinion that all pedestrians and cyclists of Bangalore should be given awards for bravery. They just don’t seem to be afraid of anyone or anything. Pavements or footpaths are a rare luxury but they choose to use the middle of the road even where they exist. Swami Ramdevji seems to have inspired this new technique of walking with hands wildly flaying about as a life-saving exercise. Maybe he should recommend this strictly to be followed whilst at home or in parks else it might turn to be a life-threatening exercise.

· Side Mirrors: The mirrors on either side of the car are strictly for cosmetic design; hence keep them folded/closed at all points of time. If you don’t, there is a good chance that an overfriendly driver will venture close enough to extend congenialities taking with him your Rs. 6400 mirror. Since bumper to bumper parking literally means touching bumpers and changing lanes does not involve looking around, why use the mirrors for their intended purpose?

· One Ways: Don’t be fooled by semantics. A “one way” only means one thing – the way you want to go. This holds good especially after 10pm when all traffic rules cease to exist. So if you think you can safely test drive your spanking new Elantra on a deserted “one-way”, watch out for oncoming traffic – no two ways about it!

I have written this entire post whilst in a traffic jam on Hosur Road. Up ahead a vehicle had broken down, everyone is honking frantically, kannada profanity has drowned Dylan’s crooning from my stereo, the traffic cops have taken a timely coffee break…

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
You leave tonight or live and die this way

An Elegy for the Living

2006-01-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

Life’s terrain concedes one obtrusive difference –
A cemetery chasing shadows of an erstwhile pasture.
I had begun to dig a grave to bury the King.
Today, it lies amidst the vestiges of a hundred carcasses,
Empty.
He walks the earth with an unsullied spirit,
They walk the road to perdition – oblivious.

Murdered sans consequence,
Sans remorse, without a whimper.
Victims of their own apathy,
Victims of my wrath.
Renegades die many times before their death;
A partisan never tastes of death but once.

The end of another year;
The ends of another yearn.
I canonize their life through my lament;
I make them martyrs through my elegy.

Today, I pray that my Elysium shall not be theirs’.

Fare well.

al otro lado

2005-10-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

The tumultous river flows unabated;
My rudderless boat seeks a guide
Rowing on, through sands of time
I see a light on the other side.

I am lost, I have lost all but hope
A myriad tears water the tide,
An empty glass on the mantlepiece?
I see a light on the other side.

Through the deafening keening
I hear a voice - "sigh, confide"!
My hope rekindles, I row on
I see a light on the other side.

Sombre lines harden the face;
The calling - we must abide,
I smile a smile for now I know
It is my light on the other side.

Seen One...

2005-07-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

* fancy polyphonic ringtone *

Him: “Hallo”
Her: “Hi”
Him (instant recognition, voice stiffens): “Hey, how’ve you been?”
Her (distant, icy tone): “Good, and you?”
Him: “Good too! It’s been a while hasn’t it?”
Her: “You know what your problem is?”
Him: “Umm… I don’t think I want…”
Her: “You’re so brilliant that you find yourself inadequate. You then transpose these inadequacies onto the people around you and then find them inadequate. You will never be happy until you accept people for what they are and not what you think they are capable of being”
Him: “You think of that yourself?”

* click *

She, to herself: “Bastard! Hope he rots in hell!”
He, to himself: “She thinks I’m brilliant…”

* fade out *

Mayday Mayday!!

2005-07-10T01:17:00.000-07:00

Current Location: 37,000 feet above sea level, somewhere over the Bay of Bengal in an Indian Airlines Airbus A320 en route to Singapore

This is my 18^th flight to Singapore since June 1998; the 19^th time that my folks dropped me to the airport (twice on one occasion thanks to a bird hit on a stationary, grounded aircraft); the 19^th time that Ma wept. According to Yann Martel, humans can get used to anything. He should meet Ma.

I’ve hated flying for as long as I can remember. I hate taking off. I hate landing. I hate everything in between. I hate the meals. I hate the smells in the cabin. I hate aerosol. I hate the voice of the captain. I hate the fact that I have never had anyone remotely interesting or good-looking sitting next to me. I hate the fact that everytime I’ve asked to be seated next to someone interesting or good-looking, I’ve been promptly given the seat next to the lavatory. I hate the wailing of the less-than-attractive baby sitting behind me. I hate turbulence. I hate the changing drones of the engines. I hate “We are experiencing high tail wind” announcements. In a nutshell, I am a hateful person with airplanes, airports and everything related to them riding high on the loathe-list. Stewardesses are occasionally excused depending on age, airline and seam length.

Hate stems from a myriad different sources. The source of this particular abhorrence is simply, fear. The first air-pocket sows the seeds of doubt. By the time the aircraft reaches peak altitude my thoughts have raced from first memories of childhood, God, family, bright lights and ends of tunnels, relationships, wishes, disaster movies involving plane crashes, uninhabited islands, heroic fantasies with me as the protagonist saving damsels in distress, reincarnation, remorse….

I can’t remember the last time I hadn't made an attempt to approximate the total number of flights through the sands of history and the number of crashes to calculate the probability of this flight crashing. Thinking of what if it really did? How people – family, friends, acquaintances, strangers would react. It’s a perverse chain of thoughts, but one I find myself indulging in subconsciously. A call for pity? Deriving oodles of joy in their pathos, a sick, masochistic orgasm.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have started our descent in preparation for landing, please make sure your seatbelts are fastened and tray tables are in their full upright position. Please turn off all electronic devices until the aircraft comes to a complete stop… “.

I hate her damn voice...

Ode to a tissue..

2005-06-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

Everybody’s been cribbing in their blogs… I thought it was about time I did too… I call this “Ode to a tissue, Boo fuckin hoo” or "Carps from a shrew, boo fucking hoo"..

Roses are red, violets are blue,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Everything’s fetid, there’s nothing new,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Friends give, mine gave me the flu,
Boo fuckin hoo.
No chicken soup for the soul, nor no stew,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Insipid food, insipid thoughts to rue,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Building forts of tissues covered in goo,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Another wall to build, atichooo!
Boo fuckin hoo.
Whither mirth? Black in somber hue,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Jal crooning, “Gum ho gaye kyon”,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Coveting a new life, a different view,
Boo fuckin hoo.
A new name? Richard Wu?
Boo fuckin hoo.
One two buckle my shoe,
Boo fuckin hoo.
Adieu adieu, time for another brew…
Boo fuckin hoo..
Boo fuckin hoo..

Concentric circles of life...

2005-05-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

The attempt to mathematically represent life and its intricacies has fascinated people forever. I tried to model some elements from my life but my two D’s in Engineering Mathematics heralded the premature culmination of that pursuit.

I have, however, modeled some arbitrary reflection, conceived in a semi-conscious state (34 bottles of beer on the wall.. na na na na..) into a geometrical pattern.

Picture this… a surreal (!) concentric circle with you at the center of it. Each concentric circle around you (for those who failed Geometry 101) is at an increasing radius from you. The radius obviously determines the distance you put yourself from each of these circles. There are “n” such circles around you. Each circle has people, events and aspirations from your life on it.

How you place these elements on each circle is not a given. It’s a matter of choice. Most of these choices you have made at some crossroads in your life, while some are outside your direct control, and thus, are constants.

Your current predicament in life, your “happiness”, stress level, relationships and contentedness depends entirely on your arrangement of the elements on the existent circles. The circle with the smallest radius matters most to you. The people on it are the most important, the events and aspirations on it the most critical at that juncture in life.

The idea is that, to achieve true happiness and maybe even self-actualization, you have to obtain the perfect arrangement. The journey of life, thus, is a journey to making the right choices, finding the right people and the right priorities and arranging them correctly. From a suspended view, this little map is constantly changing. The tumultuous times in life are those in which you make a drastic change, for better or worse.

The number of people you let into your innermost circle is critical. If you have one person too many or too few, it can cause an imbalance. Further, if you let people sitting at the circumference of a distant circle affect you, you know there is something amiss.

It's ironical that we don’t see the magintude of the sphere our little life covers. Its much like our linear view, limited as far as the radii, but the true area it covers is a product of an exponential value of this distance and a constant, perhaps determined by our intrinsic nature.

Hmm... alpha beta x y z... 35 bottles of beer on the wall.. 35 bottles... na na na na.....

Merlions with booties...

2005-05-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

A news snippet from a couple of days ago read: “Singapore's prime minister launched the country's latest behaviour modification campaign on Friday, urging teachers to use hip-hop and rap music to teach proper English and warning that continued use of the mutated local form of the language could make Singaporeans unintelligible”.

Lets see now, watching BBC or Discovery Channel and paying attention to the diction could have been one solution. Stricter rules in schools, reprimanding students using Singlish could have been another. Rap and hip-hop?????

Sample hip-hop song (Candy Shop by 50 Cent):-

I take you to the candy shop
I'll let you lick the lollypop
Go 'head girl, don't you stop
Keep goin 'til you hit the spot (whoa)

Next generation mutated version (Aunty Shop by Feeti Sen):-

I take you to aunty shop meh,
Can lick lollipop orredi leh,
You go first, sorrrry ah, cannot stop,
Hit the spot, can or not?(wah lau)

More coherent? * shudder *

Vermillion Vision...

2005-04-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

Misanthropist's heaven...

2005-03-30T21:12:00.000-08:00

You know you spend too much time alone when..

you know the names of all of Oprah’s regular guests…
you make your own pasta sauce on a weekday afternoon…
your imaginary friends have their own imaginary friends…
every time the phone rings you pump your fist and scream “YES!”…
you make up games with the things lying around the house…
you lose money to yourself while betting at those games…
you write scripts that send you emails everytime the news websites are updated..
you have an internet friend in every major city in the world…
your ranked #2 in TriviaCafe with 12,000 points…
you develop a winged scapula and carpal tunnel syndrome from overusing the laptop…
you countdown to 6pm coz its time to go to the gym…
you know the lyrics of every Nelly song on your playlist…
you ask yourself questions, answer them and exclaim “I told you so” aloud..
you actually start to wonder if marriage is the answer...

*The title's been borrowed from the first page of Wuthering Heights...

Of Guitars and Ipods...

2005-03-23T16:06:00.000-08:00

My first memories as a music aficionado go back to mid-eighties with Ma listening to the “imported” Sony FM-AM transistor while carrying out her afternoon chores. Rafi, Lata, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, S D Burman, R D Burman.. the entire pantheon of the hindi music industry seemed to descend into our humble abode to serenade me to my euphonic siesta.

Over the next few years, my taste in music didn’t change a great deal, limited entirely to Aakashvani and the much-anticipated Chitrahaar on Wednesday evenings. I remember getting my first cassettes, Glorious Amithabh Bachan in 4 volumes! 3 months and 20,000 playbacks later, each volume had a high pitch pre-amplifier screech accompanying the sonorous tones of “Neela aasman so gaya”.

My first real rendezvous with cultural globalization, Rohit singing “I just called to say I love you” at the Spelling Bee in grade 4. I had found my favourite kind of music… “English music!!!”. I couldn’t wait to fill out the end of year scrapbooks “favourite music” category with my new heroes… Michael Jackson, Wham, Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, Boy George, Foreigner, Richard Marx, Elton John and every other queer in the world.

Puberty brought with it a whole new genre of music, Sex. “Lets talk about sex”, “Im gonna sex you up”, “Tease Me”, “A la-la-la long”, “Who the fuck is Alice”, “Can I touch you there” and all other songs with sexual connotations were memorized and ceremoniously heard during every shower and school outing. Screaming out the word “fuck” each time in chorus with Smokie seemed like a moral victory much to the disdain of the tyrannical teachers.

The next phase was almost a manifestation of the divergence in tastes between us guys and them girls. We headbanged and played air-guitar to Guns ‘N Roses, Metallica, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, Megadeth, Iron Maiden and the likes. They crossed their legs and crooned to Celine Dion, Sting, MLTR, Whitney or closed their eyes and sighed to Boyzone, N’ Sync and Backstreet Boys with a “He understands women. I can feel it. Why cant these idiots be like him” countenance upon their faces. Every girl dreaded the last few songs at socials where their knights would abandon them as soon as the first few notes of “Sweet Child O Mine” or “Roadhouse Blues” boomed over the sound system. What followed was a display of an unbridled flow of adrenalin, perspiration and the following day, of Iodex.

I think most music-lovers find their enduring soul-mates in their first few years of college, outside the norms of conformism. It was then that I discovered the likes of Floyd, Tull, Led Zep, Dylan, Clapton, Knopfler, Tracy Chapman, CCR, Cale. Ironically, during this phase I also rediscovered the melodies of old hindi movies. It might have been the fact that I was away from home or simply the completion of the circle of consonance.

They say you can tell a lot about a person from what he wears or what he eats. I think you can tell a lot more from his ipod playlist. The now playing song probably reflects his disposition, the genre his current predicament. A few years ago, my guitar was my most valuable possession. Today, its my little albino friend. Before this sounds like a glorified ad for Jobbs, I will bid adieu.. or as my now playing song goes… “Ai dil chal peekar jhoome, In galiyon mein ghoome…..”.

Conformists...

2005-03-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

"I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete -- that's what scares me. That's why I quit the Theatre Department. Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash."
- J D Salinger, ‘Franny and Zooey’.

These words strike a despondent note somewhere.

The buzzword going around most circles off late has been “MBA”. These three letters supposedly guarantee the manifestation of the rosy dream of a top management position, entry into high society and a minimum of 400 responses to your matrimonial ad.

In my ninth grade, someone asked me what I wanted to do in the near future. Without hesitation I replied, “An Engineering degree followed by an MBA”. At that juncture I didn’t really know or care about what either pursuit entailed. What I did know was that it would make people around me look up with a certain sense of pride and or envy. That’s all that mattered anyway.

Ravi Bhaiya did his engineering from BMS college and an MBA from IIM Bangalore. Everyone in the family spoke incessantly of his accomplishments. His resume was recited at every family dinner. His myriad marriage proposals were the talk of every Bua and Chachi during the commercial breaks of “Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi”. As every lentil eating Baniya is expected to do, Ravi gave up his $ 144,000 a year job at Citibank’s Melbourne office to return to Panipat to join the family business of manufacturing and exporting towels… bath towels, hand towels, beach towels..

I’m not really sure what purpose the above anecdote served but it just seemed appropriate.

An MBA, for me, is a necessity today not because of the promises of a push button life but because it has become a social construct. A child is first admitted into premier primary and secondary schools. The first major choice arises whilst choosing between Science, Commerce and Arts in Junior College. Arts has almost become a tabooed word, synonymous with hippies and homosexuals. “Acha, commerce liya hai Pappu ne, ache marks nahin aaye honge”, the typical response to choosing Commerce, leaving Science as the obvious choice if the child is intelligent, ambitious and civilized.

The next major decision is to choose between Medicine and Engineering. All other options are negated altogether until the entrance exam results AND if the dalal quotes a figure which can’t be covered even after pawning the last lungi in the house for a “management seat”. This choice is usually left to the teenager who would opt for either based on a role model (read Ravi Bhaiya) or a penchant for blood/diodes/cars/nurses/quantum physics/procreation…

Those, who traverse the path leading to the Hippocratic oath are ignored hereafter.

The step following the magna cum laude engineering degree is more than obvious. Either study for the CAT for an admission into the IIMs or gather enough work experience, do the GMAT, and then apply to the top B-schools in the world. There also exists a profound hybrid system wherein one could do the GMAT, renounce their nationality and then apply to the IIMs as a firang.

Why do people do an MBA? Six figure US dollar salaries? Networking? B-School brand equity? Exposure?

I think Mr. Salinger would beg to differ. He, I hope, would think they do it because they are conditioned to accept everyone else’s values. Social conditioning gives birth to the worst kinds of conformists.

This is not about the MBA program at all, its about following your heart.. chasing your own dreams… building your own castles...

If everybody were a somebody, then there would be no one left to be a nobody. The world relies on nobodies. I have spent most of my life living up to other people’s expectations.. their values… their norms… forming an identity they envisaged for me. Like Franny, I think I have now mustered enough courage to be an absolute nobody…

Afterthought: The world needs more physicists than risk analysts…… Sikkim needs teachers more than the US needs research analysts..

Home..

2005-01-27T01:18:00.000-08:00

Tujhse Zindagi Hai Yeh Kah Rahi
Sab To Pa Liya, Ab Hai Kya Kami
Yun To Sare Sukh Hai Barse,
Par Door Tu Hai Apne Ghar Se
Aa Laut Chal Tu Ab Deewane,
Jahan Koi To Tujhe Apna Mane
Aawaz De Tujhe Bulane, Wohi Des
Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera, Swades Hai Tera…..

Lunch today kicked off with an entrée of Tom Yam Soup with Bee Hoon, main course was Chicken Hor Fan and dessert comprised Lotus seeds with Ice Kachang (Please note that the meal was ordered without the help of a menu and mostly communicated via an abstruse Hokkien-Malay hodgepodge dialect).

The objective of this ejaculation, in all honesty, is not to criticize Singapore. Nor is it a DDLJ Amrish Puri (may his soul rest in peace) jingoist call on all NRIs to transmogrify into God and create Light. According to Nicholas Cage in Adaptation, the singular factor that distinguishes homo-sapiens from other species lies in their ability to adapt to change. I will further extrapolate his theory by adding the variable of “being happy” while adapting to change.

I am a homo-sapien (oh shuddup!).
I have been out of my natural habitat for 7 years, hence have had to adapt.
I have adapted quite well (refer lunch details).
I am not happy.

Does this rather ludicrous hypothesis demote me in the evolution hierarchy?

Speaking of hierarchy, a certain Mr. Maslow propounded a certain “hierarchy of needs”. On route to the zenith of self-actualization lies the need for affiliation. I believe that to conquer this rung, one has to be in his natural habitat, be with his own.

Does this mean that people cant be self-actualized if they live in an alien land?

There are two kinds of people in this world. Some, are happy, enthralled even, to be where they are now. Not ever wanting to look back. They are “beyond” all of that now… the population.. the dirt.. the pollution.. the inefficiency.. the gauche society.. or maybe they’re just happy to be away.

Others, much like myself, await the day when the immigration officer in Bangalore (trained by the Infosys HR), asks, “Yaake bandidde ninu?” and instead of the routine “Holiday saar!” I say, “Holiday finees saar.. I’m home now..”

I don’t want to stand out in a crowd…
I want to be the crowd.

The beginning...

2004-09-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just have to stop pretending.

It took me 5 minutes to think of an "appropriate" name for this blogsite and 4 minutes to think of a title for this post. Not because I wanted it to be perfect.. not because it matters to anyone.. but simply because it should sound intellectual enough to instil a false sense of awe in anyone who might accidently trudge upon this filth.

Sometimes you just have to stop pretending.

Why is it difficult to admit to anyone.. more so .. to yourself.. that you're ordinary? You spend a whole chunk of your life with the people around you doting on your every move. Then one day, they stop. Not because they have no time but because they have no reason. You have metamorphosised into another insignificant speck trying to convince them of your wisdom.. your ability.. your past.

Sometimes you just have to stop pretending.

Most people pretend to be happy. I pretend to be sad.