Technically bored

2012-01-30T22:46:00.001-08:00

Wandering around Paris alone has its ups and downs. The upside is being unfettered by the collective opinion of person(s) other than yourself on what to see and what to do - walk around, stop and stare at a small church tucked away in a corner or sitting down in a cafe staring at stunningly beautiful Parisian women. The downside is that eventually when your feet tire, your neck is sore from looking up at the stained glass and all the women have left you are left with nothing but your own thoughts. I have a slight problem with thoughts. Invariably, I always have some thoughts that keep running in loops - infinite loops. And, we all know that Linux is awesome - it can do infinite loops in five minutes. Sadly enough, my brain does not run on Linux - not yet.

One of those thoughts is this insane human desire to posses something - tangible objects or experiences. The harder it is to get them, the more is the drive to have them. Exactly what Twain was getting at when Tom Sawyer starts whitewashing the fence. What just makes this whole thing worse is when someone you know well has object X or experience Y chooses to constantly rub the lack of X or Y in your face. In ways that are sometime obvious and in ways that are sometime disguised. Their sense of disguised being standing in front of an A380 with a broken wing and holding their arm out hoping it will draw away attention. Bah!

In my particular train of thought I realized that in most cases the "rubbing it in your face" is done on purpose. For lack of anything better to do. So much so that X and Y could be things that normally you would preen off to others, but people will try to wrap all that under psychological hogwash filtered and cast into positivity using third-hand misinterpreted Freudian theories. The kind people who say "Fre-yood".

I have this deep desire to stand such people in my life in a line and rail them. Or worse - use the gauntlet. Die, fuckers, die!

Pop goes the planning

2012-01-26T02:02:00.000-08:00

You sit and think about doing something. You write it down in painful detail - an explanation meant to demystify it for people who will work on it with you. Then, two days later, you see an article on your RSS feed that has the same (or a very similar idea) which is up and running. And, they got a few million in funding.

Feels just like spending the entire evening over dinner telling that girl how nice and awesome she is, pay for the dinner and all, the when the time comes...

"No no...it's ok. Don't worry, my boyfriend will come pick me up in a few minutes. I just messaged him."

That is when that massive 'L' neon glowing on top of your head falls on you.

Bah!

Bitter truths

2012-01-20T03:04:00.000-08:00

A small list of clarifications.

1. Just because I live in Europe - and that too, southern Europe, in Italy and in Pisa which a university town - does not mean that I have scores and scores of pretty Italian women friends whom I hit on, hang out with or date. Despite what you might have heard of exoticness of the Orient and blah, the chances of someone finding you interesting is just as bad or good as in the normal case. Also, remember you are the wrong color.

2. Learning Italian is not a breeze. And, to do aforementioned step 1, you need to know enough Italian to sustain conversation. Additionally, there is always a better Italian speaking Italian or European than you. Your chances are slim. Friends you see with European girlfriends are not the norms, they are the exception. They found a girl who speaks English. Think of them as the sample population on the right side of the bell-curve. Both your friend and that girl. In this case two probabilities - both lesser than 1, get multiplied. It is much much smaller now. You are in the middle of the curve, possibly even on the left. Accept it and move the fuck on. Don't tell me otherwise - about you or about me. I know I am on the left, thank you very much.

3. Living in Europe does not mean you party every weekend/month. It isn't cheap. A drink in a bar ranges starts from 3 euros. Can go up to obnoxiously high rates. It is quite hard to find a Garuda/Sharad/Denny's equivalent in Europe. If you do find one and go in, chances of you coming out intact are quite slim. On more counts than one.

4. Continuing on (3). Partying alone is not partying. If you think you can party alone, then you need to sit down and examine your life. I live in a university town. Mostly filled with students who can't speak English. On shoestring budgets. Wary of foreigners from the Orient. Europeans, as such, are not like Indians. In India you can go to a noisy pub and possibly find company. In Europe if you speak the local language you can. Maybe.

5. Just because I have a Schengen visa/stay permit does not mean I will travel to every damn place that I can in Europe. It costs money and quite a bit. No, I don't get paid a lot. Traveling alone is not as awesome as you think. Once, twice, maybe, thrice. After that it becomes a pain. Do not compare your annual alone trip to traveling alone in Europe. You come back to your city to a large circle of friends and do all other trips in groups. Traveling alone for you is a novelty. For me, it is a painful regular reality. If you really want to try it out and know enough of C/C++ programming, I can help you get this position I have and you can try. Tell me six months later how it feels.

6. If your friends who are doing an MBA or a Master's/PhD. in Europe are posting pictures of partying and so on, understand that in a International MBA program everyone speaks reasonably fluent English. And they probably live in Northern Europe or Scandinavia. Or at least in a big city. Pisa is small - terribly so. I can walk from one end to another in about a couple of hours.

7. Someone came and told you about how they made out or what not when they were in Europe. How awesome it was. 80% of those possibly paid by the hour for it. The remaining 20% got terribly lucky. It's called the Pareto principle, I think. Read it up. You have a high possibility of being in the 80%. I know I am in the 80% in theory and practically nowhere in the picture. Or they are all lying about it. Following it up with a, "But, you should ask your friend to hook you up..." is as silly as you can make a statement. I suggest frontal cranial lobotomy for you. Very small chance that your friends will set you up - here or back home. Mine, most certainly, don't. If you have friends who help you that way, do let me know. I will friend them on Facebook. Further, Farhan Akthar's escapade in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is an ideal case described in books. It is just that - a description. Plus, it is Farhan Akthar. I do not look like Farhan Akthar. The easiest way to get me to kill you is to cite this as an example.

Now that I have explained some of the things that I have been asked about over the past 10 months or so, please for heaven's sake stop asking about it. If you have lived in a situation similar to mine for a sustained period of time and have had a significantly different experience, then I'd like to learn how do you did it. If you stay abroad has been limited to a 10-day or a month-long trip with friends or to a place where you already have a bunch of friends then please do not tell me how I am doing stuff wrong. And, if you haven't lived outside of India and tell me I could do this and that and whatnot, please, stuff it! Do it and then tell me about it. I have twenty times more hypothetical things I can tell you about and make you feel like a worm.

Thank you for patience. We hope you enjoyed the flight and look forward to business from you again.

The present

2012-01-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

We are but a speck of dust in the universe, but today I realized that, in reality, that the insignificance was severely understated.

A completely unauthoritative roundup of songs that became anthems - concluded.

2011-12-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

This phase of my life is called monkeying - monkeying around with code. In a world surrounded with yet more false starts and then serious trouble (strike three, four and five) I decided to lavish a bulk of my affections on women on screens, instead.

And in walked in three women - one of them from the past, as if to rightfully stake her place in my head and in my pantheon. Three women whom I have seen in device drivers and manuals, and in kernel source code - much like Neo. No, Deepika Padukone is not on that list. She can go watch horse races and cricket match with that Mallya kid. Bah!

Priyanka Chopra shimmied her way into my thoughts in a silver sari one Thursday night after a day full of meetings in Dostana. Hell, yeah, she was my Desi Girl. And hell, yeah again, in Miami. I have infinitely listened to that song on my iPod and everytime I see silver shimmer somewhere in my vision. She probably has a techie job and then parties on the weekend like crazy - but she is still a good girl and a sweet girl. At 22-23, I was in a techie-job but I never did find my Desi Girl at work - not even when I spent nights there hoping she'd be on the night-shift. I wanted to dance with her. That move looked terribly simple even for a two-left-foot-muscular-miscordinated-movement type of person. I wanted to party. I wanted to dance. I did neither in reality. Still haven't, not yet. I don't know, but my heart know if she were there, then I'd be alright.

But that year, the woman I know want to marry even though she is taller that I am, walked into my life. But I'd like to end with her, so I'll keep that for the end and skip just a little over and skip back here again.

Malaika did make a comeback into my life with "Munni Badnam". I still hum it or listen to it when I am feeling particularly frustrated. The lyrics have me in spilts and Malika reminds me of old days. After kids and a long marriage she still manages to do what actresses half her age struggle to do. That song was all over the place and I first heard it while waiting for a flight in pelting rain on my last trip to Surathkal. I went back and checked that song out on Youtube and it was mountains and steam engines all over. Raw country lyrics, popular references and slugs and 500-million-thousand joules of heat - courtesy Munni. She'd be anything you'd want her to be - atom/item bomb, cinema hall, mango and mostly importantly, dishonourable as well. I saw the movie just to watch that one song one more time again.

But just for a little while, till the lady walks in again - just to tell me that she's there. Katrina knows how to make her presence felt. Brit-accent is the second most hottest language a woman can speak, the first being French. Since, I don't understand French, the Brit-accent is the best. Any woman that can speak English with a Brit-accent has my undivided attention, but if that woman can also speak Hindi with a Brit-accent and look what Aphrodite/Venus/Helen and all those mythical beauties you can think of rolled into one - please please - pick me, pick me.

I like my camera and dabble a little in photography. One place that I really want to go take pictures of are the pyramids in Egypt. Well, that is my most desirable place now on the must-go-someday-list. In came Singh is Kingg and my desired woman was put on my most desired thing to photograph is a stunning black saree with a red-border in a lovely lovely song. I told my sister this was the woman I wanted to marry. She pointed out that Katrina was significantly taller than I am. I said I'd wear heels, stilts, anything. Irrelevant. And I wanted to go to...guess...yeah, Egypt for my honeymoon with her - Egypt - check, Camera - check, Katrina - check, Honeymoon - check, reality - check, #fml. I hate pink - only chewing gums that are pink make sense. Because, chewing gum is usually pink. Pink anything is unbearable. Except strawberry ice-cream. And 1st-standard painting with pink mountains. And, on Katrina. Pink saree, pink lipstick and pink earning are epic wins. On everyone else, epic fails. This isn't even an item number. It is a lovely romantic song with no innuendo and what not. And it is my favorite Bollywood song videos in the past 15 years. I can play the entire video in my head at will. "Sheila ki jawani was hot", baby, but you stole hearts with "Teri ore".

Katrina Kaif, I write code, do research, used to do data mining, I can cook Italian food and I truly madly and deeply love you. Will you please marry me???

A completely unauthoritative roundup of songs that became anthems - contd.

2011-12-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

As, unfortunately, we never got around to discussing the actual item numbers I shall dive right into that topic without fanfare.

My earliest favorite was undoubtedly the epic "Chaiyya Chaiyya" (or "Thaiyya Thaiyya", depending on your language preference). Malaika, glimpses of a seductively hot woman during furtive flipping of channels to catch late night love-advice shows, was the best thing that could have happened to the top of the Nilgiri railways. That was the kind of woman you'd want to meet of top of the Nilgiri railways if they let you on top of it. It got my heart racing and brain was flooded with every neurotransmitter than ever was, and I suspect will be. I positively prayed while watching or listening to music channel for that song. On the radio, I would just close my eyes are picture it in my head. The dance was, no doubt, a raw seductive passion that you read about in words - that was probably what the author was imagining while writing. The only reason I was adamant on taking a trip on that train - in the fond memory of that song - much later in life when I visited Ooty a different person from that teenaged boy that, along with most of the nation, fell for Malika. It is a pitty that Sharukh got so much of his face in that video - a completely unnecessary presence. If I had to pick a moment it would have to be when the train enters the tunnel and Malaika is briefly lit by flashes of red-light with the distraction of SRK in the lower right corner. And then continues on to a windmill-head-bang-meets-forceful bust thrusts.

But, then a moment's reflection and my previous post tells me that Khalnayak and "Choli ke peche" is what started the Rajasthani costume trend. I am, also, in no small measure reminded of this fact by Jammy. Colored sequined elaborate dresses, arms in white bangles, the head covered and black dots on the face - beauty preserving evil-eye warding marks. Considered explicit lyrics in its time, it was a song that was played by people to publicly demonstrate their marginal progressive thinking. It was an acknowledgement of the sexual overtones that a song and the associated dance could convey. It created images in the head of the mass populace - a mental programming technique that was extracted by both Mani Ratnam and Rajkumar Santoshi in the same year.

Ratnam's Chaiyya Chaiyya (also Sukhwinder Singh's big break with AR Rahaman and a source of a controversy in itself) was one, the other was "Chamma Chamma" from Santoshi's China Gate. Yet another Kurosawa-Shinchino-Samurai-inspired offering with a dash of Sholay added for good measure, it saw Urmila Matondkar in the Rajasthani siren avatar. While it did not have the heady appeal of the mountains and a train, it probably was a portent of the setting of the item-numbers that would follow. It was the same Urmila who was generally ignored at the start of her career as the girl next-door with no future, who had shocked filmdom with her antics in RGV Rangeela. Tanha Tanha was a treat on the visual and auditory senses. There was the out-of-bed clothes, flowing satin and flowery skirts and blouses that made the midriff even more desirable that other geography close-by and summer dresses and sarongs and what not. It was an explosion in a apparel shop that kept landing on Urmila and she carried each one of them to perfection. Jackie Shroff's contribution being that of a constipation of a mannequin's face and roughly about the same amount of movement expected of a mannequin. But, I still don't hold it against him - because he gave the world "Amma dekh a dekh" - fair deal. She was the girlfriend that I dreamed at age 10 I would have at age 16-17. My first love and so on. Watching that song after years and the pouted painted lips still reminds of the rains in Mumbai (I lived there at that point of time).

After that, there is a period of confusion that I cannot quite clear up. Flashes of songs come to the mind but nothing sticks as a writable memory. Partially because I moved to Bangalore and life was fairly complicated as such. The buildup to class 10 board exams, and then the harried JEE prep through first and second PUC culminating in Surathkal and my first failed attempt at love. In retrospect, right now, if I'd only raised my eyes in Jain college from in the context of altitude my life would have possibly been simpler and happier. Sigh...makes me wish I'd attended college more than chasing the flimsy JEE dream.

The only reasonably clearly memory that sticks is of Sonali Bendre in "Jo haal dil ka" from Sarfarosh. An excellent movie in itself with stellar performances from Aamir and Nasseruddin Shah with the classis Jagit Singh (RIP) "Hosh walon ko kya". That pinched the deal again with the homely simple girl who turned into a work of art draped in wet sarees in primary color. The same girl who pranced around in chic summer dresses in the Nirma sabun advert. Even after her fall from grace with reality TV shows (which I watched just to see her) I am still in love with her. I think I saw a little bit of Sonali in the first girl I fell for - which is why I probably did. Sonali, Goldie Behl? Seriously? I can understand the money, but my first name is not what you'd call your doll and my second name isn't roadside India-snack. I'll still buy that diamond ring and go down on one knee for you.

Surathkal happened. And, yeah, Yana. And "Babuji Zara Dheere Chalo". A Eastern-European model married to an Indian painter - this was love and quizzing trivia in one neat awesome package. Quizzes had to have one question to which the answer was Yana Gupta and fests had to have one something set to that tune. DDFC made it the norm and the first item-anthem of my university life was born. The rustic aura that Chaiyya Chaiyya transplanted from the north to the south, was being played out much stronger in its most potent form - Bihari. And complete with, what has to be, the world's most luckiest buffalo. It was forays into lurid steamy depiction of a dance who very purpose was that - lurid steamy scenes. A feeling that toed the line at a more Western flavor of pole-dancing and strip-teasing - it was that but with clothes on. Or excuses and handkerchiefs that passed off as clothes. It was what started the leather-latex trend. The first half in "traditional nautch" (with amazingly corny steps - one of which incorporates the Egyptian-hieroglyphic motif for the lesser skilled) and the second in black. Oh, did that baby come back in black or what. Here bang and legal was the first three minutes of a blue-film (yes, ironically or not, that part of the song is blue lit) with some severely nasty foot-fixations. Dum and Vivek Oberoi stopped mattering - you were quite willing to do all that was humanly possible to make sure Yana got into NITK - your year, your branch, your class and on the bench next to you. You promised not to touch - just watch from behind that glass partition. Yana, later in life, did many other things including losing the painter-husband and her panties. And, she tweeted about it. No, not the husband.

In between several flashes in the pan happened. None of which I choose to remember besides the rare moment when the jingling song plays in the background or word triggers associations. I can't even bother to check my time frame for these creatures - Meghna Naidu (an unfortunate attendance of a live performance because Parikrama was playing right after that - the sensation of a beer barrel on stage moving) in "Kaliyon ka chaman" which was cheesily nice number, Rakhee Sawant and Mallika Sherawat (both of which hung around more for their controversy generating skills and silicone rather than for any oomph). That was a hazy year for me - I discovered Floyd, and Zero, and Steve Vai and their dimensions. I fell under the spell of "The Blood and Tears" by Vai at a fashion-show at a college fest. I attended my first rock concert by Parikrama and was somewhere in between the failed second attempt.

When that haze lifted and the monsoons still made the South Canara coast look like heaven despite the dump we lived in came two songs that went head-on against each other. They tore my dreams apart with "double the action, double the excitement" ala Pablo Franceso. My off-and-on crush Aishwarya took the Bangali by the horns - when "Kajra re" faced-off with "Beedi jalile". While "Beedi" came from the more polished and appreciated Omkara and had had a massive fan-following - both of the discerning taste and of the taste of, well, beedis, "Kajra re" came via Bunty and Bubbly. B&B was a canned offering of "Bonnie and Clyde" slathered in overly sweet cream-frosting, frozen and served as desert. The only interesting part was the song - like the flambe sauce the restaurant used to prop the waning interest of the diner by desert time.

Oh, I'd light a beedi/cigaretter/my stove from Bips' heart any day, and every day, Ash shattered all the chains of plasticity with that one song. But, Bips must be given her due in my fantasies before my affair with Ash.

Bips was sultry and she was dusky and had eyes to die for. They could be happy, smoky, inviting, seductive, coy - set in that face that I wanted to be stuck on every available surface. I just googled her name to see her face again - it's the kind that you know you love, but just slips out of your head sometime and you need a glimpse again. Having lived for a fair amount of time in Calcutta and being able to speak (currently degrading quality) Bengali, anything that came out of West Bengal held my attention. Just as Dada did on the pitch and how I cringed when he took his shirt off. Bipasha in the traditional white Bengali saree with red borders, kumkum and kajal was the Bengali bride that everyone in that marriageable age in Bhest Bhengaal and elsewhere across India wanted to wake up to every morning. Her voice was another thing in itself. How I wanted (maybe want to still) bring her home in that dress and tell my dad - "Baba, bou esheche". But, then again, what can I do when Little Johnny want to play...

Ash was on-and-off. I was smitten by her in "Jeans", wondered what the hell was happening in "Josh" and dreamed about her falling in "Mohabatein". But now, I wanted to be there - right there, with a red-towel and with enough rum inside me - up against her husband and father in law. Lucknow - the nawabs and the questionable mujra - and when mushaira met mujra; when sharyari met thumka. Lurid lighting and the raucous pieces of the dehath glossed over in beauty by that one single woman on screen. God made her on a Sunday - he had all time and patience (though, some would say the cosmetologist, but I pass). Hips that were poetry in motion. The innocence girl that was there one moment only to be replaced by that trained tawaif - I cannot find the words to describe that. The song reminds me vaguely of express bus ride between Mangalore and Surthkal - the interiors of these buses were lit like the song. And when, it played once in a thus-lit bus on a return trip back from Liquid Lounge, I could almost imagine and smell the perfume that wafted from that hair when she flipped it around for that signature move - jasmine and attar. The wind played that night strange sensations of soft silk hair blowing into my face. "Dilli mein agar, shayad, hum hote."

Somewhere then Kareena did her thing with a remake of Don. She was and is not among my favorites and could not hold against Helen Jairag Richardson. And, I will leave it at that. Not a big fan - period.

Around that time, I graduated with a Bachelor's degree, torn-and-taped cardiac muscles and four years of training in life at a time in a person's most impressionable period. And, then I entered the real world - and failed miserably.

Uno

2011-12-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

Most people he knew feared death. They feared it because no one had a clue what lay beyond it. Sure, there were books - several of them centuries old - that claimed different versions of it, but none of it was really certain - simply because no one had come back from the dead to tell what really lay there. What heaven or hell or the 'world beyond' looked like. Was it really that 'Great gig in the sky'?

He did not fear death. Maybe, he was a little afraid or apprehensive about the last few moments or the process leading up to the moment of death, but, beyond that moment it wasn't of any concern to him. Not at least, right now. It was, probably, because he'd had the chance to look death in the eye - come close enough to be certain of that one inescapable event of life - and then have the moment pass by. Albeit, temporarily. It had happened on railway track - a bridge between two mountains - that came out of a tunnel and went into another over a chasm.

He paused to reflect on those few seconds from a long ago for a moment, and then continued sipping his drink. The light in the dimly-lit bar cast his shadow on the grimy wall. Vague enough to be confused for one of those several wet patches on the peeling plaster, yet, a second look would confirm the hazy outline of a human profile. He put his glass down a little too hard on the table spilling a few drops of the whiskey. The drunk at the next table snored on - waiters would rudely slap him awake at closing time like every day and he would stagger out and collapse at the same spot on the pavement.

He turned to look for a waiter. Maybe, to ask for another drink or another packet of cigarettes. The ash-tray in front of him was piled high with butts. The light caught his face and I looked again. It was an unremarkable face - there wasn't anything that you would remember later. Brown skin which was slightly moist from the humidity. A large forehead made distinct by a receding hairline, dry black hair with a few strands of white, an uninteresting nose and mouth with lips darkened by smoke. He had a stubble which was probably a couple of days old that suggested weariness and possible stress. He was dressed in the clothes that one would expect a techie to wear - blue faded jeans, sneakers and a black t-shirt. His black-and-red backpack lay on the chair next to him. "Damn!", he said to me, "These waiters never show up when you need to ask for something, and then when you haven't left enough for the tip, the fuckers will give you a dirty look." I nodded quietly knowing what exactly he meant.

I'd turned up at this bar after work to get a beer. It had been a boring week at work and I was looking forward to a quiet weekend reading books. On my way to catch the bus, I contemplated on getting a beer and walked in into the first bar I could spot. As expected, it was crowded on a Friday night. It wasn't one of those upscale places where they made you fork out a fortune for a beer, nor was it one of those seedy joints. It wasn't entirely respectable - bars in India are not respectable per se, but it stood a rung above being a place where you would not want your manager to see you walk out of. I drank a beer out of a bottle and figured it would be safe since I did not particularly want to eat anything there. Not finding an empty table to myself, I'd settled for the next best option - a table with one other person on it. It was a choice between the techie and the drunk, and I figured if not anything I could at least have a conversation. I'd asked him if it was alright to sit across him and he'd just nodded his head. I slipped into the chair and ordered my beer.

Without warning, quite suddenly, he'd told me about his lack of fear of death and about the drunk at the next table. He spoke in a clear measured tone and used words that were clearly the effect of a solid respectable education. I sip my beer slowly, and I had only finished half my pint-bottle, by which time he'd finished three whiskeys, was on his fourth and wanting a fifth. But, the alcohol never showed - neither on his face or in his speech. It was the impassive face and tone that you'd expect when he was explaining how the operating system booted - a statement of facts that could be verified by looking at code.

"Have you been in love?" That question took me aback and he saw that on my face. "Actually, don't answer that. I'm sorry, it's none of my business and most certainly not something I should ask a stranger".

We'd not bothered with the formalities of identities and names - some meetings, like this, are best anonymous. One never knows what comes out under the influence of alcohol and it's just easier to forget a nameless face that heard it than to have a name associated with the momentary lapse of reason.

I remained silent and took another sip of my beer. He sipped a little more of the whiskey, caught the eye of a waiter hovering nearby and signaled for a repeat of his drink. He looked at me through his glasses and said, "Forgive me, but I need to let this out of my system. I know I have had a little too much to drink. Please feel to stop me if you don't want to listen. It's just that I've had these thoughts trouble me for too long and I am not sure if I can tell it to anyone I know. You don't have to react or say anything, I think I just need to know that someone is listening - that's it." I asked him to go ahead. I had no plans and a story like this would give me something to write about. The beer wasn't expensive and I was okay to drink another since I was anyway taking a bus back home.

"Go ahead...", I nodded and called for another beer...

A completely unauthoritative roundup of songs that became anthems

2011-10-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

This is meant to be what the title intends to convey - completely unauthoritative, personally biased and vaguely researched. It is not meant to reflect the opinions of a wide cross-section, but a very narrow clique that thoroughly abhors the masses and the opinions of the masses.

Over a period of time there have been several songs that the aforementioned clique saw being transformed from messy, lurid and suggestively raunchy numbers into anthems that defined the collective taste (or in some cases, the complete lack of any thereof) of the, also aforementioned, masses. Needless to say, but I still say it, - it is largely based on experiences accumulated over four years in an engineering college (though some of it comes from life outside of college as well).

The earliest I can remember are the Govinda-Karisma numbers that were centered around mundane plots like spice-levels in food, handkerchiefs being sexy and rural cots. The fact that beyond the controversy some stirred up ('sexy' was considered too forward and replaced with 'baby' for quite sometime), these probably exist mostly as a blur of lurid colors and jerky-synchronized pelvic thrusts. Govinda, despite all his comic-timing and talent for the inane, did not particularly fit well into the role of the turned-on-male half of the songs. It would be charitable to just say that Karisma was a Chinese-made Barbie doll ripoff dressed in outfits made out of fantasy musical backdrops from the thirties.

Though strictly not in the item number category, Juhi Chawla was one of the other women I wanted to marry. She possessed that bubbly charm of the girl next-door that was quite exhaustively extracted by directors and story writers in no small measure. You'd always wish that she lived in the house next-door and you'd be in a song sequence each time you saw her in the hallway. The ones that remain firmly etched in memory are songs like 'Ghoonghat ki aad' from 'Hum hain rahi pyaar ke', songs from 'Darr' and, surprisingly, 'Mere mehboob mere sanam' from the highly forgettable movie 'Duplicate'. I must make a little digression into this particular song - my personal smoking combination of two contrasting women - Sonali Bendre as the smoking hot girl that you chase interminably, and Juhi Chawla as the sweet docile girl with just the right amount of naughtiness that you'd want to marry. For some reason, I still listen to this particular song. Juhi also starred in a series of cult numbers in movies like 'Mr. & Mrs. Aflatoon', 'Yes Boss' and 'Ishq' to name a few.

What sticks out in this era in my memory is Madhuri Dixit. The woman exuded oomph and more oomph in every possible way. Somehow images of Madhuri in cult numbers like 'Dhak dhak karne laga', 'Choli ke peeche kya hai' (Duh...?) and 'Ek do teen' rarely fail to evoke memories of early crushes on the lady. Images of the highly sensuous dance sequence are most often spoiled by the appearance of Anil Kapoor's thick mustache - a facial embellishment that so defined him, that I was very surprised that Sonam did not sport one. It is still very hard for me to not attach that bushy swatch on the upper to Sonam.

A relatively unknown one was this song called 'Channe ke kheth' from the movie 'Anjaam' - one of the few movies where King Khan was the bad guy and did not hold out his arms open in the Alps. It also forms part of my goriest recollections of Bollywood movie moments where Madhuri bites off Tinoo Anand's ear. I have a theory that this was Tyson's inspiration for his epic attack on Holyfield that happened three years hence, in 1997.

In any case, Madhuri was one of those actress that an entire teenage and not-so-teenage generation fell in love with and possibly continues to be in love with. The fact that she is now married and has a very gratingly irritating American accent still does not take away from her charm. I, for one, till the time she got married, harbored faint hopes that I'd marry her one day. Sadly, I never got my break in Bollywood.

...to be continued

Personal blogs and newspaper articles

2011-10-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

This article happened to pop-up on my feed on Facebook.

There might be millions of reasons to move back to the United States, but these reasons that the writer provides shows what he lacks more than what life in India lacks - namely, a 'pair'. Halfway through it switches from problems to his complete inability to cope with them, and that is what cheeses me off (more on this later). We are all guilty of one or more of those reactions - just as the writer was before he first moved to the US. The result of sensitization to such issues should ideally result in tackling them and attempting to sensitize others.

Each of his problems are centered around situations that software-professionals in India would not encounter in the Western world. Domestic help is almost unheard of, unless you are willing to part with half your salary. As is a driver. Here is an article that I googled - about $30,000 a year. While this article pegs the average salary of the software-professional at $90,000 - about three-times more than that of domestic help. In India, that number would be closer to maybe six- or seven- times.

There is a hell of a lot of 'redneck', 'black' and 'Hispanic' jokes in the US. 'Oh, so which part of town do you stay in' is most often an oblique enquiry into your 'social caste'. Oh, and you probably can't afford a maid, so there's no point of getting into 'how to keep her in her place'.

Po-ta-to or Po-tay-toe. Either way, it's still carbs.

Coming back to what cheeses me off - why is something that should be on a personal blog show up on the New York Times international pages. Is one man's personal tryst being unable to stop himself from being 'de-humanizing' and giving up worth the space and the attention? Is his shortcomings of being unable to be forgiving and tolerant and patient the best way to emphasize the Indian mentality?

Honestly, I'd love to write a piece on how it is uneconomical, non-eco-friendly and plain silly to use paper to clean up and watch a major Indian paper lap it up. Or a piece of how plunging necklines and rising hemlines in summers makes it quite impossible for the average Indian software-engineer to wear loose bottom-half clothing. Or the insanely irritating habit of randomly smiling and saying hello to complete strangers on the street. But, then again, that is what most of TOI seems to be anyway...sigh!

PS: The water is too cold in winter is not a valid excuse. In Europe everyone seems to have access to running hot-water (scalding even).

With all due respect...

2011-07-15T05:12:00.001-07:00

... to women, rights-activists and everyone else in general. I've been seeing references to this new movement called the 'SlutWalk' protesting that dressing should not and does not instigate rape. I came across this article here. It is exactly the kind of article and written in the way you'd expect an article addressing such an issue would be. I am neither supporting or opposing or debating or arguing what women should wear and where they shouldn't go.

But what caught my attention was this one phrase "women are eyed like meat". While this might or might not be true (again, I am _not_ debating/supporting/opposing), it got me wondering on how men are eyed?

Are we all, in the end, just another ATM in the wall?

Judge Dred

2011-05-27T02:39:00.000-07:00

Remember the movie Judge Dred - the ultra-confusemax movie with Sly. I knew that it was based on a comic series, but I just came on this song by the name of 'I am the law' by Anthrax that seems to be based on that very theme.

Listen to it here.

2011-05-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

… or “How I derived the equation for a shattered heart”

Episode 1 is here.

Episode 2 is here.

Episode 3 is here.

Episode 4 is here.

We return to our meditations and study of the ATB after an unnaturally long break (the reader must bear in mind that any amount of time that is longer than the time to ferment batter for dosa is unusually long for the ATB – dosas and idilis being the very being of his existence and soul – apart from the acquired taste of OldMonk/SingleMaltScotch/StoutDarkBeer). The authors would like to apologize for this break and would also like to inform the readers that this break was for the pursuit of scientific theories regarding the ATB which shall be explained in further chapters. Also the authors were trying very hard to come to terms with living half-way across the world and the process of cooking food for oneself on a daily basis.

While the authors analyze and examine recently collected data, this chapter shall be devoted to some observations that are not completely proven, bordering on empirical and mostly conjectural. Though the authors understand that the readers of this series of articles are of the educated, informed and discerning bent of mind – the authors would like to humbly request the readers to bear with them. These observations are of a nature that is known to be difficult to rigorously prove mathematically using the various tools of calculus, trigonometry, geometry and complex numbers. Mostly, these pertain to that strange human emotion called love.

The readers would have no doubt read many famous treatises, quotes and stories about love and its side-effects (the more unfortunate ones would have witnessed a tragic waste of celluloid called ‘Pyaar ke side effects’ which in translated exactly into English means the ‘Side effects of love’ and loosely means ‘Please don’t watch unless you wish to end your life’). One particular quote comes to mind – “Le coeur a sais raison, que le raison ne’conne pas”. This is in French. And for those who do not understand French – the heart has its reason that reason does not know. While this may be applicable for most of the population worldwide including heroes and famous lovers in history – movies or otherwise ; this does not apply to the ATB – especially not the ones that will eventually become engineers (the ones that continue on to do an MBA usually become brain-dead and start behaving according to the French quote).

One must always constantly remember that the ATB has a reason to do everything – including love. Normal people and abnormal people (such as Bollywood script writers) would disagree, quoting the clichéd yet famous – “Love is blind” or “Pyaar andha hotha hai”. The authors would like to respond with a slightly jocular version – “Pyaar anda hotha hai – kabhi omlette toh kabhi aulaad”. But, the ATB, does not believe in such jest in most matters – most importantly love. An upbringing devoid of any opportunity for romance – except probably the passing interest in the female author of a textbook (more for her talent in illustrative examples and a separate volume 2 of the book with all the answers to exercise problems) ; the ATB approaches all matters of heart with extreme caution and lots of homework and background research.

Other researchers have shown, both theoretically and experimentally, that all women believe that men are attracted to women based on two characteristics alone – level of hotness and level of hotness. Subsequent studies showed that in the case of women the product of beauty and brains was constant from the perspective of men. Pressure from various women-liberation organizations and stark failure of the law (Aishwarya Rai, for instance) spurred further investigation and a third quantity was introduced which seems to apply reasonably well to most known cases. The third quantity is termed the availability – simply put, it is a measure of the probability of a given average male (note that this average male refers to the males in the middle of the normal distribution curve – which has been experimentally determined to be engineers –notably software engineers in potentially dead-ended jobs) being able to successfully woo a girl leading to marriage. Availability is calculated by taking into account the single status, the career-mindedness, the rationality, age of the woman into consideration. Factors such as the woman’s affinity to the Twilight series, Shahrukh Khan, Beyonce/Justin Beiber, SATC (positive affinity for these counts for 0) and Woodehouse, Tarantino, Metallica/Megadeth/Thelonious Monk and Transmetropolitan(positive affinity for this counts as 1) is accounted in the brains factor. Thus, the relation was later modified to the product of beauty, brains and availability is a constant. Surprisingly enough, this was popularized by a Bong(Bengali) with significant TamBram influences.

The ATB carefully applies this formula to any interest that he finds in girls of his college. He then builds complex stochastic simulation models using Matlab/C/C++ (mini-projects under the guise of graphic editors) to validate his calculations before initiating contact. Recall that the ATB by now has understood that club in colleges are the best medium of interaction with members of the opposite gender under the guise of organizing fests (the reader is referred to the sample conversation in the previous chapter). Very rarely (usually one out of a three hundred times – this is extrapolated and sampled over all engineering colleges since it is quite impossible to find three hundred girls in a single engineering college except if it were an all girls engineering college, which the authors were unable to find in India) the conversation takes a different turn when the girl answers to “Do you like Batman comics?” with a “Which series are you talking about – Hush or the Dark Knight? Personally, I wasn’t so impressed with the Dark Knight series, considering Sin City was epic.” Or, “Dude - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds – that is the order of awesomeness”. Or, “Top of the morning to you” – a classic Woodehousian opening. This is about the time when the ATB explodes into a million drops of testosterone [sic] and causes several segmentation faults in his brain.

With enough luck and no other amit_123s (refer to Krish Ashok’s blog for complete definition) competing, the ATB initiates outings in the form of a group meeting of the literary committee when most other members have classes. Venues in this case will shift from the classroom on the ground floor to the canteen or coffee shop. After several of these meetings, the ATB summons enough courage to ask the girl in question out for coffee, and then after several coffees for dinner and so on. It is of importance to note that the ATB does not broach the topic of relationships and the where-is-this-headed – he simply assumes that the girl will eventually figure out since in his universe all relations are nothing but a mathematical mapping from one set to another and mathematics never lie. This is invariably the most significantly incorrect assumption that the ATB makes despite knowing the axiom that women think with their hearts and not their heads. Invariably another competitor makes an entry – does all the things that the ATB did with a little more panache, all the while expressing his undying affection for the girl. By the time the ATB realizes this and hastens to express in clear chronological order his story of affection and love, he is met with the world’s most potent weapon – the LJBF or the Let’s-Just-Be-Friends. The weapon is so destructive and effective that most nations in the world have strict usage policy and non-proliferation acts in place – despite which women across nationalities, religion, color, race and sit-com preferences press the proverbial red-button with nonchalance.

Therapy for the ATB now consists of copious OMR, Dream Theater progressing to Megadeth progressing to Judas Priest progressing to Children of Bodom progressing to Katatonia progressing to Eternal Tears of Sorrow and then suddenly mellowing down to classic jazz and blues as he slowly accepts fate and starts preparing for the future. He slowly gets back to his old groove of reading graphic novels, spending nights trawling the Internet/LAN for offbeat music and cult-classic movies and conducting marathon quizzes with stage threes for the college quiz club. He begins to haunt empty classes in the night studying not just the notes and standard texts, but additional books to add to his knowledge. Some begin to mug up GRE wordlists and have been known to be able to recite them forwards, backwards, sidewards and occasionally in binary/ASCII/Klingon as well. He puts in efforts, pulls strings and gets himself a summer internship in a large company/research institute/HAL and vows (and successfully does) to finish the internship and learn something useful.

The ATB will use his blog as a form of catharsis and pour out all his pain and sorrow in the manner posts that range from side-spiltingly funny to long fictional series to short stories (these two seem like the lives of others, but most often reflect the ATB's own experiences) to depressed one liners to suicidal code (most commonly this takes the form of a small C program that tries to send itself Signal 9 as defined in on Linux systems).Mostly these are manifestions of heartbreak and sadness, but readers are directed to take extreme caution if they chance upon such blogs. They are requested to initiate contact with the ATB and try to ascertain his mental state and determine if he needs medical or emotional help. Close friends of the ATB are to be notified of the ATB's state and in extreme cases request emergency medical help.

While the ATB learns the meaning and usage of uncommonly pointless words such as prevaricate and lugubrious , the third year of college draws to end and we end our current installment here. The next chapter shall follow the ATB through his final year in college – which is one of the most important ones and the one that the ATB will remember with bittersweet memories for life. Readers are encouraged to search the internet for blogs of ATB engineers/techies that they know or have heard of for posts from the times of their engineering. These posts are poignant, deep, and sometimes depressing stuff woven in the form of short stories or C code that on compilation creates a 23.45MB binary which essentially just prints “Goodbye cruel world” and exits. What most people fail to notice is that by inserting a break-point just before the printf, and at that point taking a dump of the data-segment of the program produces the aforementioned short-story when converted to ASCII. Shahjahan might have built the Taj Mahal for his love out of marble, but the ATB painstakingly expresses his love in binary (the last known program to be written in binary was the first compiler that was ever written). This is not just the first of these instances of failure in love, we shall come across more as the ATB plods on through his existence and insects in mess-food.

Blah!

2011-05-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

The clock ticks ever so slowly, pulling out every minute like a long unbroken strand of silk. Halfway across the world yesterday ends and halfway across the world a new one starts. And, I live in between.

And still...

2011-05-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

...despite the being shown the door I am statistically still worse at applying for a Master's degree.

#FML

The Tuscan Toxness

2011-04-28T04:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I wrote anything coherent or sensible (code included) and somehow reading countless blogs of friends and other random people induces me to write this. Just to make sure that I am still capable of forming reasonable sentences of appreciable length. That, and the absolute boredom of being, which I shall get to soon.

It's been a little less than a month since landing up in Italy and one thing that keeps going around in my head with irritating regularity is 'stranger in a strange land'. The biggest shock that is still only very slowly fading off is that of language - everything is in ITALIAN. And, hardly anyone speaks English. So much so, that, at the local immigration office, where one goes to apply for the stay permit, the people cannot speak English. WTF? You expect foreigners to come there, but then again in Europe, unlike the rest of the world, English is not a language that you can get by with. Argh! Six languages on a box of chocolates and not one is English - there is Hungarian and Polish - but not even a sliver of English.

Well, one thing is for certain - Russel Peters wasn't wrong about the hand gesture. That one hand gesture is possibly the most frequently used - though it does not always mean 'WTF?'. What is actually means depends on a) the tone of the conversation (normal, heated, nuclear) and b) the force of execution. Italians cannot ever speak without using their hands. Tie an Italian's hand behind his back and ask him to speak and he will probably just spontaneous combust.

Eating outside is, as expected, a little bit of an issue for TamBrams. Even, if it is a non-conformist chicken-mutton eating TamBram. Pork, beef and the some seafood is what they eat here. Chicken and mutton, I guess, is too pedestrian. Pork, maybe I can manage, but a few thousand years of culture, religion and values hardwired and programmed into me refuses to give in to eating beef. You do get vegetarian food, but after a couple of weeks you run out of options. Not to mention the absolute blandness of food - I really fail to see the subtlety of taste and flavor, except the overpowering taste of cheese and cardboard. Last Friday, while eating lunch (risotto, funghi e formaggio - rice, mushroom and cheese) after one spoon of it, I went and doused the entire thing with about four or five spoons of pepper powder (which also isn't very spicy - God alone knows why). An Italian friend who was with me looks at the plate and asks me how I would be able to taste the vegetables and rice with so much spice. I could only shrug and say that without the pepper I couldn't taste anything. The Indian taste-centers of the brain have been designed to taste everything else after canceling out the spice.

The margherita pizza is stupendously amazing. It isn't close to anything I have has in India. In fact, the pizza here has no comparable equivalent in India. It's just brilliant. Especially, the Napoli pizza. And the gelato - the worst gelato here is better than the best I have eaten in Bangalore. You can get really surprising flavors like ginger and saffron and choose to mix it with something regular like chocolate or pistachio. It's creamy, cold, sweet and one of those things that is familiar and comforting. The gelato pricing when converted to Indian rupees is still in the same range - 1.5-2 euro (or 90-120) for two normal scoops. Everything else is expensive. I paid 1.5 euro for three garlic and I pay 33 cents for a large glass of plain drinking water in the canteen. Maybe by European standards it isn't too much, but heck, I am Indian currently living on euros purchased with rupees - of course, 20 rupees is too much.

Quite honestly, the Leaning Tower isn't that stupendously mind-numbingly spectacular. It's nice. Probably because I pass by it almost every day, the charm has worn off. But, even at first sight, it did not make an impression like Ankor Wat or the Taj Mahal or the Vittala Temple in Hampi. It was just about so, so.

This place is small enough to walk and get around. One end of the town to the other end should take approximately a little more than an hour - that is how small it is. And since it is a university town, it's mostly filled with university students. Weekend nights at Piazza Garibaldi are noisy. Tons of young cute women around - this post that I chanced upon probably best describes the situation here. The only problem is though they are of every imaginable size, shape, color and undress - they all pretty much look the same to me. Heavily made-up, tight (often plunging/enhanced necklines etc) and white. I just can't seem to tell them apart very well. And, they all speak mostly only Italian. Strike one, two and three. I'm out.

I have a ticket booked back to go to India in September. Do you think I should buy myself a fancy Android smartphone at the Dubai duty free - or drink a glass of champagne? It's not quite often that an ATB gets his annual dose of a few more grey hairs (or in my case, another centimeter of receding hairline) over the Persian Gulf or maybe over Iraq? Of course, the scariest part of the trip home is the Dubai - Bangalore leg where you fly just off the coast of our dear neighbour (yes, the very same one who was whacked in the semi-finals). I think the entire aircraft including the atheists start praying.

PS: Episode Five - very soon. Written, but as soon as I figure out where I stopped Episode Four.

2011-04-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Trains are catching fire (but, thankfully, people are more or less safe(?)), the Great Indian Democracy performs yet another circus show with the anti-corruption act while the government bans child labor in circuses. The politicians are trying to make as much graft as they can before the laws change. There is enough mud from the slinging to make yet another great Gangetic plain. The economy - well, it goes up and down like a bloody yo-yo.

And, I sit here, halfway across the world in a place where I cannot understand most of what is being said (to me or otherwise), where I cannot speak without miming and have to eat mostly leaves and vegetables to avoid the extensive beef that is all around. And worrying about where life is headed and whether coming here was a big mistake.

Ugh...my head functions is terribly small world.

The Lull...

2011-03-30T08:46:00.001-07:00

...before the total depression. Damn! Damn! Damn!

The Average TamBram - Episode Four - The Woman in Red

2011-03-22T01:38:00.000-07:00

...or "How I did not meet your mother"

Episode 1 is here.
Episode 2 is here.
Episode 3 is here.

We last left the ATB in the sweltering heat of the coast, sweating in his room and staring at a stationary fan suspended from the ceiling coated with the dust and grime of a whole semester (maybe more) cursing the lack of electricity. The reader is bound to say, at this juncture, "Is this not an engineering college? Why haven't the engineers built alternate sources of electricity? Aren't they the ones who will go out into the real world three years hence to work on cutting edge technology?" We shall briefly examine these questions and put to rest doubts in the reader's mind - shortly.

A small detour is in order to explain the title of this chapter - 'The Woman in Red' - two important reasons. Firstly, this is yet another example of the references to popular culture that the ATB will constantly drop in conversations, blogs and other forms of media that he will generate. They are usually disguised as innocent phrases or words undetectable to most but, for the ones who do understand it provides a deep insight into the layers of thought that the ATB posseses. The current phrase, is for the uninitiated, a reference to a particular scene in the movie Matrix where Neo(aka Keanu Reeves) is being trained to spot agents and is momentarily distracted by a gorgeous woman dressed in red who could in fact be part of the Matrix. That in turn, is a reference to the fact that in most movies scenes that the ATB was not allowed to watch at home usually start with a woman dressed in red. Thus, in one simple phrase, the ATB displays the recall of fleeting moments in cinema, while at the same time bringing to surface his anguish and sadness of having missed out on that particular scene that three girls in his class discussed on Monday - he could not contribute to that conversation, depriving him of a chance of interacting with the opposite gender. The second reason is quite trivial - the authors have just purchased for themselves a nice large red suitcase for the purpose of travel and look to the readers for some positive encouragement on their knowledge of color having progressed beyond black (and the occassional blue).

Returning to the questions posed in the opening paragraph, the authors provide the following answers (in order of the questions):

1. Yes, this is an engineering college. Also, Mysore bondas are not always made in Mysore, nor contain a bit of Mysore in them - they are bondas and are, as such, meant to be accorded only so much thought. Just like how hamburgers neither contain ham nor are made in Hamburg - but then the ATB will rarely use such examples, since it involves beef.

2. They should have. But, quite honestly, they couldn't care less. And, their professors care lesser. There are much more important things to be done like watching all of Quentin Tarantino's & Daron Aronofsky's cinematic offerings and downloading the '500 Best Metal/Rock/Jazz Songs of All Time'. Though, all these activities require electricity, any engineer will tell you that one should focus on one's core competency and assume that the other things will be taken care of by other people - that's the way to build a great product. Did Bill Gates ever worry about the grammar of the message on the blue screen of death? No, he focussed on telling...no...fooling people into thinking how great Windows was. (It was later found out that it was an ATB who wrote all the text, which was again peppered with references to the Apocalypse, Metallica and ended with a directive to reboot and visit the nearest temple as instructed by his parents)

3. No. They will attempt to make lots of money, get a green-card, get married, buy a house and a fancy car. Some will successfully do all of them by getting themselves an MBA. The others, we hear, are still attempting - to get an MBA.

The ATB is programmed from childhood, thanks to his conservative upbringing, to treat women with respect and hold them in high regard. Readers might provide a rebuttal to this by citing the large number of chronicled and documented cases of domestic violence. The authors have, rest assured, examined this closely and have come to conclusion which is as follows - even though the woman is considered the weaker gender, one must bear in mind that in a traditional TamBram household the woman is the one who cooks all meals. This leads us to the theory that a slight slip of hand while adding chilli powder to the pickle or 'mistakenly' adding salt to the coffee instead of sugar are methods that are commonly employed to counter any misbehavior by the man. A more direct approach is the use of the rolling pin or the 'belan' (immortalized by countless Bollywood movies and television soaps). Thus, we strongly believe that a woman has the power to break free of the shackles and take control. Also, the authors assume that their future better-halves might be reading this and any attempt at unwarranted chauvinism would effectively make them remain the lousy half all their lives.

Girls are a rare species in engineering colleges and rarer still in government engineering colleges located on the shores of the Arabian sea (though it seems quite surprising given the strong association of women and beaches built by various television series such as Baywatch, Baywatch - Hawaii etc). The ATB, having done his homework determines that college would be the right time to attempt to find his life-partner. He reaches this conclusion by use of complicated probability theory, census data from the past, distribution data of candidates attempting competitve engineering entrance exams and the market trends during Valentine's day. While the others in his class stare at women during breaks between class, the ATB goes into stealth mode blending into the benches and the walls, but silently listening to information that might prove useful - favorite Bollywood actor, favorite fashion label, favorite rock band (MLTR, Greenday - argh! How can you call that trash rock?) and favorite color. Some might say that this is eavesdropping, and they are correct in saying so, but as it has been established without doubt all is fair in love, war and Quake. Slowly and steadily, the ATB builds a huge database of information on all girls in his college across branches and batches over the first year. He still does not make a move - which might look stupid because one must swoop in quickly or else the target is taken out by the opposing team. He bides his time, plotting his master stroke, that will at once be daring, yet elegant and subtle. That, and his absolute incapability of approaching any girl and saying a complete sentence like "Hello, I am so and so, which class are you in?"

The ATB takes heart in the fact that his fellow ATBs are just as good or bad as he is and will very frequently hold deep discussions about the subject of girls. Popular topics during the course of these conversations are (not exhaustive, but only indicative) the North Indian classmates who openly flirt with women, who is rumored to date who, breakups and PDFs that outline the art of seducing the fairer sex. But these conversations tend to invariably shift to quantum physics and neuro-lingustic programming techniques since the most common way that an ATB explains any phenomenon is by turning to science and mathematics and breaking the problem into a simple set of equations that can be solved. This is, probably, his biggest shortcoming and his complete ignorance of the most important axiom of the universe - women do not like equations; they like flowers and chocolates and candle-lit dinners and long drives. He will learn it the hard way and then post the learning experience will turn over new leaf.

A significant result that emerges from the research that the ATB has done points to the fact that playing basketball and/or being in the various clubs (excluding the literary/quiz clubs) provides a natural means to initiate contact with women. He understands that conversations to elicit important information about her views on nanotechnology, food and Shah Rukh may be disguised as questions that are necessary to organize an event for the several fests that these clubs hold. A sample conversation is presented below as an illustrative aid:

ATB: "Hi, so we have to do this DumbCharades for the fest. Any ideas for some new rounds?"
Girl: "Oh yeah! I was thinking of having something related to ex-couple of Bollywood."
ATB: "Nice idea, but what about technology? What are your views on nanotechnology?"
Girl: "Yeah sure...we can have a round about small Indian cars as well."
ATB: "Whatever...but for your round, did Shah Rukh date someone else before Gauri?"
Girl: "Shah Rukh is the best, he is better than Aamir and Salman put together. Have you seen Om Shanti Om?"
ATB: "No...not yet, I don't understand Hindi that well, will you translate for me? Do you like cappucino with chocolate ice-cream?"*
Girl: "Yeah, I had it last evening in that coffee place."
ATB: "The new one...? How's it? Who all came with you?"**
Girl: "Oh...a friend..."***
ATB: "Ok...see, you try to make some posters for the event - the colorful types. I'll go work on the other stuff"
Girl: "But, what do I write on it?"
ATB: "Something. Or else change the date on the poster from last time and re-use it. It'll save time." ****

*The subtle attempt at asking a girl out.
**Information extraction to determine single status.
***Confusion to answer, and yet not answer the question.
****"I don't care anymore. Whatever..."

The reader must be amazed by the ATBs talent at conversing with a girl to understand her better, but at the same time it is evident that the ATB gets frusrated quite easily by failed attempts. This has known to be a problem with the species and research is underway to determine a cure for this condition. Scientists have been trying to locate the exact protein pair in the human DNA that leads to frusration with flirting - the last update from the group, led by Dr.RST Parthasarthy, three years ago hinted at them switching to other research - namely crossbreeding coffee bean and chicory for the perfectly optimized filter coffee blend. At this point, the reader must be warned that, the ATB has not yet given up completely. He immediately uses his large network of contacts and find out who the friend is. If it is a female friend, then the ATB plans a course of action to gain the confidence of the female friend and then use that route to reach his object of desire. If it is a male friend, the ATB will write a very arcane satire about dates and coffees and coffee shops and post it on his blog. He then proceeds to log on the IMDB to make a list of movies that star Tom Hanks.

We have only just scratched the surface of the interactions of ATBs and women and this theme shall be a recurring one in episodes to come. We shall examine another interaction of the ATB with the girl in the following episode and attempt to understand why the ATB must improve and expand upon his vast knowledge of the useless (like physics, Linux, economics, graphic novels and the technology used in the Star Wars series) to useful things like mobile phones, bikes, Bollywood gossip/movies/songs and chick-lit (Twilight, Dan Brow and Chetan Bhagat). The reader is directed to obtain and study carefully copies of Stardust and the authors/series reffered to, and in the event of them not having committed suicide by the time they have finished ten pages, to take copious notes. These notes will prove extremely useful in breaking uncomfortable silences during coffee:

ATB: "So where do you think this is heading to?"
Girl: "Well...see it's like this...."
(silence)
ATB(30 seconds later): "So is it really true that Ash and Kareena had a dirty fight at the awards function rehersal?"
Girl: "Yes da...some dirty things and all they said about each other. Ash made some underhand references about Kareena giving laser tattoo removal do ctors lots of business..."

Please click...

2011-03-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

...and don't be turned off by those random ads that you are seeing. I signed up for Ad-sense on my blog to earn money to supplement my income which shall be very soon see a significant decline due to change in location.

Please also note that part of the proceeds will be donated to several TamBram self-help groups that are rehabilitating US-return burger-burping TamBrams to their roots with free sambar-rasam-thayir-saadam therapy along with filter-kaapi-conditioning. Classes are also conducted for roadside vegetable shopping and bargaining, along with veshti-tying-and-holding-up-one-corner-while-walking and TempleVisiting-101.

Lots of thanks. Please click.

EDIT: As nangafakir has kindly pointed out that I sold out, I shall accept that - guilt as charged.

The Average Tam-Bram - Episode Three - The Crumbling Cookie and other assorted condiments

2011-03-08T00:36:00.000-08:00

...or "How I learnt to ignore the water shortage"

Episode Two here.

Episode One here.

We continue our story from where we left the ATB grinning at the board on the side of the highway dreaming of decadent debauched trips to Goa. Thirty seconds later (this is the average day-dream duration of the ATB), the ATB comes back to reality and hefts all his luggage thanking his stars that his foot-putting-down on no table fan was worth the complete silence and cold looks he got the previous night. The ATB trudges to the hostel office to pick up keys for his room and do the paper work. The line at the hostel office on days like this is infinitely long for various reasons - prime one being that anyone paying fees in 500 or 1000 rupee notes is required to list down the numbers on the notes to prevent the hostel office being cheated (quite unlike the manner in which they cheat everyone else by procuring only rotting vegetables and sacks of grains that are home to maggots).

The paperwork to get enrolled and be marked existent in college records is a complicated process that require knowledge of advanced Fourier transforms, multi-dimensional non-linear mathematics and the ability to live through extreme boredom. Having learn the first two during his coaching the ATB manages this task pretty well by substituting cribbing with other ATBs in while waiting. Most often the ATB will crib about the lack of women - preferably the single and looking types, failing which he will simply crib. The crib must not be taken as an idication of misogynism, but just as an indication of lack of other things to worry about - like world-economy, the next album 'A Perfect Circle' promises to cut, the food/water situation in the hostels or lack of clean underwear. Either he knows the answers to this ('Obama','Soon','Terrible' and 'Flip' are the answers in that order, in case the reader is interested) or he just couldn't care less (any question that contains 'Britney Spears' without 'Madonna' or 'kissing' falls into this category).

The ATB's cloistered upbringing usually tends to make him wary of strangers and this is best reflected in his interactions with his room-mates and hostel mates. What the reader needs to understand is that the initial hostility is but a defence mechansim - much like the initial gagging over the first sip of Old Monk and cola. Very soon, one learns to appreciate the apparently vile cough-syrup tasting concoction and looks to it for solace. A reservation that an ATB maintains is that of eating etiquette - one does not touch other utensils with the hand that one uses for eating (typically the right), while the specimen from the north of the Vindhyas believes that the right is for the top end of the ailmentary canal while the left is for the other end. Both perspectives are, of course, reasonable and eventually using the spoon or understanding that soap cleanses resolves contention (at least, temporarily, but breaks when there is roti and dal to eat). The authors will not elaborate on this and this is left as an exercise to the reader to understand his perambulations into the psychology of the ATB and/or the North Indian.

These initial differences slowly begin to fade away, usually over a few months and generous helpings of potable ethanol which may be sourced from the nearest watering hole. The watering holes near colleges are most often exactly that - waterlogged and absolute shady holes - frequented by truck drivers and construction workers. A typical bar of this kind will have various animals chained outside to poles, including poultry and dogs. Upon being informed that the food menu consists of chicken 65, chicken kabab and chicken soup and mutton biriyan, mutton 65 and mutton kabab (and the sudden disappearance of the aforementioned chained animals), one must exercise caution and stick to peanuts which have lesser probability of being tampered with.

If the reader wonders why the authors venture into the realm of meat and alcohol, which by ancient rules, are taboo to the ATB, the reader must realize the fact that such rules come lower in the list of priorities compared to survival. One must then question 'Why? Doesn't the mess serve wholesome edible vegetarian food?". At this point, after two semesters of pain, the ATB will (with characteristic display of elegant wordplay) tell the reader that the question is incorrectly framed. One question mark and one capital D are redundant and the question should, in fact be, "Why doesn't the mess serve wholesome edible vegetarian food?" And to this question, by means of logical reasoning, the ATB has, as expected, an answer. "Fresh vegetables cost more than rotten vegetables and rotten vegetables are breeding ground for various vermin including cockroaches. Hence rotten vegetable cooked into food are non-vegetarian by this axiom and any place that is called 'mess' cannot be, by definition, a place to eat." It is most often this that leads an ATB to take up eating meat considering that number of people who relish cockroaches is vastly outnumbered by the number of people who relish eating chicken - thus, chicken must be safer. To be further sure, he will down some Old Monk since alchol is used as a disinfectant in Dr. Parthasarathy's clinic.

The authors shall not delve deep into the academic activities of the ATB since academics is a well-explored theme and to be honest, extremely mundane boring and pointless. Interested readers are directed to consult various textbooks on subjects of their choice, with the minimum requirements being that the textbook be at least 300 pages or thicker. Or, alternatively, the reader may proceed to bang his head violently against the nearest concrete wall. Both are known to produce the same effects.

The reader must have observed some radical changes in the behavior of the ATB compared to his behavior at home in more conservative and puritan surroundings. This is just the beginning and the reader shall gradually see much more marked changes - for the better or for the worse is left to the reader to fathom. Also, the reader must bear in mind that the ATB is chameleon and will change back to the old ATB while at home during vacations.

We bid a temporary goodbye to the ATB while his wallows in the humidity of the coast worsened by the lack of electricity. We shall, on returning explore a very important topic - girls. The reader must note that this shall be a recurrent theme and an area of concern for the ATB through all his life. We end Episode Three here with the ATB considering the relative advantages of taking a bath once every two days as opposed to the once (or twice) a day rule followed at home. The primary advantages that the ATB determines are more time to sleep and lesser expenditure on soap etc. (which translates to an extra OMR every weekend) - reason enough to skip the walk to the bathroom and continue dreaming about eating 'thayir saadam' with Trisha while reading aloud sections from The Hindu's book reviews (the three important T's of an ATB - thayir saadam, Trisha and The Hindu).

The Average Tam-Bram - Episode Two - The First Journey

2011-03-02T10:40:00.001-08:00

...or "Durgamba 2+1 semi-sleeper".

Episode One is here.

In this episode we present, as promised, an insightful insight (is there any other reasonable way?) into the psyche of the ATB. And, to this end, we propose to address (no, there is no DMA or indirection involved) a small, but significant part of this by way of examining his thoughts over the journey to his second home for the next four years. Yet again, the authors' make the assumption based on their first-hand experience as well as deep examination of experiences of slightly different situations that their first-hand experience, without loss of information, motive or generality, provides a succinct treatment of the ATB's thoughts. The authors choose a bus trip to a engineering institute located on the shore of the Arabian Sea - touted to be the only other college in the world that boasts of a private beach (the other one being in California, which if the reader remembers is an adapted habitat of the ATB). Further, for reasons of simplifying the discussion, we assume that the bus ride begins from Bangalore (another stronghold of the ATB) and approximately lasts eight hours - 2300hrs to 0700hrs the following day.

At this point we must present to the reader a very important trait of the ATB - a trait that shall be evident in the ATB's behaviour throughout life and to a large extent determines the ATB's course. To sum up in a single line - 'Always do your homework'. This is programmed into the ATB since playschool, where homework consisted of scrawling a few lines through school and high-school and coaching classes where homework usually consisted of solving a JEE question paper in half the allotted time while eating dinner. Academics apart, the ATB always does a background check and gathers as much information as he can before embarking on any significant task - right from buying pirated music CDs from National Market or selecting a college for his engineering degree. Like how his parents grilled all and sundry about the educational avenues, the ATB, too, diligently asks questions about which shops are to be avoided and how many pairs of underwear are needed for a semester of study (for the curious reader, we have done a survey and determined that 4 pairs are sufficient for a week assuming the subject is not averse and understands the concept reversing - much like audio tapes). The ATB goes one step further - he uses the awesome power of the Internet to gather arcane and seemingly pertinent but usually irrelevant information. He trawls the deep regions of the Internet reading forums on EduRite, WhichCollege, SantaBanta and NextDoorCollegeGirls (for 'pertinent' visual representations of certain facts).

The bus ride to his future college is no less important than getting the best deal on all ten seasons of 'F.R.I.E.N.D.S' (DVD-rips...mind you) and the ATB collates all the information that he has gathered from seniors who are already at the same college or at similar colleges. At this juncture, we present the checklist (reproduced with permission) below and direct the reader to either mentally note down the same, or jot it down (one never know how useful it might be for oneself).

1. Always get a seat in the front of the bus.

2. Always book a seat in a bus that goes to the next college.

3. Turn up early at the departure point and look around.

4. Make friends with your co-passengers (wink, wink).

5. Do not wear that yellow T-Shirt from the 'Rajajinagar Bhajan Samaj' which says 'Volunteer' at the back.

The first thing the ATB does, after replying to the SMS ('I am fine. Will call when I reach.') is take stock of the co-passengers. All female co-passengers are marked mentally on the seat-map and then the ATB proceeds to compare notes with his other friends who are traveling on other buses. A typical conversation would read something like this:

ATB: Macha, six in mine. Yours?

Another ATB(AATB): Dude, sad life. Only two. One with mother.

ATB: Chance only da. Put fight and impress the mom.

AATB: Yeah right! Put message when you hit Kamath. Will catch up if we can.

ATB: Yo!

The reader must, at this point, be wondering about something being different about the conversation presented above. A closer examination, followed by a second reading will reveal that in fact, it is in proper English with complete words. This is another trait of the ATB - using T9 to generate full words is faster and at the same time more refined, besides inculcating in the ATB the habit of expressing ideas lucidly without excessive verbosity. Undeniably, this is quite necessary for scoring high percentiles in exams like the GRE/GMAT/TOEFL which the ATB will one day write.

At this point, most people on the bus are asleep and the ATB uses this opportunity to stretch his legs and takes a walk up and down the aisle. But, that alone is not the motive - he slows down ever so imperceptibly when he passes a seat occupied by a girl and quickly evaluates whether the person next to her is her best-friend/sister/cousin/mother (if female) or friend/boy-friend/boy-toy/father/brother (if male). Any conversation in which any of the aforementioned women are involved is eavesdropped upon but, with no malicious intent - most ATBs only think about thing long term. And at any rate, this particular exercise is undertaken to determine how many of the women are going to be batchmates/seniors/assistant-lecturers. The interaction with current and former students of the college gives the ATB a sketchy knowledge of the terms and lingo that is used and he looks for these keywords.

God forbid, if any of the women make eye-contact, for at this time the ATB has still not learnt the necessary skills to interact with women. Even a passing glance causes the ATB to conspicuously pretend to look at the floor in deep thought as if trying to solve a particularly hard programming problem - with vague hand gestures and head-scratching thrown in for effect. After the lights in the bus are switched off (the ATB usually hides under the cover of his blanket/shawl/jacket hood when the lights are on and shares intelligence with other ATBs on the other buses), the ATB slowly emerges from under the cover and surreptiously looks around at the women. Most of them are sleeping, and the ATB imprints their faces in his peta-byte capacity internal database for future reference. With this done the ATB mutters his nightly prayers and tries to sleep.

As soon as the night halt for coffee arrives, the ATB unlike others does not run to the door to be the first out. The ATB will wait, mostly for the women to get off and then will himself slip out of his seat and try to alight. This behaviour is for two reasons - one is quite obviously to avoid any form of contact - visual or otherwise - and the other is out of sheer chivalry. This is often misunderstood by the women as a negative trait of staring and almost the entire scientific community is bamboozled by this. There has been only one attempt to substantiate this behaviour by a group of questionable researchers who tried to prove using Freudian theories that this was infact a latent and hitherto unknown ATB fetish. The rest of the scientific community labeled this as an attempt to garner publicity by use of fraud assumptions - in fact there were several other papers published in response to this that proved beyond doubt that this rabble of so-called-researchers were infact mentally unstable uncivilized uncultured 'jungles'.

The first thing that the ATB does after alighting is to relieve himself in the restroom. This too, is a scientific response - having relieved himself once, he can afford to consume enough liquids and still have time to make another visit before the bus leaves. After locating his fellow tribe members (most often on the way in or out of the loo), the group proceeds to exchange notes. By this time, surprisingly enough, code-names have been assigned to the various women based on mannerisms or college. The method of determining these names is separately examined in another study. The other major agenda that the ATBs discuss is when the bus will reach and what rooms each one has been assigned in the hostels. Several crib about the heavy influx of North-Indians. This is primarily because of the physical attributes of North-Indians (tall, fair, good-looking) and other miscellaneous attributes such as knowledge of Bollywood, the ability to speak Hindi and having names (Raj, Rahul etc etc.) that fit into most application forms (a massive study on this topic has be done by Sidin Vadukut and may be found on his blog). This is, of course, just a defence mechanism against insecurity (another defence mechanism includes listening to unheard of metal bands, good old classic rock, reading off-beat but popular cult literature, gathering obscure trivia and in general being a nerd). Little does the ATB know that a few months in a hostel does wonders and the ATB will be eating sambar-rice with his North-Indian neighbour while watching "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai". We shall deal with this as we proceed further in our study.

After boarding the bus, the ATB sit and spends next few hours alternating between thoughts of his future and resisting the urge to throw up last night's dinner. Eventually, the ATB tires out, fantasizes about Trisha/Asin/JenniferKotwal and drifts off to sleep with one of them dancing to either Sheela/Munni in Tamil with English sub-titles. The next morning the ATB wakes up before everyone else, panics for a moment about his surrounding and then starts noting down which woman gets off at which point - not to stalk, but to just verify if his theory and his classification from last night was right. It is soon time for the ATB to get off himself and the bus vomits him and his 6 pieces of luggage including mattress on to the shoulder of National Highway-17 right beside a board that reads "Goa 351KM". That more than makes up for the lousy ride, the smell of rotting fish, the clammy salty air (all things he will soon learn to love) and a smile appears on his face - a sly trip to the land of sunshine, sand and bikini-clad women - reason enough to stay the four years here.

To be continued...

The Average Tam-Bram - Episode One - The Early Years

2011-03-01T03:50:00.000-08:00

... or "How I got to college"

Disclaimer: This is not entirely imagination - it is partly inspired and shaped by real stories experienced or seen. Again, not always factually correct, this is intended to be taken with a pinch of salt, some paruppu podi and ghee followed by a large glass of buttermilk. It's meant to be funny and harbors no intention to cast anyone/anything in unfavorable light (except maybe the girl who avoided you and the mess food ).

The average Tam-Bram (henceforth, referred to as ATB) is a species that is found in large numbers in the following geographies - South India, Bangalore, Mumbai are the major strongholds in the Indian sub-continent. Scattered populations are also to be found in Delhi and Calcutta, but these populations exhibit subtle character differences such as being ambivalent towards North Indian khana and over time moving away from the A2Bs (Adayar Ananda Bhavan, for the uninitiated) and South-Indian joints. Dense thriving populations are also to be found on the West Coast of the United states - especially in the state California - in and around San Francisco, San Jose and Sunnyvale. This population of late has shown a small decline. Smaller but adapting populations are found in Chicago (these are the ones that are the subject of statements propounded by madisaar-wearing Mylapore maamis - "Aamam, yenga son-vandu Chickaago'l irrukan!"). It must be noted that most of the population in the North American continent has the unique ability to speak Tamil with an American accent - most evident in the pronunciation of 'thanni' (meaning 'water' or in slang any kind of alcohol) is pronounced as 'than-eee' with the last syllable being drawn out for about three seconds too long.

Having reasonably established the global distribution of this species, it is only normal to be curious about what causes such varied migration patterns and adaptations. And, this necessitates a not-so-small deviation in to the life-story of this species. Attempt shall be made to keep it brief and provide suitable analogies to help the reader identify and relate to the subject of discussion. Clarifications maybe gotten from your nearest Tam-Bram colleague (which if you are reading this might not at all be in short supply - stand up and yell "Macha, degree kaapi, anyone?" and the Tam-Bram will raise his hand up).

The birth of a male child in an average educated Tam-Bram family is reason for celebration. Apart from the usual religious functions, long discussions about his education are initiated in the family. Parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, neighbours and maami from the yellow house two streets away best know for her prying-nature get involved. The end-goal is quite simple - engineer, doctor or investment-banker(a recent entrant but, of late a lost a little ground owing to the sub-prime crisis - this fact you did not know). Cousins (and possibly friends of cousins and friends of friends of cousins and their respective parents) are throughly grilled upon the subject of education, schools, coaching classes, colleges, entrance exams, brand of bag/pen/shoes and water-bottle color. All of this information is carefully arranged and filed in triplicate along with a master copy that is bound and kept in the safe-deposit locker beside the silver sandhyavandham utensils and jewelery.

After about a year of doting, as part of the toddler's first birth ceremony he embarks on his arduous and daunting journey through life. He is brought up on a carefully controlled diet of idli, dosai, pongal and the rare conrflakes for breakfast, sambar, rasam and curd-rice (the world-famous 'thayyir saadam') for lunch and a combination of the breakfast and lunch menu for dinner. Regular daily intake of Complan/Bournvita/Maltova/Horlicks coupled with morning prayers, evening prayers and general knowledge books ensure and build his physical, spiritual and intellectual growth. His mother's greatest worry for the son is whether his wife will be able to regulate and provide the strict regimen that the ATB needs for proper functioning and this is knowledge is imparted to every daughter in the family (apart from how to buy vegetable, bargain, cook, Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam and read star-charts to determine auspicious days for all activities including sneezing).

Once he starts his schooling he is constantly under the scanner of both father and mother for consistent top performance (at least 18 standard deviations above the class average and at all times better than his friends who will be constantly used as an example to encourage). Play times are strictly supervised and activities exclude all games that can potentially cause injuries - which leaves the poor boy with very limited choice. The drill gets more intense as he proceeds further along - post his poonal (aka Upanayanam aka scared-threading - not to be confused with the beauty parlor procedure for women) he is required to perform all his studies with renewed vigour with the added sandhyavandhanam (starts with thrice a day, peters down to twice and then stabilizes at once every morning before eventually being performed once a year when the thread is changed).

Three exams are extremely important in any ATB's career - 10th standard board (Kapil Sibal has caused furore among parents of many ATB's with his reforms leading to the formation of a 'Mothers against Sibal" group), 12th standard board and the entrance exam for Engineering/Medical seats. Given the authors' profession and life-directions we shall explore the Engineer ATB's progress - almost all of what is presented further maybe applied to a Doctor ATB without any loss of generality.

The build up to the exams is an elaborate process consisting of visits to temples, promises of sweets/coconuts/shaved-head to the various deities and umpteen cups of milk/filter-coffee. Relatives are banned from paying social visits and the rest of the family stops watching TV to prevent any form of distraction to the ATB. Girlfriends being a strict no-no at all phases of life, during this pre-exam and exam period even magazines that have pictures of members of the female species (including J.Jayalalitha are stuffed away out of sight in the attic). Eating outside is strictly forbidden to prevent illness and all sources of cold drafts in the house are sealed.

During the exam the pencil-box lid and the obverse side of the writing pad will carry the picture of Goddess Saraswati (for knowledge and wisdom) and Lord Ganesha (the remover of all obstacles) to combat peeping cheating examinees and nasty examiners. The admission ticket is preserved carefully in a transparent plastic pouch and placed in front of pictures of gods so that they may be able to memorize his roll number and bestow their benevolence in the form of marks. Prayers are mandated before leaving for the hall (with a generous smearing of holy-ash on the forehead) as well as before answering the examination.

The two years post class ten are red-letter years (so red, that even a color-blind, for that matter even a blind, bull gets excited). Two important life-changing life-deciding examinations are space in a matter of two or so months - 12th standard board and the IIT-JEE(and/or)AIEEE(and/or)CET(or its equivalent). Along with regular school, grueling coaching classes are attended. Popular choices are Brilliant's (Chennai) and BASE (Bangalore) in addition to correspondence courses from either Brilliant's or FIIT-JEE. Irodovs, Morrision Boyd and Loney are studied, re-studied, revised and re-revised till the pages being to tear. ATBs have been known to weak up in cold-sweat from a nightmare muttering complex integration formulae - but these are rare cases, because most ATBs never sleep for these two years.

Once the exams are over another round of temple-visiting and praying starts to make sure that the results are as expected. 95% plus in the boards and a top-100 rank in JEE/AIEEE which will get the ATB into Electronics/ComputerScience in IIT-Madras/IIT-Bombay/NIT-Surathkal/NIT-Trichy/NIT-Calicut/NIT-Warrangal - ATBs at that tender stage are extremely apprehensive of crossing the Vindhyas - even IIT-Bombay is a hard choice but the strong migrant population (which invariably consists of at least one relative, however distant) in Matunga/Sion/Chembur comforts the parents about their fledging progeny flying the coop. He will be bundled off with various podis - paruppu(lenti), kothamalli (curry leaves) and thengai(coconut) to be eaten with rice and pickle (lemon/mango) when the mess food is inedible. He is given strict instructions to stay away from bad company, parties in the night, trips with friends to Goa and most importantly girls. The last is drilled into him umpteen number of times for the simple reason that any girl that has not been found and verified by the maami-network is pure recipe for disaster ("Shiva...shiva...edo ponnu-pa!"). A week before the day of departure luggage is checked, packed, re-checked and re-packed. Odds and ends such as Co-optex towels, Medimix soap and vibhuti are purchased in quantities to last an army of ATBs a year. A trip to the family deity's shrine is made.

On the D-Day, the ATB is showered with love and hugs and favorite food. The entire family and extended family and neighbours and the nosy-mami come to see him off. He gets on the bus/train and till the train/bus is out of sight everyone is waving. Thirty seconds later he gets a call on his new mobile phone (only Rs1299 with color screen and polyphonic ringtones and lifetime incoming free) to make sure he is ok. And an SMS, about thirty seconds hence.

The reader must have noticed that we have only examined the factors - people and situations - external to the ATB, but have not delved into the psyche of the ATB himself - of what he is thinking and what runs in his head. This shall now play a central theme of the following episodes.

InRetro

2011-02-26T23:32:00.000-08:00

How does it feel to be a faceless nameless statistic banished to mere existence on a list? Or the target of a snigger? Or the knowledge that you are nothing but an anecdote to be related over a couple of drinks and dinner? Mind you - you are the punchline, the idiot.

And, that is the killing joke.

Contradiction

2011-02-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

I am supposed to be excited and kicked, but strangely, I am not. Stranger still that I know why I am not kicked and there is little I can do about it.

There ain't no controllables.

2011-02-11T04:45:00.000-08:00

Don't fucking lie to me. I might not be Cal Lightman, but don't fucking lie to me.

Bajaa uski baraat mein uska band...

2011-01-20T00:20:00.000-08:00

Anushka Sharma pulls off the girl-next-door excellently in Band Bajaa Baraat - almost to the point where you would want to put for her. And then the bloody country variety amit_123 strikes.

Bah!

I repeat, kill 'em all!

Unite against philistines

2011-01-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Here is an excellent plan to get rid of philistines and the various varieties of _123s in an elegant manner. But first, some background...

A typical _123 or philistine does not know it is a _123 or philistine. It thinks it is a cool, suave and natty specimen put on the face of the earth by the Almighty to pleasure women. It also does not possess a brain and is not a sentient being. Though this has been proven time and again, the _123 or the philistine does not register this fact - simply because of the absence of thought.

The easiest way to please a philistine is to fuel its ego - for, once this is done, it will bend to your command. This is exactly how most women successfully use it as a large and, most often, affluent toy which is occasionally used to derive (but unknown to the philistine, this is just a carrot and stick (pun intended) ploy employed by the woman) carnal pleasure.

A simple way to get it to perform a task is to make the task look 'cool' - anything that might potentially add to its already over-bloated ego is acceptable to the philistine. The other way is to make it seem foolish - the classic "What-you-did-not-know-that-Britney-Spears-is-a-Nobel-Peace-Prize-winner" method. The second method is what I prefer and that is what this plan is based on.

A _123 or philistine needs to be slowly led to believe that you are its friend and a nerdy friend at that. This isn't too hard to do - send stupid sms/email forwards with flaccid jokes ( to become good friend) and watch a re-run of a KBC episode with it and get all the answers to the question that SRK asks right (yes, it still thinks KBC 2 is latest).

Once you have reached this state, move on to phase two. Constantly emphasize the fact that a particular activity is the absolute epitome of 'cool-ness' -

a. jumping off the second floor and landing on your feet

b. doing a wheelie on the NICE road at 120kmph

c. short-selling means selling a share that is going up and then buying it back at a higher price (Note, this is probably the easiest - the _123/philistine is so fuckin' dumb that chances are it already thinks this is short selling).

Phase 3 involves finding the photo of a hot woman and convincing the _123/philistine that doing the activity (refer to phase 2) in public at a pre-determined time when the woman is around will make her attracted to it. For best results, involve a hot female friend to pretend to like it, but since most of us would not be reading/writing this if we had hot female friends who would conspire with us in such tasks, using a photo of Ursula Andress or Andie McDowell or Kelly Minka is sufficient - the _123/philistine does not know actresses beyond Kareena or Mallika.

Pick a spot and time. Promise to be there but feign fever on the appointed day. Drink beer at home watching TV-9 - because that's the channel which telecasts foolish things that foolish creatures do. It would have either broken both legs, become road-kill on NICE or in jail for defaulting on payments.

Must stop...

2011-01-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

...using emoticons. Completely. I am completely and utterly disgusted.

The only purpose they seem to serve is to take the edge off stuff I write. Everything I write sounds laconic and acerbic with dollops of cynicism in my head.

And, must stop using happy words like dollops and oodles. Shitloads works just as well.

Damn! Must become anti-social again.

Currently listening

2010-12-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

1. Under the table and dreaming - Dave Matthews' Band

2. Crash - Dave Matthews' Band

3. Some Devil - Dave Matthews

4. A rush of blood to the head - Coldplay

5. Viva la vida - Coldplay

2010-12-10T23:14:00.001-08:00

It makes me wonder whether I am wired wrong in the head when I am ready to chuck all that I have ever wanted to do just to try to see if something new will work. And then, I realized that there isn't even a sliver of comprise from the other side of the table.

Makes me the biggest fool around, I guess.

Insomniac

2010-12-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

I don't really need the lovesick thoughts of a girlfriend, the unknown worries of a hazy future or the stress that works give me to keep me sleepless.

I still f***ing can't sleep.

In the sand.

2010-12-05T00:27:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the girl is here

With her indigo eyes

And her brand new gear
She won't stay for long
She has to walk straight home
Patience, time comes, she says
Kiss me but don't you tell
This over as soon as this fire burns through

She's on the ocean
He's in the sand
She's stuck in motion
He is sliding gently off her hand

Springtime and turnoil
She pours white wine
And gets herself lost
She falls over
And disappears into the meadows
Wayward and highstrung
She is lovesick and ever so strong
Then it's over like none of this ever was real

She's on the ocean
He's in the sand
She's stuck in motion
He slides so gently off her hand

Perception

2010-12-03T01:56:00.000-08:00

Have you ever seen your fondest dreams turn into your worst nightmares?

Quite honestly...

2010-12-01T08:01:00.001-08:00

... I do not look like a clapper, or neither am I one. And you really do not have the potential to be an electromagnet - not yet. So, the bottom line is - quit trying to make the bell ring.

But...

2010-11-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

I am drunk, I am pissed, I can write code....

... but I don't still f***ing have the idea that will make me billionaire, the subject of several books and a movie.

EPIC_FAIL.

Currently listening...

2010-11-16T04:30:00.000-08:00

The Great Cold Distance - Katatonia
We Lost The Skyline - Porcupine Tree
Deadwing - Porcupine Tree
Fear of Blank Planet - Porcupine Tree
In Absentia - Porcupine Tree
The Sky Moves Sideways - Porcupine Tree
Lightbulb Sun - Porcupine Tree
Orchid - Opeth
My Arms, Your Hearse - Opeth

For the record

2010-11-15T11:08:00.000-08:00

The Subbubowl score currently stands at 8 - 4, up from 8 - 3 last time around.

In other news, if you must buy an Android phone seriously consider the Samsung Galaxy S. Loaded piece of hardware. Really nifty and geeky enough for the nerd.

Renewal of a passport is 50% of a breeze now thanks to TCS doing all the data-entry and the ITES. Works like a bloody charm. Of the three hours that I spent at the passport office today, TCS cleared me and my application in approximately 20 mins flat. I waited for close to two hours to have a fairly elderly somewhat disgruntled aunty who also doubled up as one of those Passport officers to look at my application for about 30 seconds and grunt three times, before cancelling my old passport.

That's all, folks!

What the fray?

2010-11-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

This used to play quite a bit on RadioIndigo quite a bit a year-ish(?) ago. And for some frickin' insane reason it's still stuck in my head....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWBzAzqyD9o

Here, go stick it in your head now!

Three

2010-11-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

It just fucking did not make any sense to wait for darkness to fall. Three bullets. Three pints of blood. Three miles behind enemy lines. Three hundred meters from that last remaining gun-house. Three thousand dead to take that sector.

It just fucking did not matter anymore. Three minutes of surprisingly quick crawling through the undergrowth. Three meters from the doorway to the gun house.

Three motherfuckers inside. One for each.

He pulled the pins from the last three grenades on his belt. He counted three and ran in. And took them to kingdom come. Fitting end to three decades of existence.

Images

2010-10-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

The ubiquitous yellow taxi in Kolkata

The business district in Singapore, as seen from the Singapore Flyer.

Spotted deer at Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagarhole.

Memories

2010-10-17T05:58:00.001-07:00

Given my penchant for all things silicon (wink, wink) and technology, this is _NOT_ a post about RAM, ROM or the likes. In fact, to clarify the winks, it is also not about politically-incorrect or physiological enhancements that keeps both practitioners and quacks of cosmetic surgery minting the moolah.

Back in college, I used to be the proud owner of a shady portable CD player that someone had given me. It was one of those dollar-shop things that America-return people used to pick up for their lesser Indian relatives and friends. In times when iPods were expensive (and mostly unheard of in the hands of engineering students in government colleges) and other MP3 players were scorned upon by elders who believed that listening to music while studying was uncalled for and if it had to be listened to then sitting in front of the computer was the way to go - the CD player was a prized possession. But, do realize that a CD player alone does not solve problems, and these were those problems that could be solved only if you had audio CDs and audio CDs were expensive back then and still are a little pricey. The alternative was to burn your own CDs - blank discs were close to 30 bucks a pop - with a CD writer. And, I did not own a CD writer. Luckily, for me an uncle had an external CD writer which he did not use and wasn't much attached to. This found its way into my possession and I started burning music - with my financial resources (read pocket money), I was able to make a grand total of 5 discs. One of which got corrupted for some arcane reason.

Disc One had an assorted collection of Joe Satriani and was the one that played only the first six tracks out of the thirteen that I managed to cram. The notable ones that I remember are Summer song, Always with me always with you, Lights of heaven and Until we say goodbye.

Disc Two had assorted Metallica tracks. This one was particularly dear to me since I started listening to metal with Metallica (specifically Master of Puppets and Sad But True). In addition to these two, there was Creeping Death, Nothing Else Matters, Ride the Lightning, Fuel, Unforgiven ( I and II), Enter Sandman, Sanitarium and others that I cannot now remember.

Disc Three had the entire Scenes From a Memory by Dream Theater. This was off a disc of MP3s that I had purchased in National Market (this by the way has been the only music that I have purchased from National Market - ever!). I'd just started listening to DT and somehow this album was the one that I liked the most. Very recently, I took this off my iPod when I realized I spent an inordinate amount of time listening to this album from start to end. I am quite sure that the sectors that had Overture - 1928 were the most ghisaoed.

Disc Four had a bunch of mixed tracks - Sounds of Silence ( Simon & Garfunkel), Jamica (Harry Belafonte), All you need is love (The Beatles), Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd), Coming back to life (Pink Floyd) and some others that escape my memory. This was one that played a lot on that player - one notable listener was Tho, who claims that he fell in love with Simon and Garfunkel after listening to this CD. He now even has a Simon and Garfunkel T-shirt and I, guess, most of their work.

Disc Five I have no recollection of burning but it had random Iron Maiden tracks - Fear of the Dark, Wasted Years and Number of the Beast. This was an unmarked disc - the others had the track listing written down in a painfully neat list on the face with permanent marker. Dickinson & Co. somehow never got that respect and effort back then and it remained a blank CD that I used to recognize by the Imation logo and a scratch at a particular location.

There were other tracks that I and Bhayak used to incessantly listen to on the computer. These are numerous and I cannot remember them except when I listen to them. The discs used to be the music that I used to fall asleep to when I was traveling between Surathkal and Bangalore. There are tracks that I associate with people and events that transpired over the four years in college - Sweet Child of Mine and Yellow with a girl I used to like; Comfortably Numb, Wish you were here and Coming back to life with sitting alone and retrospecting; Spitleaf with sessions on the Edge in Final Block; When the levee breaks and Kashmir with Bhayak waking me up at odd hours of the day; Christmas in July with playing NFS - Hot Pursuit; It must have been love with belting Tho for listening to yucky-love-songs; The blood and tears with the first inter-collegiate fashion show that I watched in MIT, Manipal - to name a few.

Even now, when I go to Surathkal to recruit people or for some other arcane reason I carry all these songs on my iPod with me. I got to Garuda; down a few cold ones and find my way to the beach in the night, walk along till Shanbogue, sit on my rock, check the sky for a moving satellite, walk to the statue and then through the campus to the STEP beach gate while listening to these songs. There are new gates and new locks and new walls and fences to climb over but all I need to do is close my eyes and see what used to be.

WTF

2010-10-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

The last time it was bra colors. Now, it is apparently where they like it. Where the f*** did you leave your brains?

Go get a research degree and make a medical breakthrough, go join an NGO and do campaigns, go talk to people and tell them.

"Either way I don't give a damn about what you are entitled to!" - Jack Nicholson - "A Few Good Men"

"Either way I don't give a damn where you like to do it or leave it, but just remember to flush!!!" - Moi - Here.

Wish

2010-10-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

In case you have some spare cash (read loads of money) lying around, here is some stuff that I like...

1) Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens.
2) Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro lens.
3) A Warlock Kerry King 7 _OR_ A Ibanez JSBDG
4) IPad
6) Kindle

I'd be glad to come over and pick it up from your place if you want.

Crossie

2010-10-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

Against Newton's fruit in what does not belong to me expresses terrible anger. (2,5)

Sneaky feeling...

2010-10-04T03:53:00.000-07:00

...that the other team isn't very pleased with the performance of the American Universities this season at the Subbu-Superbowl. They are going to be trying very hard to catch up, get into the lead and keep it that way. This advertisement was brought to you by the Mohan-Meakin Distilleries.

In other news, most of Indian folk-rock sounds pretty much the same. You've heard one, then you have more or less heard 'em all. Just that the stage-gimmicks might be a little different. Swarathma relies too heavily on their violinist, the drummer is talented but the rest of the crew is just plain good. Nothing spectacular, but all the same a tight-act.

Belgian beer is not a drink. It's an experience. Even a single mouthful. Swirl it around a little, taste it, swirl it again, slowly swallow it and then relish the rich after-taste before you repeat the process. Yes, your wallet will be much lighter than if you stuck to that yeast-piss that long-salt-pepper-haired bugger with that lout for a son (who has eye-candy arm-trophy women he calls girlfriends).

Bonus crossword clue: Brittle cardiac tissue in colder climes may suffer from this condition. (10)

He he he...

2010-10-02T01:32:00.000-07:00

New template. Justified text. Nerdvana.

Currently in my head...

2010-10-01T17:40:00.001-07:00

1. Madness - Flavors of Entaglement - Alanis Morissette.
2. No Sunlight - Narrow Stairs - Deathcab for Cutie.
3. 3 rounds and a sound - 3 rounds and a sound - Blind Pilot
4. Needled 24/7 - Hate crew deathroll - Children of Bodom
5. Fade to black - Ride the lightning - Metallica.

Mumbai Memoirs

2010-09-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

WARNING - Long-ish post. If you are looking for the punchline right now - nope, I think the mission bombed. Go figure!

And now on to the verbosity...

The rush to the Bangalore airport was a photo finish – thanks to the traffic and my lapse in judgment of the traffic. Reaching the airport eight minutes before check-in closes, being the last to check-in and gulping down a large rum-and-cola in the little remaining time post-security checks made for a flight that I will remember for a long time. A fairly uneventful flight with the welcome bantering that Indigo pilots are ever wont to – Capt. Krishnan ranted about the absolute stupidity of the Mumbai ATC despite having reached ahead of time and yet having to circle around for thirty minutes.

The thing that strikes first when one sees Mumbai from the air is the sheer size of the city and the blaze of lights that it is. Bangalore is little patches of light with one fairly large patch, but Mumbai is a massive mass of twinkling brightness. The Ganesh Chaturthi season just added a little more character – long strings of blinking colored lights. Even at half-past-eleven the city was still awake. There were buses and cars plying on the road – I even saw a couple of traffic jams.

A little after midnight and past the usual touts at the airport I got into an autorickshaw with a vague idea of my destination and instructions from my aunt on the phone. I have this thing - if the driver thinks you are new to the city then you are setting yourself up for a rip-off and I usually pretend that I am just coming back home. But, surprisingly this wasn’t the case – I wasn’t overcharged and the meter, despite having seen better days about ten years ago wasn’t tampered. And, that was generally the deal with every auto or taxi in Mumbai. These guys have managed to figure out one very important thing – if you refuse a passenger or overcharge them then there are twenty others who are going to be willing to take them to their destination at the standard fare. If an auto or a taxi in Mumbai refuses to come to someplace then that means that he really doesn’t want to go there – no saar-kaali-bar-beku-vonnand-half or meter-mele-extra-kodi-saar. He will not come. Period.

Mumbai is a city that has changed, is changing and will change. It’s changed quite a bit from when I was there four years ago, a lot from when I was there six years ago, and I really can’t connect to the Mumbai that I lived in as a kid for five years from 1992-97. There are just these little slivers that seem to have remained intact from what I have in my memory – my school, the old house, the neighbours and the shop where I used to buy my pencils and notebooks, but there is an enormous amount of new things that have sprouted up.

What is, though clearly, still imprinted in my mind is that sense of urgency that everyone in Mumbai has – everyone is in the process of getting somewhere. Constantly. Only for a moment will you see a man relax with a cup of tea and a cigarette at the street corner before he rushes to work, the housewife smoothen her hair before she continues peeling vegetables in the crowded local train or a college kid taking a second to salivate at a svelte model on a hoarding before running to hang off an overcrowded bus.

The city is crowded and bursting at the seams with more and more people pouring in each day. Everything is scrunched up – right from buildings to people traveling in a local train during peak hour down to the vada inside the pav. It’s a mad fight for space in a city that is spilling over with people. There are people everywhere – swarming and seething and moving around in waves. People and vehicles move around in a strange ballet ducking, skirting and jumping over each other. The bus will just stop for an instant and without the driver blowing the horn the pedestrian move out of the way. Getting off the train just requires you to put yourself reasonably in the line of sight of the door at your station and the crowd will do the rest. Of course, you’d want to carry a can of deodorant with you at all times.

At night, the city doesn’t sleep and a significant portion of it parties – and on Fridays and Saturdays I was told it parties hard. I had the fortune of meeting up with friends from college on Friday night. First at Toto’s in Bandra which I located with Google maps on my phone (have Google maps, will travel) where my friend pointed out the lead guitarist (or was it the drummer?) from Indus Creed. Toto’s is a trippy pub bordering on being psychedelic - it has an old car with bright neon tubes around it hanging off the roof. The bottom of the car doubles up as the roof of the bar off which cocktail glasses hang. The music is ranges from reasonably good to stuff that I don’t care much about. A smallish place which on that Friday night was pretty crowded – there was hardly any place to move around.

After that, we headed off to the Hard Rock Café. Now, I’ve never been to the Hard Rock Café in Bangalore (well, for that matter any Hard Rock Café) – primarily because I don’t see the point in going alone, plans that happen with friends to catch a live performance never work out and people who promise treats at HRC never make good on the promise (yes, I am looking at you, you fat little kid/pig). Despite that, I am quite confident that the crowd in Bangalore can probably never match up to the crowd that was there in Mumbai that night. There were the usual investment banker types, rich-dad-sons, amit_123s(ugh! and double ugh!) and women. Oh…the women – in every size, shape, color and state of skimpiness. Boy, do they know how to dress and they know how to flaunt what their mama (or the cosmetic surgeon) gave them. Drop-dead gorgeous would be an understatement. All this glitz and glamour – my friend swore was nothing extraordinary; it was just another Friday night.

A look-see in Shiro next door was another one of those culture-shocks that I thought I’d probably never see – only just hear about it. Shorter clothes and tipsier women – light years away from the Shiro in Bangalore. The dance floor was full of the incorrigible amit_123s(ugh! and double ugh!) and their brunette/blonde bomb-shells. I was probably the only stereotypical Bangalore-techie in that place that night with a bulky backpack to boot. So, I quietly parked my burning bacon (for the Kannadiga – urkondiro thikka) on the edge of the artificial pool – a little wall about four feet or so high and about eight inches thick. Five minutes later there were three very beautiful women in very short clothes up on that little wall dancing. The desperate software engineer voyeur in me was dying to swivel neck to the left with tongue out and jollu dripping to watch those curves flow ever so smoothly in time with the music – ah…! – but then their hatte-khatte Punjab-de-puttar companions – the smallest about thrice my size and my sense of propriety made me continue gazing at the hundreds of red bulbs hanging off the ceiling on twenty feet long wires. That and what was to come the morning of Sabbath. In the wee hours of Saturday, we walked out of the place and I headed back with the friend to his place. Party scene in Mumbai – check. Actually partying – epic fail. My social ineptness – for the win!

As I write this, I can’t think of a word better than chaos to describe Mumbai in a word. But, it is a controlled organized chaos – if you look long enough carefully, it is a complicated dance that is being danced to an even more complicated tune. Everyone plays his or her part, whatever it might be, and moves on mindful of their own personal agenda – from the auto drivers who scream for ten-seconds at each other on the road for cutting lanes without warning, the poor laborers who sleep in the open leaning shanties made of four sticks and a ragged leaky tarpaulin or the random couples who hook up in pubs and discs to spend that one night together. The Mumbaikar knows that time is money and in the end it is money that speaks - even the BigMan above in his places of worship gets just about the right time from his devotee before he rushes off to get on with his task of finding food, money, love and life in this crazy city.

Random

2010-09-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

Ignorance is bliss, but ignoring me gets me pissed. Capito?

Words of Wisdom

2010-09-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

It is better to have a written lousy code and crashed, than to have not written code at all.

PS: The code and the crashing is just there to confuse you. Much like how the red and tick-tock are there to confuse you when asked about an orange. Go figure.

The older you get...

2010-09-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

...the lesser you have to say. I just seem to be content with thinking things that I would have liked to say, and to think that I might say those things. I have taken to look back at things with a tinge of sadness, some regret and an unhealthy dose of cynicism. Every past action or memory, I tear apart in my head with that unmistakable feeling of why-the-f***-did-I-do-it.

Retrospection is like like watching the spilled milk flowing over your keyboard and cursing yourself for not being vegan and for not sticking to an abacus.

FML.

Note to self...

2010-07-30T11:12:00.001-07:00

Remember to smile back when someone smiles at you. Even if it is a stranger.

Ignore the creep old-ish man giving you evil looks.

Especially, if it was the cute girl that smiled at you first.

Idiot.

On my FB feed.

2010-07-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

Someone put up a status message that read something to the effect of that person liking home - home pages, coming back home....and home runs.

Thanks.

I feel so enlightened.

Bah!

Rose

2010-07-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

The sunlight streamed in through the blue curtains while the fan whirred away on the ceiling. It looked like it was going to be pretty good Sunday. She fidgeted around sleepily yet again to find a comfortable spot. He lay warm beside, his arm beneath her head. The small sharp beep woke her up and she looked at her cellphone. Suddenly she was wide awake - it was 10:00 AM. She'd never stayed over so late with a man she'd just met. Last night the dinner and the drinks were good. The dance was better - she hadn't had so much fun dancing in a long time. And he could talk about anything under the sun with a humor that made her smile every time. Her perfect red lips crinkled into a little smile. She was turning a little soft.

She slowly wriggled out from under the bedcovers, careful not wake him up. Her clothes lay on the floor in a mess. She quickly dressed herself up and got her hair back into shape. She turned to look at him - satisfied and lost in sleep. She opened her purse and drew out a single red rose - a little for the worse, but it still smelt like a rose. Then, she lay it on his chest and softly kissed him on his lips. His heart beat a little faster - but, just for a moment.

She checked his wallet on the bedside and left him 10 bucks. The rest went into her purse - a fat thick wad of notes. Enough to last the month out in style. He gave a little snore. The pills were working just fine.

"This is going to be a perfect Sunday, after all..."

The door closed with silent click behind her, as she let herself out.

Blood

2010-07-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

The sound was insignificant - a nondescript plop. Much like the sound that a warm bottle of soda makes when it is opened. And, well, honestly what followed was also not much different - a little hiss, vapor rising and then the soda overflowing on the hand - vaguely cold and occasionally sticky. The after-effects differed - if it was some cheap ripoff local concoction, then the pot was throne over the next couple of days, and if it was some decent stuff then it filled the belly with enough gas to manage a strong imitation of the wind section of an orchestra. Smelly, but with practice it could sound good.

He caressed the metal. Oddly enough, it did not feel cold like they said in the books. It felt warm - not the warmth of freshly baked bread, but more like the warmth of a fever. Fever wasn't meant to be comfortable - it was sickness and one, obviously felt, nauseated, but the warmth of the metal was strangely comforting. Maybe it wasn't the warmth, maybe it was the what lay ahead. The polished metal shone with a dully under the single naked tungsten light, reflecting the featureless and peeling green paint on the walls. He looked up at the window as the sun set in a blaze casting the dying orange glow into the room.

"Good..."

He pulled the trigger and splattered the walls with his brains. The single red rose on the floor started turning a strange shade of crimson with his blood.

Eyes wide shut

2010-07-26T03:50:00.001-07:00

The colored lights, when I close my eyes, never stop dancing. There are blobs - shapeless now, and in a fraction of a second become something from a past memory. They change color - comforting and warm and then harsh and painful - fed by thoughts that run through. I hurtle at breakneck speed on an endless track, tethered to a dangerously rattling roller coaster car - alone with the belt cutting across my body. There are faces on the sides of the tunnel - grinning, mocking, angry, sad and longing. Not all of them are what they are. The worst are the ones that are longing - fragments of a memory or desire long gone.

I open my eyes to collect my thoughts and I realize that it was never - ever. I am just another one of those leather bound books with golden engravings on the rib and yellowed pages that talk of things that were never interesting. Those books that stay up high on the bookshelf - a constant reiteration of the image of intellectuality that an illiterate millionaire wishes to project. Removed for no reason other that the occasional dusting by the maid. A nameless book by a faceless author about things that do not matter.

Goodbye, cruel world!

Shyte!!!

2010-07-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

Check this out!

I've been reading my old posts here chronologically backwards from the first one. And the comments as well. Besides having a shady reference to being single (yes, it still is prevalent in all my posts), I used to write a damn sight more that I do now.

But that is not the point...the point is this - this.

Now very carefully read the comment. And then do what it says - exactly. And then look at the first link.

Whoohoo...cheap thrills!

And 'spb', whoever you are - you have a lot of time on your hands and you are 'DA GOOGLER"!

Currently...

2010-07-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

Reading
*Multiple City - Writings on Bangalore - Edited by Anita De. (Danke Goobe!)
*In Xandau - William Dalrymple
*Chai Chai - Bishwanath Ghosh
*Remains of the Day - Kauzo Ishiguro
*The 'C' Language - Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan
*Introduction to Algorithms - Thomas H Cormen, Charles E Leiserson, Ronald Rivest, Clifford Stein

Listening
*Narrow Stairs - Deathcab for Cutie
*Zitilites - Kashmir
*No Balance Palace - Kashmir

////Update///
* 3 Rounds and a Sound - Blind Pilot
*I'm Wide Awake It's Morning - Bright Eyes
*Every Man for Himself - Hoobastank
*Antics - Interpol
*Turn on the bright lights - Interpol

About trees and dogs.

2010-06-14T10:27:00.001-07:00

A very long time ago - about five years, I told I friend, that I thought I was barking up the wrong tree. It later turned out that I _actually_ was barking up the wrong tree. But that, was a long time ago - it's been ages since I've spoken to that friend(?), the tree that I thought was the right one back then isn't (or wasn't) the right one either and there have been several trees since then. And all those trees in between were all wrong. The only thing that still holds is the canine allusion.

At eleven in the night, when you are perfectly sober and sane, you can't really blame it on the alcohol. Blame it on myself. Bah!

Kati Patang

2010-05-26T02:37:00.000-07:00

Based on the Reliance advert. that is doing the rounds these days, I am inclined to think that Kites is exactly as the advert. makes it out to be - an storyline hacked together over a vacation starting with lying on a deck chair and seeing kites flying in the sky. Random bits and pieces patched together with an overdose of glitz, glamor and violence to mask the total insipidity that underscores the entire premise, plot and climax.

Original, it is not. I had this strange sense of flashback through out the movie - the scenes and sequence were mercilessly ripped out of various cult/classic/landmark movies. It always seemed as if I had seen this before, but with different faces and different voices. I can't seem to put my finger on all of the cliches but here are the few that come to mind immediately.

The opening part where a severely hurt Hrithik Roshan is rushed to the village doctor who pulls out the bullets in his makeshift OR is a sequence that has be beaten senseless by countless directors - drinking alcohol out of a shot glass, then using the remaining alcohol to sterilize the instruments and finally, dropping the offending blood coated bullet into the glass again. The first thing it reminds me of is the Bourne Identity - of course that happens out at sea, but the idea is the same (I wouldn't be surprised if that, too, was flicked from elsewhere).

When Hrithik sees Barbara Mori, underwater is another one. The earliest instance of such underwater imagery I can remember is from the Silk Route video - Dooba dooba (which I may add is one of my fave songs ever). The latest, barring Kites, I can remember is Blue. Now if you draw inspiration from a movie like that, it speaks volumes about desperation notwithstanding Lara Dutta.

The flashback in the apartment when he comes to find here smacks of Anurag Kashyap's DevD - bright red lighting and wide open eyes. And this was a sentiment that was equally shared by anddeep and anti-social butterfly. This is just one, and I am sure if I have the testicular fortitude to sit through the damn thing another time, I can find countless others.

The standoff and the shooting that follows in the rain when Hrithik comes back to look for Barbara is bang out of Sin City - there is little else that can be the way Frank Miller thinks and Robert Rodriguez executes. Dark nights, heavy rain and minimal lighting that throws people's profiles into stark contrast against the black. Strategically placed and colored neon signs to streak the character the right color. Another movie that heavily used this in recent times was Kaminey - the part where they find the drugs and then head to the trailer where Fahid[sic!] Kapoor lives.

This last one might seem a little bit of a stage two connect, but the climax simply reminds me of Gladiator. I don't know if I am being rude to Russel Crowe or extremely kind to Hrithik Roshan - just before he jumps off the cliff the look on his face reminds me of the faraway longing look on Maximus' face before he dies in the middle of the Colosseum.

All in all, it's a lousy movie filled with a lot of pointless things, fake accents and exploding cars. The cheap rip-offs leave you thinking about all the other awesome movies that they were ripped off from, rather than Kites itself. Anurag Basu - sincere advice - Vegas, Kangana almost doing a wardrobe malfunction and lots of Spanish cannot make a weak plot interesting. And just because Hrithik can dance does not mean his primary profession is that of a dance-teacher (though I know for a fact that women are impressed by guys who can dance and dance class is an excellent way to find a girlfriend) - he could have just as well been a photographer or a guitar teacher or a hairdresser.

Kites is best avoided unless you want to moon over Barbara Mori who seems to be one saving grace in the movie. She is beautiful and breathtakingly so - plain, simple and sweet. Just like the girl you always hoped you would meet on the bus or in the Metro. I am in love with yet another woman I'll never meet. Hrithik's physique makes you feel like a slob. Next to Steve Reeves, this man's poster will be among the posters in my gym (if I ever get around to having one). I have yet again promised to myself to run in the morning - it's been two days since seeing the movie and I am yet to make good on that one. The cinematography is good and mostly strong - except when there are closeups of faces and half the face is outside the frame. I am inclined to give the cinematographer the benefit of doubt and blame it on the editing and the screen that I watched it on. I just hope it can float around long enough to break even, though God and everyone else knows that it sucks!

Currently listening

2010-05-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Alanis Morisette - Flavors of Entaglement
Amy MacDonald - This is the life
Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career

Listen. Well worth the effort.

The question is...

2010-05-11T11:12:00.000-07:00

...should I or shouldn't I? What about the consequences...?

Sigh...well...

$init 0

Currently...

2010-05-06T21:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a fairly lousy month on the whole, barring work (which is going on decently enough except for attending pointless meetings). No admits yet - 6 rejects and waiting on 2. Sucks! It isn't even politically correct these days to ask someone for coffee. Or I just don't know how to. Either way - L!

Have a nice weekend, mortals.

Current reading
1. The Kenneth Anderson Omnibus - Volume 1 - Kenneth Anderson
2. Phantoms in the Brain - V.S. Ramachandran & Sandra Blakslee
3. What do you care what other people think ? - Further adventures of a curious character - Richard.P.Fenyman
4. The Collected short stories - Roald Dahl

Untitled

2010-04-13T06:03:00.000-07:00

Despite what anyone says, I know it is going to unfold just the way I predict. I am sure - I have seen it before. Too many times for my own good.

Statistically speaking ...

2010-04-11T21:33:00.001-07:00

... I have had more success with asking women out when compared to applying for a Master's degree.

Damn!!!

Maybe...

2010-04-03T00:40:00.000-07:00

... I should just screw all the noble aspirations and desire to learn and make a difference - to probably make things a little better. I should just become one of the many billions whose only aim is to make tons and tons of money for themselves. Become materialistic, suck up, ditch the morals, fake it.

Eagles fly high, but weasels don't get sucked into propellers.

SOD IT!

Of protocols and standards...

2010-03-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

Have you ever spared a thought for why, despite your using shitty Internet Explorer or the popular Mozilla Firefox or the uber-elite Safari or the wannabe-cool Chrome, this post that you are reading looks pretty much the same? Of course, if you are the techie like me, you would have put the title of this post and the last question together and figured out the answer. If you have the answer please feel free to skip the next paragraph and read on. The others, hang on a little...

Ok, so the deal is this - standards and standardized protocols. What it simply means is that it is a pre-determined and agreed steps of communicating and interpreting. If some bit of software, or hardware for that matter, says that it supports a protocol or a standard it means that if you were to use another similar program or hardware from a different vendor that claimed to support the same protocol or standard, the results you would see would be similar. The advantage is, quite simply, that your life is a little bit simpler. I want my readers to see this blog with a gray background and I know that despite what you are using to see this, you are going to be seeing a gray background. Why? Because this page has been generated by HTML and CSS (in addition to others) which are standardized. To put it in perspective - if you went to a restaurant and asked for a glass of water, you would be served a clear potable liquid that consisted of H20 (mostly). Everyone understands what water is!!! That is the beauty - all you need to understand is something that is publicly available and if you do understand that then it means that you will be able to communicate clearly and lucidly to anyone who understands that. Simple!

At this point you might be asking yourself what is this guy trying to get at, in this beer induced state? All I am trying to say is that webpages and cellphones and other assorted technology is not the only thing that ought to be standardized. Personal interactions could be standardized as well. My biggest gripe is that there is no clear cut way to express that you like a certain member of the opposite sex without running the risk of embarrassing yourself in some manner or the other. Ask a number too soon and you are labeled horny, desperate or a host of other disparaging titles. Keep waiting and some total dumb-idiot will come and sweep her away. And the worst part is, he will be the kind who can string three words into a sentence, or will be some arcane philosopher idiot who walks with his head so far up his rear-side that he cannot see where he is walking.

In short, there has to be some accepted method where it is perfectly normal for a guy(girl) to ask a girl(guy) he(she) has met not so long ago for a number or express interest. In case, she(he) is already taken, there is some respectable way to say that as well. Both parties walk away with their pride and self-respect intact. No loose or horny labels. Personally, I think there will be a lot less trouble or violence that way.

And, yeah, screw all the excitement and mystery that you might probably not get. If I want mystery or excitement, I'll go read Doyle or watch a Tarantino flick.

And in the meantime...

2009-08-21T04:45:00.001-07:00

...while I contemplate on the nature of the universe, solve hard computing problems, vegetate, procrastinate and generally exert myself in cooking up reasonably plausible reasons for not writing anything remotely sensible, check this out from my not-so-long-ago trip to Singapore and Cambodia.

I am sorry....I meant this...

PS: Yes...I know this is called flickr-whoring, but what the hell...!!!

Edit: I am actually just sitting and staring at a screen that is just scrolling. Woohooo...ain't that fun!

Would you...?

2009-04-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

This is a story from a time long gone. A time when I wasn't bothered by the possible effects a recession could have on me - I guess I couldn't have spelt recession. Neither was I worried about how long an ISR took to execute. Tim was yet to invent the Internet as we know it or it probably was still command-line. I used to happily hum Mere Sapanon Ki Rani instead of the usual Creeping Death or Master of Puppets that keeps playing on inside my head today. I was four-ish back then, I think.

At the age of four, I had this crazy idea that I could convince people to belive in whatever I wanted them to. It was probably the earliest (and maybe, the only) signs that my folks had that I would probably become a consultant with an MBA. Thankfully, today, I am not. Atleast...not yet.

There was this phase (which lasted quite a while) where I wanted everything to be either strawberry flavored or colored. I still maintain that back then Kwality's strawberry ice-cream tasted different from what strawberry ice-cream does today. I have memories of eating half-raw strawberries from bushes that grew in my uncle's garden in Ooty. So much so, that I colored all the mountains in my 'scenery' pink and spent a lot of time trying to convince my teacher that it wasn't unheard of - in fact, I gave a very reasonable explanation. Someone had taken loads of pink paint and gone to the very top and tipped the container over. The result was what I had drawn. She was a little impressed.

We had a grapefruit tree in the school playground and after months of resisting temptation, one fine day during lunch I went and tried to examine what these big things were. Needless to say, thirty seconds later I was holding the fruit, completely detached from the tree in my hands. And then, the enormity of the situation sunk in - punishment and a note in the diary. Not the one to give up so easily, I hailed a classmated and asked him to hold the fruit up so that it was in contact with the spot where it hung from previously - if not, I warned him, that it would start rotting. I promised to return with a tube of glue so that we could stick the grapefruit back and then no one would ever know. I ran back to class and sat down - the epitome of innocence. It wasn't till much later that a teacher saw the poor chap holding the fruit to the tree looking very silly. Oh, and yes, there was a note in the diary that day.

The one thing that kept confounding me in school and sometime even now is that question - " Would you do this at your home?". If I were scribbling on the walls of my class with crayons and I answered no, then the automatic response was a lecture about how school was like a second home and ya-da ya-da. If I said yes, then the cold reply was, "Well...this is not your house!" How is a four-year old supposed to handle a question like that without having to resort to crying (which is what most of the girls in my class did)?

So would you...?

Shotgun

2009-03-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had the feeling that some of your closest friends think you are some kind of a freak... some kind of a monster maybe?

Something is wrong, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I am me, except that I have lost 4 kilos. Off my butt, not my brain. Yeah and the paunch, too.

Illusions

2009-02-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Bangalore has a lot of people who have illusions about what they are. Take for instance, the auto drivers, who, think they are pilots flying the Eurofighter Typhoon at Aero India or in a dogfight(which is more likely given the number of stray dogs). The Typhoon has this awesome ability to level out, and then kind of free fall slowly while turning at the same time. The trick that the pilots usually do is go into a steep climb, level out at the top, almost stop moving forward, float down gently turning left and then all of a sudden turn right and blast off at breakneck speed. The auto-driver does this on all the steep roads while looking for savari or trying to escape a mama's maamool-hungry sights.

And then there are the bus drivers who, almost fanatically, believe that buses are in reality intergalactic transporters that have the ability to pass through any solid object. This, of course, gets turned on by incessantly honking. They subscribe to the theory that JK Rowling's Knight Bus from the Harry Potter, with it's fantastic power to make whole buildings and lamposts jump out of it's way, was infact inspired when she visited Bangalore and took the 201 from HAL airport to Banashankari. The beds and the chocolate were nothing but frivolous additions to a perfectly practical way of transportation.

Have you ever wondered why the white Sumos and the Indicas honk constantly even on an empty road, overtake other drivers on the left and jump signals? If you have, then very obviously you haven't ever undertaken the task of ferrying people while suffering from a constant case of dysentery. And most definitely, you have not done it while wearing a white (well...once-upon-a-time white) uniform.

Two idiots, a consultant and a B-School

2009-02-16T06:17:00.000-08:00

For all those of you(if any) who have me on your RSS feed, "Hello!!!Again!!!".

I haven't posted in a long time. So long, that the last two comments on my last post are random bot comments that are absolutely junk.

So, yes, it's been a really long while and surprisingly enough much has really changed, except that the economy has apparently gone down and the my annual ransom payment to the IT department has gone up terribly.

I still get a kick out of writing code, I am as lazy as ever, I get depressed over my lousy job post AeroIndia, I fantasize about my almost family-pack ab being six-pack instead and getting into this habit of spending Valentine's washing the car - alone.

All that apart, the whole point of this blog is something that happened a couple of weeks ago. Now my friend sheep who is a consultant in Gurgaon and an alumnus of IIM-B was here in town a couple of weeks ago. So Mr.Sheep is this tallish thin lanky nerdy looking guy who would probably fly away if you sneezed hard enough in a 1-metre radius around him. He was back at his alma-mater looking for potential consults[sic!] and I went over to meet him and down a couple of cold ones. Which by the way did not really happen. But what happened was this.

I happened to be loitering around near the mess talking to batchmates from my year when I spotted the actors R.Madhavan and Sharman Joshi walk in. My sister has been after me to get auto-graphs from one or more of the Idiots in the '3 Idiots' currently being shot at IIM-B. So I went up, talked like a total philistine in an attempt to make them feel good so I could get the autographs without sounding like I wanted a free lunch off them. Reel life is not real life and interviews on Aaj Tak, etc. are scripted.

And, then with my brownie points with sis safely in butt-pocket, I walked off, opened a can and observed the following.

Two fairly-big, popular Bollywood stars who earn shitloads and have hajaar-screen presence (though they have apparently been doing this nightly walk shit for about a month or so now and people generally ignore them) drew a crowd of five people with three of the said five being females of the cute-cuppax-philistinemax types.

Mr.Sheep in a weirdly purple shirt who has probably had few mentions in news papers, one 2x1.5 inch photo in Page 1 of Times of India Bangalore edition ( and he was the only one who was not looking at the camera when the photo was taken) and is from NITK, Surathkal had a long line of 30 wannabe-consults and wannabe-fin-people waiting for him to proof-read and spout tips for improving their one-page resumes.

Talk about popularity!!! Bah...!

Me: "Macha...check it out da. Some five people are talking to those two 'Idiots' there, and here some n-hajaar junta have put line to meet you"

Sheep: "They are not doling out jobs, da!"

Touche!

P.S: Mr. Madhavan I thought 'Kannathil Muthamittal' and 'Alaipayude' were really nice movies. Mr. Joshi you are a funny guy. Both of you, I guess acting is a difficult job and all that, but with all due respect ( I have nothing against you guys) you got your keesters kicked that night.

Quickie!

2008-06-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

No...this is not what you think!

I've been meaning to write and somehow it just did not happen. There are four auto-saved drafts and I can't seem to remember why and where I stopped and what I meant to write. I just hope that this does not become the fifth!

There are a couple of tags, one old and one really old, to which I was put up by Macadamiathenut and Silverine respectively, that I will sometime in the near future complete.

In the meanwhile, here's a bunch of reviews of books that I read over the past couple of months.

First off, Chowringhee. I picked this up at the Crossword outlet-let(meaning small outlet) at Shopper's stop after having been dragged there by a friend. I was and still am in this weird phase of reading books by Indian authors. The blurb to this one by Shankar seemed fairly interesting. And honestly, it was an awesome read. I later found out that, this book was originally written much before Haley wrote 'Hotel'. Having read 'Hotel', I couldn't help but imagine that Haley probably pinched the basic idea of the plot. The English one, is of course a translation, but a very good translation. I'd definitely recommend it.

I'd heard a lot about Amitav Ghosh, especially about his 'Calcutta Chromosome' that a friend had once read. I couldn't find that one, but I found the 'Glass Palace' instead. I was a little apprehensive about finishing this one considering that the copy of 'One hundred years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that I purchased some eight months ago, I have yet to start. And, the 'Glass Palace' is quite a fat book. It started off nicely enough and is descriptive throughout. Somewhere in the middle it get a little a slowly, but you assume that it will become better and it does. It starts in the pre-independence days and then ends not long ago - in our times. At the end of it all, there is a slight nagging doubt - something does not seem to have fallen into place. Surely worth a read though.

The last one is the 'Silent Raga' - Ameen Merchant's first. I generally find most of the book reviews in 'The Hindu' pretentious and boring - stuff that I read when I have finished reading everything else that is worth a glance. It so happened that I chance upon this one, the same day I read a review in the Hindu. The review was not so great, but it wasn't bad either, so I decided to pick up the book despite the lousy blurb (What do Tamil Brahmin girls do when the turn eighteen...? or something like that) which I thought was damn silly. The story follows the life of a girl brought up in a conservative Tam-Bram family in a small town when her mother dies in an accident . The story jumps back and forth from the past into the present. The story is a little too slow and becomes boring, but when you do finish it and then think about it, is when you begin to see what the author was trying to get at. If you can understand Tamil, then there's a lot of Tam lingo that you will find in the book. All in all - above average - maybe worth a read.

And that bring us all to a very arbit and possibly (no...definitely) lousy bunch of reviews by a sleep-deprived 'saaftwear yenginyer'. Have a nice weekend, folks!

P.S : I swear I've been a good boy!

The Lament of the Laptop

2008-04-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

I happened to ask Ra about whether his laptop had a single core processor and whether the Centrino Core 2 Duo was a 64-bit processor. This is what happened. At least, the interesting part.

[17:40] Ra: This laptop is ok.
[17:40] Ra: Serves the purpose.
[17:40] Ra: I'll get one when this gives up and dies.
[17:42] Me: when the processor's ghost exits through the cooling vents...
[17:42] Ra: Yes then.
[17:43] Me: ...and its tormented cries rent the fabric of your display into a complicated networks of tears...
[17:43] Ra: Haha.
[17:43] Me: ...when the keys become so weary that they no longer produce a click, not even the cheap sound that compaq is famous for...
[17:44] Me: ...when your battery will leak critical life blood lithium ions...
[17:44] Me: ...and when there is no nirvana playing in the backfground to make the whole thing ironic as hell...
[17:45] Ra: Ah, my suicidal laptop.
[17:45] Me: ...simply because the magnets in the speakers have long demagnetized to scrap iron.
[17:45] Me: I am sounding bleak aren't I?
[17:45] Ra: You are sounding rather funny.

P.S : I just wanted to rub in the fact that I was getting a new laptop. Fully loaded. Well, almost.

Red pill or blue pill?

2008-04-05T22:12:00.001-07:00

Another one. Dead baadi ?

Following dreams.

2008-03-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

Here's one. Hopefully, if it is liked, there will be more. Or else, there will still be more.

Update

2008-02-27T21:12:00.000-08:00

The story is open again.

It's been moved to http://toscsp.blogspot.com

To make stuff easier, we will contribute and discuss in the comment section of each chapter and then we are ready to close the chapter, I will manually update the post to show the complete chapter and we will move on the next.

For easy reading of the comments section, write you contribution in a bold face. All you have to do it put your contribution within and . It will make things nicer and will be much more easier for me to put stuff together later.

So far so good...!!!

Let the yarn begin...again!

The discussion thread

2008-02-25T07:31:00.000-08:00

Hi,

This is the discussion thread as promised for this. Please use this to discuss major twists and turns with other contributors.

Cheers.

UPDATE: Let's not go into a abstract philosophical plot right away, it's just going to make things complicated. Simply stick to nice clean simple line with maybe a hint of mystery. I am hoping that more people will contribute. If you can put a little post or a link to this blog post on your blogs it would be nicer. Bigger the party, the better.

If I feel a plot is too weird then I will delete it, or rather hide it. I will repost it on the discussion thread so that we can see how it can be made to fit in.

Please number your contributions so that we do not loose track. We have hit 3 so far so, continue from 4 now.

UPDATE : We are on to Chapter 3. Chapter 3 is flashback. We need to sketch out the two characters k and the nameless guy. We need to bring the woman who is proably involved with K into the picture NOW! Give her nice sultry sounding name. Nothing raunchy and all but something that reminds of open blue skies and yellow corn fields. Or whatever!

The Open Source Collaborative Story Project

2008-02-25T07:14:00.000-08:00

I dunno if it's already been done, but this is something that I have always wanted to try. Simply because Open Source code projects are so much more robust and better than proprietary stuff in many ways.

This is going to go like this :

1) For obvious reasons, including my laziness, this thing will be working entirely in the comments section.

2) I'll start off with an opening line and then as and when people drop by they add a line or a paragraph to the story.

3) If you feel you are nearing the end of a plot/sub-plot/idea, feel free to start a new chapter. This comes with the little problem of someone wanting to contribute to a chapter and then not being able to since it is already closed. We'll get to that when we have to cross that bridge.

4) Feel free to add characters, names for characters, places and so on. But, don't do it just for the heck of it. Let there be a reason. (I'll start another post, that could be used a discussion board of sorts. Feel free to bounce ideas around there.)

5) Please please please keep it clean. I am not enabling moderation on this, since that would be like code review before a checkin and can get quite messy. But, if something is totally in bad taste I shall remove it. Sorry, but let's try to keep it nice. At least for the time being.

Why am I doing this in the first place?

First off, I had tried this a long time ago over SMS and though we did not get very far, there was some really nice stuff that came along. Sadly, all those messages got lost when I changed my phone. It actually felt good. The other two contributors of that effort visit this blog - Ra and CJ. CJ had one excellent line in that - "The cold draught of air passed by him like a stoned angel".

And secondly, I think it is going to be good fun.

To make life easier, I'll post links to this post and the discussion thread on the sidebar so that you can reach stuff easily enough. Or you could bookmark those links on your browser as well. Whatever grabs you.

Let's see where it goes. Maybe, if it hit the right notes we could make a book out of it all.

After all that here goes the first line :

"He stubbed his cigarette out and called for a coffee. The coffee was, of course, lousy and it was by far the safest of all the bistro had to offer. The rain hadn't let up yet; the reflections of yellow street lights danced merrily on the puddles outside."

Horlicks & Boost Services

2008-02-22T02:53:00.000-08:00

After a very very long night of work yesterday that stretched into the wee hours of the morning today, the lack of sleep made me a little grumpy. I just refused to put semi-colons at the end of statements.

And then this mail dropped into my inbox. I've been laughing for the past ten minutes non-stop. Yes...I am sure all the third-standard kids here who write software, Verilog and design PCBs will miss it.

Dear All,

We wish to bring to your kind attention that we have received an intimation
from Glaxosmithkline that with immediate effect they will withdraw
from their vending business services.

With reference to this, in future we will not be able to provide Horlicks &
boost.

We regret for the inconvenience.

Regards,

Hospitality Team

This and lots of that.

2008-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

Now a dear and mostly unwashed friend of mine has taken to using me as a whipping boy for populating his blog here. The conversation, I assure you, did not take place, though if it did, it would have pretty much been along the same lines. I suggest you take a look at the comments sections there for a more accurate version of the probable conversation.

And since we still stuck on the topic of V-Day, here is a little observation that I've made. Read this now to figure out what comes next. There is a mention of a woman in this post somewhere near the bottom.

Here's the twist - February 10th, I see this woman on the bus and her hands and fingers are empty and untouched as yet. February 15th - there's a thin shining gold band on the fourth finger of the left hand. You do the math now.

I sure the lucky bum in question loves Himmesh and thinks that Strings is the best band ever. He also affirms that Megadeth is a misspelling of the phrase 'Mga Dth' which is what he messages his buddies and her when he gets humped in an exam.

He is rumored to have asked during his Unix lab why there was no 'C:\>' at the prompt but something like 'guest@localhost.localdomain' or 'bash-2.05#'. It irked him to no end that there was no Windows Explorer and 'dir' did not work at command prompt.

He wonders why William Makepeace Thackeray, about whom some of his 'nerdy' friends talked about, did not come to Raj's rescue.

His abiding dream is to appear one day on Indian Idol or India's hottest. His biggest crib against Coffee Day is that they serve cretin on their menu. Why should anybody want to eat an overpriced rat or a mousse, he demands of the waiter. And that too, from Belgium, which he thinks is not even a country.

'Welcome' and 'Jab we met' make his heart sing for joy. But wait, he has heard of Pink Floyd and Metallica, because all his irritating guitar-totting friends are passionate about it. Five-point someone was awesome but One night @ the call centre was a spritual experience. He dreams that one day he too shall have such a story to write about. After getting placed in XYZ BPO and Support Services - the best job on his campus.

And then, legends have been told of his Orkut About Me. The fact that it had absolutely no vowels was a minor technicality. Ambiguous statements like 'Cnt c' could be mis-interpreted for something politically incorrect and indecent never crossed his mind. 'Vowels are for wimps' is a maxim he lives by.

His favorite topic of conversation with friends is about the lastest offers that Vodafone/Airtel has. Next in list is, of course, a critical comparison of all the 125-cc bikes on the market. DKNY, AIX (oh, yes... it is not A|X or Armani Exchange) and DJ&C are labels he swears by. Dolce and Gabbana is probably the cheesiest imitation of DJ&C - must've been made in Ulhasnagar or something.

Beep...Beep

It's her phone. An SMS. Mind you, it is an SMS not a message.

"I luv u so mch. C u n clg. Mss'n u"

Sigh...I don't think that cozy conversation about Before Sunrise and Before Sunset is ever going to happen.

P.S : That, in retrospect, sounds like a highly loser racist rant. But, heck, it was fun writing it.

Old habits die hard

2008-02-13T08:09:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have never read my older blogs, this should be somewhat new. I am, of course, hoping that I haven't pulled a stunt like this on this one. But, then again, my memory has always been selective. And for those of you who have read my older blog(God save you..!), this should make you feel right at home. You know that warm mushy feeling that you get in the corner of your heart???

What's the point of it all?

Every year, for the past god-knows-how-many years, Valentine's day comes and goes by and it doesn't make a single difference to me. The week leading up to the day is always the same - is this it? And then, D-Day minus two onwards it becomes progressively clear that it is not this that that 'it is this'. It's just another one of 'those'. It's not that I hate the whole concept, but it is just that I hate the concept of me having to go through it year after year. If there is a glimmer of hope it is shot to hell by either another (or rather the actual) boyfriend or a ring on the fourth finger of the left hand.

I guess it is going to be the same this year too...

22 years and still going strong

How I wish..

2008-02-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

This is one of the sweetest ads I've seen in a long time. I just wish it were as simple for me now to impress a pretty girl like the way this kid does it...

If only...

The Week

2008-01-15T05:07:00.000-08:00

Monday
Shit! Shit! Shit! The week stretches endlessy in front of you.

Tuesday
Resign to the fact that you have no other choice.

Wednesday
Crib and bitch but get on with it.

Thursday
There may be hope after all.

Friday
You see a glimmer of light in the distance

Saturday
Dammit...! Finally you are the end of it all.

Sunday
Whoohoo! It so bright and sunny...or maybe I am just hungover from yesterday night.

Sunday [night]
Screw it all! The light at the end of the tunnel was the headlight of yet another week that is going to run you over. Damn...damn...damn!!!

That's me in the spotlight... well.. almost

2008-01-06T06:58:00.001-08:00

Clickhere for my first onstage performance. I am one in the middle trying to look cool. Sadly enough it did not work. There was no crowd willing to let me crowd surf. It was awesome fun though...!

P.S: Gracias, sundar!

So...that's that.

2007-12-24T22:49:00.001-08:00

It's been ages since I wrote anything that did not end with a semi-colon. Excepting, of course, the e-mails that were follow-ups to things that ended with a semi-colon.

Life has been pretty mundane and normal - not something that goes down well with me, but then most of us don't have a choice. If we had our way we would probably want something radically different from what our respective lives are at the moment. I for one would like to have lots of fast cars, fancy sleek laptops (both the electronic variety and the other) and cocktails at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then again, I am not James Bond or Vijay Mallaya. And, Mallaya has an airline and a yatch to boot.

Somethings are scary. And sometimes they screw up the head. I was at this party drinking beer and thinking about bootloaders and memory management looking and feeling totally lost and at home, like I normally do at any party. Then suddenly this cute woman whom I have been seeing walk in and out of my field of vision come to me.

[Afraid]

After getting done with the usual introductions and pointless things she proceeds to park herself next to me. By which time the people hanging around have vanished. At this point, I would like to make a point which is I don't know to handle women. Especially ones that are tipsy. Very tipsy. It was as this instant, I would at least like to believe, that a couple of nice ideas in my heads about how to optimize memory accesses and improve computing were forever lost to mankind.

[Scared]

" ______ has left you all alone and wandered off, eh?"

"Umm...yeah! But, that is normal. He does that very often but I am used to it."

"He is so frustrating. I just can't understand him! Argh...!"

"Umm... yeah. I write code for a living. I know how it feels."

That line did not have the required effect. The required effect being the are-you-completely-mad-or-hard-of-hearing-look.

"I dated him until last week. It was so frustrating..."

[Minor heart attack]

And she starts to sniffle and then cry. Now, mind you, I can't stand crying women. They are like Fermat's Last theorem - it is believed that a proof existed but it took a really clever guy to come up with a 200 page proof to actually prove it. And even then, someone found a couple of mistakes in it.

The enterprising and clever witted fellow that I am, I had a line for the occasion. Bang out of Pulp Fiction.

"It's ok. You can't really help it. Shit happens!"

She said something else which I didn't really catch, but it is something that I don't think was very nice. And then she went to get another beer for herself.

Now, this woman is really cute, intelligent and will be an investment banker someday. As they say, a bomb. I would have asked her out if I was someone else and wasn't furiously hunting for my little nitro-glycerine tablets.

My cousin, when I told her, thinks that I should have risen to the occasion and offered a shoulder to cry on. Been a gentleman and prised away the beer from her. Offered her comforting words and all. At least offered her a tissue. I was a fool, she said from her apartment in the USA. But in my defence, they did not teach me all this in college.

"When things go the way you want in Linux you kill the processes and start all over again. If you are using Windows, " my professor gave an evil laugh, " you are pretty much dead. You should switch off and switch on your machine and pray to God that you won't have to reformat and re-install Windows."

P.S: I am waiting for my electric mandolin. In a couple of weeks.

2-L

2007-11-27T03:21:00.001-08:00

Notice the cool Joe Satriani poster and the ultra-L cubicle number.

Umm...

2007-11-18T06:37:00.001-08:00

Who says religion cannot be fun?

Dinner

2007-11-18T04:20:00.001-08:00

There's a nice sparkling red-wine to go with the pasta - lasagna. Soft music plays in the background. The lighting is a little dim but just right - it doesn't intrude. The soup was magnificent, but what was worth remembering was her trying to blow on it to cool it down. She picks up the wine glass and swishes the wine inside. Her voice is music. Specially, when she tell me how much she is enjoying this. The wind brings with it the tangy smell of the sea. Dinner on a balcony, thirteen floors up facing the ocean isn't great. It's heaven. The waiter clears the plates unobtrusively and gets rich chocolate cake for desert. The chocolate cream sticks to her lips and her trying to get it off makes her look sexy as hell.

WTF? Stop dreaming.

"Swami, ondu masale!!!"

Donnie Darko

2007-11-17T21:48:00.001-08:00

Check out the spiked hair!

Stud macha

2007-11-17T01:26:00.003-08:00

~~Photo blogging rocks.~~

Mobile photo blogging rocks.

Screw the chocolates

2007-11-14T21:00:00.001-08:00

When Tom Hanks stuttered, "Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you are going to get next" it became something of a cool thing to say in a totally random situation. Cheesy maybe, but still it made others aware of the fact that you watched movies out of Hollywood. Heck, I've used it myself in interview when asked what life was about. The interviewer wasn't really kicked about this one and I did not get the job thankfully.

Right now, I could say my life is like a box of chocolates. Not Lindt or even Cadbury's but probably, a box of Campco or some other random local brand. The difference is that I know, one hundred percent, what I am going to get next - a lousy piece of sweetened and slightly gooey cocoa. And frankly, after twenty two years of eating sweetened and slightly gooey cocoa it stops being fun anymore. Even if it contained copious quantities of liquor.

A techie's life, I have realized of late, does not make interesting blogging fodder. If you think that a techie in Bangalore spends his time after office pub-hopping or partying, you would be wrong six times out of ten. And I, for your information, fall into the six.

The most interesting thing in my life usually involves successfully compiling code, making software images and making sure that they do not crash.
Then there is the occasional installation of a DVD writer or a new phone. This is is the part in self-help books where the author strongly suggests that you go out and meet new people. Socialize. Get a life.

Back in college I used to crib about life to anyone and everyone who would listen about how life sucked. Surprise surprise! LIFE DID NOT SUCK. Yeah, there generally wasn't enough water to clean up, proper clothes to wear and a hundred bucks was a princely sum. But, as is with everything in life, in retrospect, drinking cheap rum with colored water with a chemical taste that was passed off as cola while chewing on peanuts fried in oil of a very questionable nature and origin was a hell of a lot more fun. Walking in the dark along a beach with a raggedy bunch of friends that reeked of rotting fish beats walking around in a mall filled with very very pretty and possibly single women. Cribbing about not having air-conditioned labs in college is a damn sight better than being stuck in an air-conditioned lab at work where it just a shade above freezing.

I guess it is the company that matters. Colleagues are nowhere close to a substitute for hostelmates, classmates, batchmates and collegemates in that order. Right now, I am counting the hours to the night of 29th when I shall hopefully leave for a weekend to Suratkal. A weekend of simple pleasures that will put in perspective this highly materialistic life that I have started living. No doubt, it will make me feel like shit, but then like Tarantino constantly hammered it into his fans in Pulp Fiction - "Shit happens..."

This is dedicated to all that we had back then in college. I sorely miss them and you guys. This is to you wherever you are. It fuckin' rocked. Thank you so much for all the good times. Let's do it again one more time, all of us together!

Stud

2007-11-12T07:58:00.001-08:00

I got (what we baays like to call) a stud phone. Here is what the Sony Ericsson k550i looks like. It has loads of nifty features including a 2.0 megapixel Cybershot camera and this amazing slick slim look.

The best part of this new acquisition is that I can:

a)Listen to the shitloads of mp3s that I have at home

b)Not listen to some crappy radio channel on the bus ride

c)Listen to Radio Indigo which is bloody good. They, for a change, play proper rock. They also play shitty hip-hop and bubble-gum bullshit, but on the ride back home I can listen to some real neat shit. For instance, I got Poison(Every rose has its thorn), Pink Floyd(Coming back to life) and Aerosmith(Dude looks like a lady) back-to-back

What is D---I---S---C---O?

2007-10-13T05:29:00.001-07:00

It really doesn't getter any better than this. Which kid wouldn't want to be taught English by Mithun da. You have to absolutely check this one out!!!

P.S: Watch out for the ugly woman who screams, the bald man and the random four guitarists!!!ROTFL

Why the F***?

2007-10-11T10:37:00.001-07:00

I can't understand what the hell is so wrong with me. WHY THE F***?

Nifty nifty shite.

2007-10-03T21:24:00.001-07:00

My only reason for the hajaar crib about the antediluvian Red Hat 7.3 that I run on my system, was I couldn't upgrade to a fairly decent version of Firefox, say 1.5. Which leads to an inability to install ScribeFire. Which means I cannot post from work.

For those you have tried such a daring stunt throwing all caution to wind, you know what it is all about. And those of you who haven't - please don't try this at home! And lastly, if you did try and succeed please tell me how.

But, then, we use this nifty thing here called rdesktop which lets you connect to a decent Windows Server 2003 machine, where ... wait for it... there is Firefox 1.5. So, hence, now I have Scribe Fire and here is the first of many posts from my clunky Linux for your reading pleasure/displeasure.

P.S: Yesterday was a good day. Two things happened and I would be much obliged if you guys could all take a minute out, close you eyes, cross your fingers and pray for this techie's two plans to succeed. The thing is every time I try to drop the BigMan up there a line, it is either busy or out of reach. But, mostly, I suspect my calls are being blocked. Could you please route it your way?

Much obliged!!!

Washed.

2007-09-29T22:56:00.001-07:00

I still think the Aussies were lucky. Had it not rained, they would have gotten their collective rearsides kicked. Saved by the finicky Bangalore weather...

But, then again, 100 mein 99 beiyman, phir bhi mera Bharath mahan.

Addendum: We just let them win today. You know all the athithi devo bhava

What kind of shoe?

2007-09-29T01:44:00.001-07:00

I can't figure out what kind of shoes go with jeans as well as a pair of formal trousers? Sneakers I already have. This question is part of my quest to look dashing, handsome, sexy. Or in one word - pseud.

P.S: I work out at the gym in office where I muck around with device drivers for a living.

P.P.S: Indian cricket is over-rated but it is still fun to watch.

Of times long gone...

2007-09-28T08:42:00.001-07:00

Books, Pizzas and a Ghazal

2007-09-15T06:47:00.001-07:00

I hauled ass down to Brigade Road/Church Street today with an intention of blowing moolah on books that I have been eying for over a year now. It so happened that I had picked an excellent time on a Saturday to land up there. The fact that I was meeting a very pretty friend of mine and her boyfriend and various other friends for pizzas that she was buying (her birthday was last week) at one caused me to land up at an unearthly hour. Namely, 10:00 am on a Saturday morning. Owing to the Ganesh chaturthi the roads were empty - so much so - that it took me exactly 20 seconds to get across Residency road at the Brigade Road junction.

I started with Landmark, since they had posters outside screaming about a 70% sale. Inside, the only thing that had anything to do with a reduction in price was one free CD of things that are made for 3-year olds (who watch skimpily clad women) if you brought one CD of things that were made for 3-year olds. Somehow, the only things that were of interest were Douglas Hoffstader's Godel, Escher, Bach : The Eternal Golden Braid(Wiki link), a bunch of really awesome jazz CDs (John Coltrane,Chet Parker and the likes) and some cool and nifty Jansport bags that were obscenely expensive. The book I plan to buy later, the music I can download off the net and I'll settle for an decent imitation at one-tenth the price from National Market.

Thereafter, I stared at the pretty women walking around with idiot boyfriends who look like potential gay band-members of boy-friends. The only thing that I do not have that they have is a fat-wallet accompanied with an inclination to spend. And, of course, the pretty woman on the arm.

I eventually landed up at Blossoms which in the past I always entered mentally preparing to stop from looking at the graphic novels since I never had the money to buy one. It's kind of stupid to ask your dad for half-a-grand to buy a glassy comic. Most fathers who were born in the fifties in India and are accountants will disagree before you can say Frank Miller or Alan Moore. Now, thanks to Tejas Networks' belief that I am an asset to their organisation by way of a monthly pay-check, brought me my comic-book orgasm.

Yep! Frank Miller's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns". At long last...my collection of graphic novels sees the light of day. Also Khaled Hosseni's The Kite Runner and Srividya Natarajan's No onion nor garlic. The last one was a random pick simply because it is a satire involving TamBrams in Chennai and so on. I've just started reading it and it is one scream, more, if you are a TamBram and you either live in Chennai or have made frequent visits to relatives who live there.

Reviews soon. The lunch was good. G was made to stand on a chair in the middle of Pizza Hut and then asked to tell everyone that it was her birthday and then all the staff sang for her. She was red and thoroughly embarrassed. Hell, her birthday was on the 9th. We all had a good laugh, including the boy-friend.

Listen to Hoshwalon ko khabar kya by Jagjit Singh from the movie Sarfarosh. The movie was brilliant, but this song is brillianter still. I am not a big fan of ghazals and metaphoric Urdu, but this one was explained to me by a Doctor of Chemistry somewhere in the middle of a snow-covered peak in the Himalayas at 13,000 feet. The last two lines are specially very nice (excuse the bad Urdu):

Hum labon se kah naa paaye unse hal-e-dil kabhi
Aur voh samjhe nahin yeh khaamoshi kya cheez hai.

Roughly, do correct me if I am wrong, it means that "I could never put in words and tell her what was in my heart, and she never understood what that silence meant". Awesome! Listen to this on Youtube here.

Have a lazy Sunday!!!

P.S: Thank God, they didn't know about yesterday. I think I would have fallen all the way through to the basement three floors lower - chair and all.