Books, Pizzas and a Ghazal

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.

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Saturday.

The weekend finally happened. Actually, as I write this, I am half-way through it. And, it was a nice weekend, considering that I closed my first PR on Friday evening and then did my first check-in into the CVS server. It wasn't anything great, but it sure was a good end to a slightly lousy week. I would go into the details, but that is about as interesting as Laloo's nostril hairs. It wouldn't be in the best interests to make a sincere attempt to reduce the already low readership that I seem to attract (or is that 'not attract' - since it's a negative and the negative of a negative in the sense of a positive?).

So, I hooked up with some friends and hit 'Downtown' on Residency road. We had some beers and then we walked it down to Blossom's. I had this irresistible urge to go and buy some graphic novels. The collection there is simple awesome. Specially, the Neil Gaiman Sandman series and the Batman: Return of the Dark Knight (by the maestro himself - Frank Miller). Also on the shelves were Hush and Hush returns. Despite not being as great an aficionado as Bhayak or AK, the shelf there gave me a little orgasm. Add to that a stack of Calvin and Hobbes on the side.

The prices are a little bit of a pinch. Specially, at the end of the month, when you try to figure out where that huge chunk of salary went. You look around - you still wearing the same old clothes that you have always remembered wearing, you still travel by bus, and most importantly, you are still hopelessly single. Where the f*** did all that money go?

The validity or the plausibility of being single and broke may be questioned by many, but I think I have an answer to that. Screw all the bra-burners and all. But, hang on to those tomatoes and eggs and slippers, ladies, at least for the moment - or till my next post.

All, that apart, I am looking for a copy of " Quidditch Through The Ages" or "Fantastic Beasts and where to find them" for my sister. Her birthday is in a few days. And something for my Dad. Suggestions are most welcome. But, please please, where in Bangalore could I possibly find those two books? Blossom's did not have them? Maybe I'll try Landmark or Crossword. If you do know where to find them, leave a comment here or drop me a mail at subbu.ubbus [at] gmail [dot] com. Much obliged.

On an aside, why aren't pretty women attracted to me? If you are the lovely lady with the red handbag/purse who travels each morning by the 8 am 500K Volvo bus, please, I would really like to speak to you over coffee. Or if you know here, tell her that I would like to speak to her over coffee. Much obliged, again.