Brain Sprain

Obsession with Babelfish continues...

2006-05-10T11:44:00.000+02:00

Well , I had to unleash the repository of my ruminations onto the world and inundate thou terra-firma with thy musings... (thats the hangover of watching the of-late romeo and juliet...all-in-all encompassed with bad performances!)
here is another post translating the telugu lyrics of a rather haunting song (one of my favs), titled 'Seethalu' from the telugu movie "Donga Donga".

I am nothing without your existence
You are the breath of my life's sustenance

I might bite the dust with your parting
before that, let there be our meeting...

when you,the damsel of dusk found daisies to be picked
its not the flowers but my heart thats pricked
when the wedding saree in turmeric water is drenched
its the admirer's emotions that are trenched

you have left leaving,
your marks all over the hay farm..
the love promises laid over my arm..
the tears wrapped to the saree's dullness
the loved one's cosiness

throwing the flowery emotions in the seas,ignoring
and making me a wave in the rivulet of mouring

Living upto the spoken words make the women falter
they arent the words, but mere ephemeral writings on water

The colour on my finger isnt hazed even long after adorning your gaze
The smell of the perfume isnt fainted even long after pervading my face

The sparkling bangles havent still graced your hands
The turmeric wedding clothes worn, havent taken with them the pure yellow bands

when is the moment to gaze the wedding mark on your cheek
when is the moment to play on the bed of jasmines, at peak

when is the moment to cuddle the tip of your glance
when is the moment in the dark, we can dance

the lonely sparrow in the mango grove, singing out of tune
and waiting for the other half to make it immune

Living upto the spoke words make the women falter
they arent the words but mere ephemeral writings on water

Unison: babelfish@work...again!

2006-02-19T11:38:00.000+01:00

Preface: Another gem of a song from one of the biggest movie factory in the world (read Telugu Movie Industry). Took the latitude to translate the telugu song with my own interpretation (or hallucination). You can listen to the song at:
http://www.raaga.com/channels/telugu/movie/A0000020.html with title " Kurisenu Virijalule". The lyricist is Mr. Rajasree unless I am mistaken.

the droplets of rain, showering in fusion

the glances of us, in unison

relationships,like a sweet downpour , caressing

and you,manifesting as the harbinger of our love-making

can I sleep in the arms of my love without a reason?

like the crystal drops of snow clinging onto the leaf, in the season

day and night harvesting the sensuous emotions

My love, should I pamper you without any rations?

You are the words in my rhyme

and you are my sacred hymn.

what is the story of the moving eyes, singing wishes and the of budding feelings?

what is the dream behind the thought's corners, recurrent passions and of the rambling ideas?

what is the sweetness of the golden rain showered from, beneath the veil of the luscious lips?

what is the comfort endured from the melting souls, ignited desires and of the eternal bliss?

the simmering froth of an attractive relation

the melodious after-effects of a song's dilation

of which...

the droplets of rain, showering in fusion

the glances of us, in unison

Requiem

2005-05-01T19:40:00.000+02:00

The mid-noon sun is making (his) { ok, let me not be chauvnistic} its way through the perforated plastic curtains of the single window in my sight.
The portable fan is humming profusely under the demand of the speed button :1
The mobile phone charger is looking for its partner
And the ubiquitous entity in our lives, with its numb reflection (read screen), is staring at me: just by disagreeing through complying to whatever I am subjecting it (there, im no chauvnist_) to.

So what am I upto?

Here , far from the world I thought I once belong
Yet , couldnt live upto the thoughts culminating in a word
All I realize is, I am outoftune in this song
With the vivid frustration spelling out through every chord

Where are the musings of portraying a child behind a fluttering leaf, in a blink?
Where is the confusing algorithm for driving on either side of English Channel?
Where is the regret of dancing a whole number with the least sync?
And where are the reflections of euphemisms of anything (non)banal?

I was immersed in the transient obsessions
Not as serious as to destruct the yada-yada or soul
But just enough to drown me in the strings of compulsions
Finally, making me satiate in the boredom without a blog goal

Here , far from the world I thought I once belong
Yet , couldnt live upto the thoughts culminating in word
All I realize is I am outoftune in this song
With the vivid frustration spelling out through every chord

Its just a clean slate when I think of putting to words since I last wrote
Wonder at the quietude of my unreceptiveness
With every moment sinking in a mundane note
Culminating in a void of nothingness

Finally, I stared at the page in disbelief
with my amnesia taking the toll of my user-name/ password
I could ruminate the days I entered my creative dungeon in a reflexive relief
Now, I have an forgotten identity to bother apart from my non-blogging abode.

Perceptual maps, Growth/Share matrix and other things...

2005-03-12T20:33:00.000+01:00

Greetings Earthlings

Guess its been quite often in my blogs by now.."Its been a long time. I just returned after cruising through the toll-free inter-spatial-galactic highway. I have been considerably dilated in time (dont know what this sentence means) and I found it a while to return to this position in front of this DELL computer, from the parallel universe where I was fishing.

That reminds me of a quote:" There seems to be a fine difference between fishing and standing cum staring at the shore like an idiot."

So whats up?

Came to know that a blue-berry muffin than a donut tastes better with a hotcup of tea.Take the result for granted.The sample used is extravagant.

Also, learnt a lot about Marketing during the past week. In fact, overwhelmed with info. From Businessman of the century: Henry Ford to the failure of Xerox to capitalize on market Segmentation...really learnt some stuff.

Moral: really tough to stay awake for 90 min. even when youhave never-tasted-really-good desserts waiting for you outside the conference hall. really tough to stay awake!and the stuff below is interesting. veracity upto ur discretion.

Do you know that, Xerox houses 14 floors filled with attorneys just to protect its patents?

Do you know that Dow Corning is the company behind silicon breast implants and the rest is history.

Condy Rice was part of Stanford B school before politics beckoned her and that she used to play Piano for 3 hours on sunday ( reliable neighbour report)

Kodak paid 1 billion hard cash to Polariod cauz of a tiny bit of patent infringement! How tiny is it , is a matter of perception.

How much perceptions play in marketing a product?Imagine an sugary aspirin or a sweet cough syrup! we would never buy it ! would we? well, medicine has to taste bitter! otherwise its child's stuff...precisely!

Which one would you prefer?hotel charging 240€/day or 10€/hour???

The maximum amount expended by Mont Blanc is to find the right sound for the click of the pen's cap!yeah, thats the reason you pay that extra 200€ for!

Amen

an enlightened soul.

Over and Out.

2005-02-24T17:02:00.000+01:00

your neighbourhood friendly reporter says...
The information veracity is upto your discretion and I dont endorse any (info , not discretion!)

There is this French Minister who is apparently in and out w.r.t. accomodation.Fathering eight children , our protogonist moved into this plush 14,000€-a-month publicly-funded apartment.
Ironically, The Minister oversees France's stretched public finances . And the apartment news broke just a week after he presented measures destined to make rents more affordable. That is what you call timing

I think today I felt a little less insecure in waving around my id card in my workplace. I always feel like a vaccine-info-tagged cat , while wearing a badge.
So the reason for this lack of insecurity is that even the Eiffel Tower has an id-card

Talking of Eiffel, an interesting perspective is that it is a giant phallus shaped structure implanted at heart of Paris.(heart is on the left side right?) Now, people find this structure romantic!?#? and that there is this school of thought about art:
Artists often portray their insecurities and fantasies in thier works. Hence Mr. Eiffel might have had impotency problems.So said one thought'full' soul to this reporter.

Pregnancy and French jobs seem like a romantic couple.You can take maternity, parental leave for a kid for 3 years(w.r.t ONE kid) securing your job and in case you are priviledged to have 3 children then you can accumulate years that would add to your retirement benifits. Now, what is the policy in China: "One or none" Isnt it?
And i know you are thinking about the wife of that French Finance minister with 8 kids and their retirement benifits. Now, stop it!

Still Observations.

2005-02-23T17:45:00.000+01:00

When it trickles snow , apart from the aesthetics, its constant downpour over'shadows' (irony!) all the dynamism of the world in and around you. Thus they say life comes to a stand-still when it snows.And yes, thats what Im experiencing now!

Just met a person who hates snow as much as he hates the 2nd standard teacher who made him mug up multiplication tables.His take is that he is particularly irritated by the tiny-winy droplets which take their own sweet time in hitting the ground and that why on(in) earth they cant fall once for all and fast.And yes, he doesnt approve of life and stand-still theory.

In case you find yourself deep in the mechanical maze of life, slowly slipping yourself in the objective of mundane, try this. select a pollution free place where its trickling snow. Open your mouth like a dog with your sense of taste out. Close your eyes and experience the way the droplets vanish within you.Congratulations, you are human again!

My collegue wants to quit his job. Another one just did. They commute for 150 km a day (to-fro)for the place of work. 10 km (to-fro) for public transport to be able to commute that 150km.Do your crunching and they just travel around 39000 km just for the work. Irony is that they HAVE to actually travel during their vacations. They hence want to give up the job and modify their resume strength as their 'drive to go after their destination' and that of their eligibility of a world traveller.

And how would you feel chipping in 4 euro in the 30-min slot m/c for the squash court and finding that your racquet is broken just after 2.6 minutes of pre-warm-up.Yeah, banging the slot m/c takes you no where. What did your Casino experience teach you?

Drinking a cup of tea mistaking it for coffee, actually makes the tea taste different. How can one mistake tea for coffee? I just told you that a person just did, didnt I?

As seen in one Statement of Purpose for M.S. : "In my childhood, I saw myself in the mirror and decided that Optics is the field I want to pursue."

I just want to meet the person on what he 'reflects' on this sentence.

'Ten'der post

2005-02-19T17:39:00.000+01:00

Ten reasons why this blog will pass into obscurity:
Readers are obliged to add more reasons to make it an increasingly-inaccuratedly-counted ten reason list.

1. Goddamn it, there wasnt an iota of a letter written or the trace of your thoughts relieved,(read: revealed) even on the mother of all days:Valentine's Day.

2. The same applies to the void of blogging even on other important days:
New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Neighbour's Cat grooming remembrance day, 20 years since I got my first pair of ... day etc.

3. Variations of the word: Rambling, Random, Confusion, cebebrations are omnipresent in a carefully careless way.This would classify one as cold not cool or kewl. Legend has it that these words are confusedly rambling around in random in cyvberspace to the extent of becoming redundant.

4. The fingers refuse to type the mundane , boring, profoundly uncreative blog address.Big Deal, what on earth if you are the last url.I would rather 'trace' back

5. The abrasive arrogance in catogorizing the blog as humorous posts! For the tail of Holy Cow's Sake, show me one sentence for instance, which abides!

6. What is it that the blog offers in my expended 2-3 minutes that I couldn get anywhere else ?I want peace of mind not a 'piece' of your mind!

7.Even though Telugu is posed to be an International language, one in 12 ppl in bay area espeak telugu it seems, no efforts were taken to promote the cause apart from giving some broken translations of forgotten boy-meet-girl songs

8. The Blog maturity addresss calculated as a function of coherent content in the blog, chronological consistence of words, length of blog and the blog itself.....is too disgraceful to calculate!

9. and as u can read, check the above longwinded sentence. crispness is lacking which goes onto
prove that articulation of thoughts is less or combining words to sentences in effective manner isnon existent or there is no depth in thinking or there is an absence of thinking itself.

10. Giving 9 concrete reasons is a reason in itself to be qualified as a reason.

Cannis Familiaris.

2005-02-15T13:22:00.000+01:00

This day wasnt an eventful day for lots of reasons...starting a blog with pessimism tells a lot about the personality, says Kalakalasia Isthumania of the planet Kakrafoon.

Before I digress, the (un)event that led to my sober statement ...

I lost faith in one of the role models I believed and trusted in.I thought the single event that I envisaged today would consolidate the position of the best ever role model or whatever.But the simplest of things should have the complex of conclusions.Yes, I was taking about this Dog I closely observe everyday while coming back to my office, post-lunch. I named it The Dog as I dare not approach the Old Lady with the furious looks, to know what that poodle was christined as.She was the same one who lectured my french-illerate friend for about 13 min without a breather, after he made a face or two at The Dog, while waiting for traffic signal.

This Canine is the one which showed me the height of luxury,has been at the receiving end of unmatched care and above all getting a free course in french all the day with the ramblings of the old woman , while i had to shelve 600 euros for the same form of communication.What more you want in life?The Dog has access to almost all the shops and Disques in France (was i refused admission? hmm) and seperate services at decent hotels. It neednt work, study or for that matter, iron clothes. Even IT's language taught me the humblest of humilites: bow bow.Hence IT has been my role model, since.

But this day, at the moment I thought I would inscribe IT in the annals of my inspirations, I just wanted a nod from THE DOG, a slightest as the one Pai Mei made to the Shaolin Monks in Kill Bill.I just thought while crossing the zebra along with her senile companion, IT would turn back. You know...just like that. but IT wandered away galloping to the nearest pole like a stripper and thus ceased to fill the void in my Hall-of-fame-s.

Sore truths

2005-02-12T17:54:00.000+01:00

There I was lying as dead as dead
With pain gushing from my body as if every part is knead

I have the serendipity to find my body-regions, I thought non-existent, through the ache
And still I couldn’t make out reasons for this slumber, in this take

Wowowow, its not the problem to do with dental or mental tragedies
Nor of the obvious ‘heart’felt rhapsodies

Voila, I could memorize at last
It’s the sorethroat, which cut me in pieces ,aghast

It all started with my gulping an extra poundful of air
From the changing weather which came out of no where

The rest was the usual history down the drain
With the diffusive ghost saying a hi to my cold and bodysprain

Here I am lying as dead as dead
With my graduation in distinction to fever, thus getting stuck to my bed

All the Crocins and paracetemols could help little to cope
The darkness of the winter morning removing the rest of the hope

The moral of the story is straight and clear
Never be ambitious to extra-breathe in changing times, my dear!

Visa power: go , get it!

2005-02-08T17:14:00.000+01:00

How soothing is to find out that your work visa, in fact, expired 7 days ago ?

How incredible is it to refresh your memory that the responsible 'visa' official at your workplace come only on tuesdays to enable your existence legal!

How is it have 'mixed' feelings that you have discovered about your legal status on a wednesday morning thus extending your expiry for a few more days. ( in fact i dreamt about someone arresting me and naturally woke up.reasoning all the shady things i was upto in recent times, rested on the visa-expiry issue eliminating the other not-so-harmful situations.You should follow your dreams)

Gathering from above, one can understand the seriousness of the importance of today, the Tuesday. My dependence on (in)human entities to help me remember the event, made me mark my Outlook calender yesterday evening and today morning. Cell phone Alarm: Set. Cell phone Reminder: Set. Laptop Reminder: Set. All Set to give me signs at some level about the doomsday Tuesday.

As Murphy or other gentleman would have it: If something can go wrong, it will. If something can't go wrong, still it will. So, yeah, today I forgot about it as usual. Woke up, dreaming about the review of Million Dollar Baby movie. Got up from bed mutilating my cell phone alarm. pruned myself to be as fresh as a speck of dust and walked my way to glory for the office, barring just one thing. That today is tuesday and that I am indirectly illegal in this piece of land.

Dragging myself, my backsac and laptop for 10 min , I reached the swipe-card-main-door of my dungeonic office. Instead of flashing my id, I was trying to open the door with my home key for some reason which I am yet to fathom.(no, im not like that every day).I realized the bitter reality when I door refused to open, in fact it didnt have a key hole. Dropping my keys, I just turned to look at a white peugeot206 gliding away on the overlooking highway with the red siren lights on.POLICE.Thats the reminder-alarm I needed.Thats the stimulus: to tell me the weekday, to point out the status of my residence, to make me walk back all the miles I needed on the uphill weary road to my home and to gather my passport for the emotionally-soothing-tuesday visa extension.

Conundrum of X Y Z.

2005-02-07T14:19:00.000+01:00

X is on her way from India, back to France. Y extends the claws of her benevolence to pick X from the airport. Being the 50-year old teeneger she is/was, X has this amazing sense of sense not to inform Y of her return travel details. Obviously Y was/is very very helpless.Now comes Z in the picture. Y feels that Z is better informed about X's travel plans and calls him accordingly. But given the reputation of X, even Z doesnt have a clue.

But Z understands that , in this matter, he is destined to be better informed than Y. Destined...no arguments.So he embarks on this ambitious journey to find out more information about X's journey.(is it confusing??? look at it this way: the first journey is a metaphor. the second journey is the actual journey). So when Y calls Z about X's whereabouts, Z promises to get back with more information.

So Z tries. He really tries. but then, there are these instances,when you have to accept that reality is this snooty blunt-faced tight-lipped cat (what on heck is that expression?). The point is, Z couldnt get more details of X's journey. He functioned more like the weather report:
You know its sunny at the moment. But the weather report adds that you will feel it a little warm because there is more sun. After sometime, there might be little more sun or because of the south-west cloud, there might be little less sun. And in the evening there will be no Sun. remember, it will be dark!!!

So like the report, all Z had to get back to Y with his info, is that, X in fact is coming from India (very informative), X is on a direct plane ( very relavant) and X will be starting late night from one of India's cities ( is there an equation to calculate arrival time from this?)

Inspired from the indisputable facts offered, Y actually calls Z to get the details straight. But it is one of those coincidences, when the call to his mobile went to the voicemail. There are two perspectives here: Z is unaware of the call. So he missed the call and hence it went to his voice mail. This is in assumption that Z plays it fair in receiving phone calls.
Now, Y can actually look at it the other way. Y could think that the last email that Z mentioned about some ORIGINAL info, he sounded no-reciprocative.So, actually he is avoiding the phone call. But then , remember Y's claws of benevolance? Y felt that one should try more and call more thus giving the benifit of doubt to Z (category: cellphone-entered-no-network-zone)

Now, Z actually was away from town to that no-network-zones and had a chance to listen to Y's message only after he returned. By the time he managed to gather some more info about this 50-year-teenager-X, exactly at the moment, he got a call again from Y. Inadvertently, Z replies that he was just about to call back. Here again, there are two perspectives. Z might actually mean what he just said. He might have thought to gather details of X's return journey to get back to Y. But given the impression that Y had about Z's knowledge-sharing and the snooty reply just heard, Y finally let go of the fact that no more dvelving would make it any useful . So the story concluded when Y informed Z that she in fact would go to the airport first thing in the morning and look out for all the flights arriving from all the cities in India during THAT day.

The story might have a logical-they-lived-happily-ever-after ending, under the terrible assumption that X ,in fact, is arriving THAT day.

The friendly neighbourhood reviewer is back...

2005-02-04T23:00:00.000+01:00

Have you ever experienced a movie when the story doesnt seem to move anywhere for 45 minutes but the scenes scroll away as fast as Jonathan Livingston Seagull?
Have you ever came across a movie when the characters dont comply to the meet-part-meet standard formula but are instead flown in the delicate thread that seperates maturity and craziness.

The subtelety of relationships, the spellbounding soundtrack and the ingenious screenplay made an atypical impact on me after watching 'Fa yeung nin wa' aka 'In the Mood for Love'. The experience is a defintie deja vu of Lost in Translation.

Stripping down to the bare facts, this Chinese movie is about two neighbours in a 1960's Hongkong neighbourhood: Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan who find out that their spouses have been cheating on them. In spite of observing their mutual loneliness, they pass by each other with a mere formal nodsm. They, then, transition from formal greetings to subtle talk when they discover about their spouses' secret. What follows is their idea to role-play their spouses to find out how they could have carried on an extra-marital affair. But down the line, the protagonists discover that they have feelings for each other, in enacting so. With their 'maturity' that they shouldnt stoop to the levels of thier spouses, they decide to depart with Mr. Chow pressing the hand of Mrs. Chan with all his helplessness. The movie ends with a note that the past(6 years from present) for him is like a dusted window pane: he could see it but everything is obscure and blurred.

There are few movies, I encountered when silence plays an amazing soundtrack. It makes you crave for the next scene, it fills your curiosity to the brim and makes the moment very heavy. At the same time, the theme track of the movie,the one by Yumeji, is still haunting me like the one in God Father. The plot of the movie flows like a wave :with the theme accompanying the protagonists whenever they pass each other captured in the slowest of motions and the speedy flood of scenes which show their individual lives.

Another aspect, worth mentioning is about the way the camera handled the spouses. They were never shown, only their voices heard.Just got an impression that the Director felt the detail of their appearence to be insignificant. But ironically, this makes a larger impact about those characters.

Also there is an underlying tone in the movie about the prevelance of marital infidelity in the society, the non-chalence of people towards it, the accesibility for such a feeling to arise and the turmoil to come out of it.The director definetely doesnt embrace any doctrines or follow-my-school-of-thought theories. He just explores the sensitive issue through two people and traverses through their subjective life processes.

All in all, a refreshing change from the norm of usual movies and it did incite my interpretion of abstraction in the movies that has been dormant for long.

P.S: Ironically, few sect of people felt that the movie title is lost in translation. Even I was not so happy with the title as I couldnt relate to the movie. Funny, that the pivotal aspect of the movie that crystallizes its muse : the title had to be mentioned in a post script. I ...I...I object!

Acrophobia

2005-02-03T17:55:00.000+01:00

shadowing the 'height' of some humans for the past couple of days, these are the pearls of wisdom...

Height of imagination:

Yet another diet-stricken-species thanking God that Water did not include any calories.

Height of Extrapolation:

-Thinking of the situation of the gyms in general and people in particular, if Water did include calories.

-And exploring the possibility of an instance when we had to count calories even for breathing air.

Height of Optimism:

A Vegetarian standing in a serpentine queue for Chinese breakfast

Height of Choice:

Again a vegetarian settling for a bowl of fruits for lunch in a French restuarant as the human doesn’t like eating cooked vegetables.

Height of Satisfaction:

Bit techie. The veracity of the incident inspired me to include it verbatim.
Running Disc de-fragmentation, Spyware Detection, Anti-Virus (read: some methods that claim will improve the performance but facts have it otherwise) over an already grumpy computer with feeble assets…and claiming that their work couldn’t progress that day.

Height of reasoning:

- Resting for winter in order to conserve energy for the coming summer where a run or two can be possible in the adjoining forest.

- The bliss of confusion that makes one think that the lunch timings of 12 – 14h00 actually meant a 2-hour break for lunch.

Height of Coincidence:

All the above heights experienced by a single person.

Insightful Inquiries

2005-02-02T17:34:00.001+01:00

an achronological memoir that aroused from the gossamer of nuances that I experienced in my brief-hibernation in India...

“So, you are still staying in that far-off land. Is it so, Master?”, asked Suri. Suri has been in my household since my childhood. With the trademark whistle of his tri-cycle-taxi, he promptly used to be at my house at 9h00 to take me to the school. I have known him for 16 years now and he tells me he has been in that profession even before I was born. He claims that he was educated enough to read the local news paper and emboss his signature. He will be the one to listen to my movie-review first, he will be the one passing on the gossip of the street and he would be the one to tell what’s hot and what’s not in my somber town.

It was one of the normal evenings around 16h30, when the evening was still an evening, the dust lifted by the breeze was still the dust lifted by the breeze and the chat between us was still the real chat between us. Musing over these, I just hit back reality to answer his question with his heartfelt remark that I am becoming absent-minded. “ Yes”, I answered. “I still live in the far-off land”, grinning that I should have mentioned the name. “What was the name you told, Master, Farce??”, he posed innocently. ‘No Suri, It’s France!’, I replied wondering at the philosophy of his inadvertent remark. “Oh France! So which language they speak there?”, he continued his curious outburst. “French”, I mechanically answered. “ Yes, I remember I asked you this the last time you came. But you told me that you couldn’t talk it as good as I can speak Telugu. Is it still true?”, he reverted back. Not wishing to delve into complexities of my graduation in French from Debutant to Intermediate, I replied yes.

He thought for sometime. I always wonder about this tiny amount of time he takes and he always doesn’t disappoint me by quirking back some argument, really profound. There he goes, “ I cannot understand this, Master. How can you live in a country without knowing their language? Like, I cannot imagine my stay here without knowing Telugu. Should be unimaginable!”, he stopped interrupted by my mother passing him some work. A Weak Smile was my reply and I added that situations like those motivate us to learn new languages and cultures. He came back with his classic weapon, “You educated folks say something that cannot be understood by us”. What followed next is the flood of questions he threw on me, for which my honest answer ranged from No to not-so-much. “Do you get to watch your Telugu movies there?” , “Do you get to buy the movie audio , the day it is released”, “ Do you get there, your favorite curry vegetable, which you pester your mom to cook everyday”, “ Is your work the kind you would love to do , for the rest of your life?” and finally the bombshell, “ Do you have someone to iron your clothes, cook food or take care of you?”.

I wanted to patiently reply the little differences but he was quicker in concluding the discussion and passing on the vote of thanks. “I don’t know, Master. All the things I think of a peaceful life for you seem to absent in France (he pronounced it correctly).” “ Either you have changed since childhood or my knowledge about you changed or the definition of a peaceful life changed. But one thing is for sure. I couldn’t live in France.”

Just at the moment, I reached the threshold to explain my way of life there, he sealed me into a pleasant distraction. “By the way, I am educating my three daughters very sincerely. It would be great if you can have a word with them. The little one doesn’t want to go to the school. I should confess that I love to have the discussions we had, with them too!”, giving his classic smile which echoed back by the fibrous layers of my surprise.

And he continued albeit my stoned-cum-gratified expression, “Master, did you know that the new movie of BK was bombed right in the first hour of its first show screening!”

The weight of a Queue...

2005-02-01T20:46:00.000+01:00

Eating Chinese main course for breakfast isn’t the intended activity I would like myself to beckon on a Tuesday morning. But then, you got to ‘digest’ hard facts. The decision has such profound implication that it became a defining moment of my life: ranging from blogging it for three lines to the repentence endured during the day in general and for the wait in that curvaceous queue , in particular.

I learnt it right from childhood, through enduring wait for cinema tickets, that one should never leave their queue for another. If you are pissed with your decision to be in the lengthy line, then my friend, am afraid it’s too late to repent. If you look from above (I didn’t mean God but was trying to imply the visualization by placing camera above you…in the queue. Forget it) you would be making your queue shorter and lengthening the line you are about to join. Not ruminating this basic principle, I had to endure all the formulae in Optimization in my under-grad.

So, I was in this huge queue this morning for the Chinese breakfast. And I had to wait. Wait is a euphemism. In that comfortable silence with thy cranium, I suddenly had his serendipity to arrive at a solution of optimism for waiting. The rule is , when you just get into the line never look in front of you. ( if you are the only one standing, then it defies this logic for obvious reasons)
Think of something. Something white (fridge, milk, cream, ghost) something cool ( new socks, wrinklefree shirts, automatic-ironing m/c, fridge, ghost in fridge) or something about actually what you are waiting for. If you happen to wait for food, then guess the probability of you reaching the food. BUT , never look in front of you! Now, after some time, which can be qualified by the purpose and drive of people standing, look back. Look at the throngs of crowd waiting behind you with the genuine wish that they gotta lay their hand on whatever they are waiting for. Look at them. Make sure you remember at THIS particular moment that you ARE in front of them. Exactly now, feel as happy as a humming bird. Let the feeling continue and take you upto the start of the queue.

Hold on… before you let your silly mind wag its doubt. There are a lot of exceptions. Now, you cant expect a fool-proof theory or full-proof theory to be stated in a free blog. I am just stating a research problem for the rambler in you. To give a hint, there might be an exception that you happen to be the last person standing and however hard you try to imagine, all you have at your back is your back. Then, may be you should think about the white, cool stuff for some extra time. Q.E.D.

'Fine'Tuning responses

2005-01-31T16:23:00.000+01:00

It has been a film-infested weekend. (I looov bullet-points)
It has been a weekend that has re-awakened the filmcritic in me and put him to rest again.(..... Legend has it that I started out to blog wishing to critic on the movies I perused(!!!) this weekend: High-Fidelity , Cold Mountain, Cold Mountain: to name the few.But thinking other'wise' at the moment...Nah, no typo in the names. I saw the movie twice.)
It has been that moment when I finally discovered where the online radiostations get the filler-music for their irritating ads in between the songs.
It has been an scintilla of humbling experience when the Discotheque Dignitary escorts us inside the club (yeah, not the other direction)amidst a serpentine queue at the ticketcounter
It has been that epoch when one of my best friends cut my ISD call citing that he was on his unilateral utopia to hog and hence didnt want any intrusion.
It has been that time when I learnt tea-cocktails and their behaviour under 'sweet' substances in a moroccan Salon de The.
It has been that frozy sunday night my benovolent co-locotaire bestowed me, by turning off the room heaters coincidentally just after I slept. The Investigation Commission reported that apparently he was sweating while shaving in our heater-infested rest-room and hence had to undertake the endeavor.

---- This is what I want to tell in a systematic, chronological and structured fashion(I prefer telling primarily..secondarily..instead of first...second :), just in case you wanted to ask about my weekend. But then, look at all the shite I scribbled above. Does one have the patience to listen? Isnt it a case of classic self-mortification that the questioner would commit, repenting on his question: for just the four words...how...was...your...weekend...?(question mark isnt a word, mind you). I am aware of the grave consequences that my answer would fuel to the ultimate deprivation of human spirit: human spirit for just looking for dont-take-literal-meaning-just-answer-FINE-kinda question. I am aware of that. So try asking me about the past two days and I would reckon answering, "Fine!".(nah, I wouldnt go far to the extent of reciprocating the question..its too boring as I know the answer)

P.S: The mirror-image of this blog can be found here .

word(s) away to understand...

2005-01-29T19:17:00.000+01:00

Chronological entry sans prepositions, verbs,parts of speech : wherever necessary

I mass-mis-communication;miss train home
I too late party Paris
I home; cut n cry onions elaborate dinner.
I ramble blog movie .
dinner n fun: mamaaaa mia
I try watch high-fidelity DVD, computer. DVD scratch.
continue read Midnight's children
Sleep.
Dream airplanes
Sleep
Dream alarm clock. stop. Wake up. No sleep
I try clean home.
Hang-over Aviator.
I watch High-fidelity 21" idiot-box
...Still watching
movie over.review later.
munch lunch ; cafe...oooh
try buy gloves n muffler; end buy unintended other stuff.
friend drag away me from shopping radius.
no guilt.guilt. resolutions no impulse buy. no guilt.pure self-indulgence.justified.
very excited Salsa party tonite.

C'est tout;c'est ¢a.

Some men dream the future. He built it.

2005-01-28T01:28:00.000+01:00

So, what’s the point I want to make in this blog?

First, it’s Friday and hence Bon weekend.

Then it’s the usual culmination of my work-week with the best professional problems cropping up right at the moment I want to drive through the weekend.

In this background, the high point is the Scorsese’s grand tale of Mr. Howard Hughes. After watching the extravaganza in one of the biggest screens in Paris amid all the reverberating sonance, the vroom still lingers on my eardrum like a cliff-hanger. Yes, its been 40 days since I watched a movie in a theatre and there is nothing like getting back to it other than through Aviator. Its not that I renounced my loyalties to movies but just been limiting them to my 21” inch idiot box, exploiting the 2 euro rental DVDs. ( yes, I did click on an ad which promised free rental dvds)

The funniest thing in watching movies in this part of the globe(read: France) is that you get the English version aka Version Originale after some 2 months (exceptions exist) of its world-wide release. That might be good as the audience can make an informed decision whether to bear the ticket cost. But then, it would deprive the thrill of getting jammed with an as-ugly-as-an-airport movie.

Distracting to the movie, I should admit that it made me sit through the 170 min spectacle without a break. (The toilet-queue after the movie is not to be accounted for!)The first impression that rushes through me is just about the grandeur in experience that the movie offered. I didn’t even bother to complete the extra-large popcorn bought even before the theatre screen opened. Now, that’s an honest indicator. It(not pop-corn) has amazing characterizations and the Scorsese extracted the best out of every one of them. Credits should begin with Leonardo, who stuns us with his varied portrayal. Guess, I will now have a little reservation to proclaim my chocolate-boy-image-theory as in give-me-a-gal-woo-love-story-dance-song kinda role for him. Seeing quite a few Katie Hepburn movies, I should commend the efforts that went into Cate Blanchett’s role.

Scorsese successfully takes us in the character of Mr. Howard Hughes and touches the mélange of emotions the protagonist experiences. The starting and the ending scenes have the trademark Scorcese providing the finer but pivotal points about Howard that makes us understand his personality. The constant combat of the fierce will of Howard with his obsessive compulsive phobia for infection is canvassed on his whole life in success-failure and reputation-defamation: raise and falls. The fact that psychological disorders do not follow the usual symptoms; his disorder propels him to find a solace through conviction to realize his childhood dream and the same disorder corners him to solitude and vulnerability and defamation. In fact in this sense, for Howard in Leonardo it’s a story of war instead of love. War: against his own self which tries to swing itself to zenith and back to the gloom of nadir.

But all the while, coming back from the movie, I felt that there is something the movie is missing to stand up to other masterpieces of Scorcese. Not that I have seen a lot, but Raging Bull and Taxi Driver have had held me in suspension. I thought the best way to extract it would be through writing my ramblings, but yours truly seems to miss his point and has to start reading the blog again The challenge of the ‘period’ film coupled with the integrity confirming with actual facts, makes the movie much more difficult to direct. This would limit the director, a little, to employ his repertoire of creativity. May be it’s executed too real to be a great movie!

Home, Cold Home...

2005-01-27T17:55:00.000+01:00

Yes, it was me who was chanting snow the other day
its me again cribbing about the winter now in dismay

The innumerous black-follicle-weather-sheilds absent on my head
making just a membrane away from chillness outside, for my brain-dead

I paid eulogies to this gloomy season , which saves me from ironing
I pay condolences to this cold reason attacking me without conditioning

The 'icing' on the cake is the cold comfort of my house
where I am yet to discover the feeling 'warm', even after a numerous grouse

At the moment, hot water was far from luxury
The plumber gave up yesterday mid-nite, rummaging with all his artillery

They promised me thick and thin, making me dream of a jacuzzi
Here I lay shivering, with sub-zero windchills bombarding like a kamikaze

My room stares at me with a cold delight
I am afraid honey!, all I can do is shudder in might

The 'icing' on the cake is the cold comfort of my house
where I am yet to discover the feeling 'warm', even after a numerous grouse

For a big ironical change, I prefer office to home
for, the heaters surround even my coat hanger like a dome

I am helpless to help my soft-spoken jerkin(s)
wish I could say it isnt my fault my dear kin(s)

I pray for the Sun to wake me up instead of the assaulted alarm
it listens but adds the comfort of cruel tundra winds in tandem

The 'icing' on the cake is the cold comfort of my house
where I am yet to discover the feeling 'warm', even after a numerous grouse

'Week'ness

2005-01-26T17:21:00.000+01:00

one comes across this question quite often ,' How has been your day?'
and the reflexive response is to say 'Fine!'. No time for the questioner to re-phrase his curiosity.

Fine : even after a early morning barrage of customer calls frantically yelling at the sudden failure of the support system, blessings from management for missing/messing the deadlines, computer crashes, even after the cubicle--shutters refusing to shade from the sun behind. Fine!

Was wondering, why no one ventures to ask, a more generic but tricky question, "How has been your week?". One doesnt say fine because you have this 21 grams called conscience which prevents from the usual reflexive answer. In this way the questioner might buy a few microseconds to re-phrase his curiosity!

What do you talk about a week? As any typical employee in this part of the galaxy, I think we generally follow a pattern when it comes to what we can do in an increasingly inaccurate expression : 5-day-week.

Monday : Hang-over from the exciting weekend
Tuesday: Celebration as Monday was over succesfully
Wednesday: Condolence that they are stranded in middle-of-week
Thursday: Busy planning for the parties ahead
Friday: It's bon-weekend already

and what were you asking about ?effective productivity as a function of man-hour based result-oriented work?Even Babloo, the mute air-less football near my desk, is laughing.

I know its wednesday. And its time to realize that its that part of the week when the deja-vu of the prior weekend and that of the approaching, seem equally far. No reason to crib, excite, emote or react in any way. In fact, no point!

The time is ticking my after-office hours soon.I shall wrap myself in a time bubble that is fluttering in the meadows of thoughts and that floats all the way until it bursts in reality tomorrow morning with the cacophony of my alarmclock.

2005-01-25T14:13:00.000+01:00

Tiles of Snow

Saison Blanche...

2005-01-25T13:32:00.000+01:00

Here I am in my somber cubicle
with just the window glass as the obstacle
to grasp the world outside within my tentacle(s)

The morose screen is staring at me in a way I never know
I have very less qualms about it right now
For I have the pristine visual exuburance to sight the snow

Yes, at the moment,white is the name of the season
The tiny flakes carpeting the earth for no reason
The mighty wind swaying the particles' symmetry of jettison

I wonder why they say it snow-white
for white is snow and snow is white
the silver carpet is extending its reach in might
making my whole panorama in the brightest light
I have to get back to visual indulgence and I think I am right!!!

A Day in Dissection

2005-01-24T17:42:00.001+01:00

Background:

These were the chemical reactions within my neurons on an eventful thursday evening

First, took all the strength and mental imbalance to weigh the options at hand at around 18h24 hrs.They include...

Problem Definition:

stay back in the same old office cubicle ,blogging,with the resilient monitor staring at me in dumb delight of all the hours transpired without an iota of productivity
or
browse through all the links in the blogs I often visit and thoroughly envision that i would reach the end of the WWW!( I thought I knew my blog URL)
or
grrrom myself from a 'hirsuite' perspective. For people who have bore the brunt of my sight within last six months: I know its a futile attempt and a shot at void vanity but then I am too lazy that if not for the naturalprocess, I wouldnt have grown.
or
wipe out all the options above and charge myself towards the Salsa class,which is looming itself to be a psychological bloc!

Distraction from Analysis:
As does an average human, I opted for the last option. Thats not the end of the story.Not even the preface. Because, the moment I cut down to a single option, I have this discomfitedness that I was being thoroughly unfair to other choices. So , what cascades is the amazing abiity to search for reasons to eschew the choice of act.

I often wonder at our insightful reasoning when we want to avoid an activity. Legend has it, our reasoning turns acute and chronic, minutes before thinking of gym or work or any other physical activity.(yeah yeah, some exceptions are always there).As in, its 5 min for the gym and I suddely feel guilty that I could work more in the after-office hours that present tranquilty . I strongly assume that i have controlled my diet that day and hence no need to burn extra calories. Or I focus my energies to invoke a leg-sprain or hand-pain. I just wish, everytime, that I could crack the hardest of cases when dribbling with choices in such situations.Its like my nirvana of analytical abilitites. Ok, I know I would be reasoning whether to attempt the case or not. thats another thread altogether.

Back on Track...

Reasoning against the Choice:
- I played 90 min of badminton thus straining myself after 2 months of rein de activities

- Focus my energies to get back the nerve pull in my leg which can only be soothed by an ostheopath.Medical insurance will not apply is the icing on the cake

- Not any attractive femme counterparts at the course that day. so the motivation levels are down at nadir.(you know, to show my...skills in shaking...legs)

- Its been more than 8 classes that I missed, making me very rusty. which in turn make me embarrasing before the u-know-who.so missing one more class will not be any different.

- The above two reasons are mutually exclusive and thus can co-exist- The class is too far from my place ( this is the realistic reason but it soon vanished in a puff of logic when my co-locataire is more than happy to drop me off. Just to hinder the obstacles, it seems he quoted to Reuters :)

Did you check that list. Clean, crisp, atomic and unfallible!!!

But....yeah the ubiquitous word that comes with any compliment...But, I told myself that I should take a head-start. refuel my aspirations, use french-speaking opportunities and above all, un-indulge myself in indolence blah blah. So I finally had to weigh down the reasonable reasons for the feeble causes I mentioned just now.

The result:
Thats the reason, I was here outside the dance room here in Butte Monceau, some 7 km from my home. Here I am staring at the locked door and the darkness of the dance-place, greeeting me with a black smile on a shivering thursday evening.Legend has it, that the thursday class has been cancelled and yours truly has been out of the loop of information.
I told ya...always trust your reasons and never fall for 'shed your laziness', 'come-out-of-your-slumber' ,'make-an-effort' blah blah.

The conclusion:
Procrastination rulez.

I want to write more, but then, what am I writing about?

There is a saying ' Hard work often pays off in the future, but laziness always pays off now!'
I rest my case.

'I chant' thy song...

2005-01-21T09:29:00.000+01:00

The first musing that strikes the back of my cranium (under the thought‘ful’ assumption that it’s loaded) when I see an Indian cinema, is the song. Song: the quintessential interlude that fulfils our movie experience.
Oh that skimpily clad woman and that bare-chested 50-yearish-youngster running behind trees and oh with that group of 20 behind their tail.

Since years, except the anomalies of off-beat cinema, Indian movies tend to invoke satisfied emotions from the audience, u know with the traditional formula:

Magnanimous foray of the protagonist in an unmatched fashion
6 songs sprinkled over the 150 min. with one predominantly involving a contention of ‘flesh vs. clothes’
In between, hero gets humiliated by various metaphoric acts on his life
Some unimaginable fights with incomprehensible acrobatics and
THE END.

Once in a while, the following situation might arise. One problem was or rather is, the songs are composed first and released prior the movie. By an average human tendency of association, we relate those songs only to that movie. Now down the course, the ‘formula’ director feels that some songs wouldn’t make sense to the movie at all. But they are obliged to include them due to various reasons: audience liked that particular song alone, hero has struggled enough to complete the song or much has been spent for the sets created.

So, with the suave producer and reluctant director at behind, our editor just manages to stick in the song somewhere in the film. The ripple effect that reaches the end-user (pardon my lingo) or audience, is far from empathizing with the reasons for the song’s inclusion. Normally, we are caught off-guard, as in, hero talks to heroine’s mother and out of no where, a song transpired between the protagonist and some (s)ex-bomb.
What I recollected is just a tangential case and definitely cannot be generalized. C’mon! You have to agree with the ‘originality’ of the situation above!!!

Sometime back, as most of the time, I was ruminating my favourite songs and the lead scenes to those songs. What I realized in those scenes, is as beautiful as the song itself. Just thought that I would chip in another (re)‘creative plagiarism’ (aka translation-anglais) of one of my best Telugu songs. The movie: Geetanjali; Director: Mani ‘The God’ Ratnam; Music: Ilaya ‘The Maestro’ Raja; Telugu Lyrics: Veturi.

Lead Scene:
Hero tells I love you to the heroine (so what’s new about that?). Hero suffers from leukaemia and heroine’s philosophy inspires him to change his perception of life.
Heroine is touched by his feeling and will be terribly confused
She comes up to hero to confront him with her thoughts

She: Why do you love me?
He: I don’t know. All I know is that it’s true
She: My heart is pacing madly
He: Even mine.
And he caringly moves her face near his heart and the heart-beat is looped over the beautiful song that follows…

[Start 're'creative plag]

To the tunes of an interlocked glance...
To the melodies of souls in trance.. I chant

To the rhyming duplets of lips
To the ambrosia of sweet memories.... I chant

In the time when seeing the longing of yours, the eyes of my heart moist in grace
In the tale when these two snow dolls become one and melt together in embrace..... I chant

When the wind breezes with the air of ignited desires
When the musical instruments of life sing the song of eternal beauties

When the world seems to be devoid of distance
When the skies seem to reach, blurring time's existence
When the sun descends to desire the arms of the moon‘s forbearance

....to the love song which awakens to the resonance of kisses... I chant

At the moment,

When the lonely traveller reaches the destination of his company
When you are the pupil and I am the eyebrow in symphony
When you are the east and I am the dawn in harmony
When our intertwine is the song, and its stanza is the love’s polyphony
When the loving lips become one and the frothing drops become our melodious cacophony

To the couple which takes birth as an audience to the world.... I chant

[/End 're'Creative plag]

The link of the song can be accessed at:

http://www.raaga.com/getclip.asp?id=999999002202

P.S: I am getting obsessed with these P.S.s' (dont bother pronouncing the word). Yeah the blog could also have been christined as
IN CELEBRATION OF BEING ALIVE : III.

Brittle Hearts

2005-01-19T17:27:00.000+01:00

He saw into her eyes ,in the photo, the sight blurred by the layers of his tears.He knows that there is no point in crying anymore.He reached a stage when nothing in the world mattered to him.Its like he is separated by a veil of iron curtain from the world around. It felt strange to him. He isnt too informed to express how exactly he was feeling at the moment. Agony? Despair? Agitation? Hope? Excitement? He could barely hear the whirling of the wind in the distant open spaces. He could have been easily distracted by the quarrel of his neighbours, but not today. He had a passing impression how he used to enjoy over-hearing their bickering ranging from the colors of drapes to the forensic tests on spouses' clothes.Not today. He had more important things in mind. In fact, only one thing in mind.

A few moments ago,last year, everything was perfect. He had everything he had wished for. And in that bliss she came into his life like a soothing shower. She just filled his world. He could just talk about his opinions, his ideas, his tresures, his irritaions and she listened without even blinking an eye. He was dying for that support ever since. Before, he strangely felt isolated even with all the claustrophobia around. He felt like a stranger lost in his own world and stranded in his own concoctions while the rest of the people not even about to acknowledge, save reciprocation. She simply breathed life into him and made him what he thought he should be.

But it all happened, at that moment. It was his birthday and she is all,he wanted to be around. He wanted to tell what he used to do for his birthdays, the parties and what he wishes for.He wanted to tell the miracle how he got to meet her.He knows that she would listen to his stories, patiently as ever. But he never expected that reality would strike upon his dreams so hard as to shackle his home of happiness with unparalled vengeance. The only mistake he did was to keep his window open unware of the gales that night. All he wanted was a bright sun to greet him, along with her, when he would wake up next morning for his birthday.

The reality is otherwise. Anouk, his favorite glass doll, was broken during that night.
Anouk: his friend, listener, teacher and his world.Anouk: the panacea of all his irritations, the sound of his voice and his only company in the strange world.

His birthday, in fact his life, was never the same since. Louis, 9 years old and the only child, couldnt recover from the futile attempts of his parents trying to soothe him with everything they could.Their regret shouldnt have been the window or the gale. It should have been their idea to get him the glass doll for his previous B'day.

P.S: This is what he wrote to Santa Claus, just before he got his favorite doll:" Dear Santa, I was very good this year. I went to school everyday.I never fought with my friends and always shared my treasures with them. I even gave my favorite pokemon comics to Sam, although he irritates me. Mom told me that you will present me whatever I wish, if I am good. So please please please give me a little sister with whom I can play with. I will talk to her, make her laugh and take care of her. I will not hurt her. promise.and really, I was very good this year."
Louis doesnt know that his parents cannot have another child or that Santa cannot see his letter,placed under the christmas tree.
Yes, December 25th is his birthday.

Food for blog

2005-01-18T14:25:00.000+01:00

How quicky can you breakdown b4 a person returning from home to this far-out place, to guide you to the food that they brought ( a pristine assumption deviod of any constipation of thinking otherwise)?

I really try. I ask all the possibile questions without even referring to his/her'smom's cooking. But then lets face it:

[Scene 1]
Moi : Hey there! Bievennue.

H(im)(er) : hiiiiiiiiiii (may be many more 'i' s... lost while counting their reaction)

Moi: good to see you! (the veracity is understated)

H: same here

M: so you enjoyed?

H: the trip was wonderful.(hold on, the cliched line..) never thought that the holidayswould get over so soon.

M: yeah...so true( another cliched line)
moments of terrible silence in which you can even hear the strands of thread,knitted in your trouser, sagging due to gravity.
thats it. I cant avoid it...

M: So

H: (as if they are expecting my preposition) yeah , the food stuff has yet to be unpacked

M: (checking the time as to how much i expended in this expedition)

[Scene 2]
M: there you are! how are u? You look different (Thnks Sagnik:)

H : really! ....blah blah... 42 seconds on their justification to the change without knowing which change im referring to...

M: wow...interesting (again, veracity understated)

H: lets beat it ¬M! The food stuff is at home and i couldnt bring to office

M: {The moment when you awkwardly smile after which you realize that it isnt exactly the way you wanna emote. But then, you did what you did because you just didnt know what to do in such situations}

¬In either case I manage to lay my hands/mouth on the food stuff.

Made in India

2005-01-15T11:01:00.000+01:00

an achronological memoir that aroused from the gossamer of nuances that I experienced in my brief-hibernation in India...

Was wondering how on earth I absorbed I came back to my home ,in India?

Simply, by the announcement in the aircraft that says in fact, you have reached India ...

By the smell of air which can date back to the end of your memory

By the disorganization of happenings that start right from airport and by our disposition to accept and smile away at all these

By the relentless pursuit of custom official asking you to keep his family in mind while thinking whether to proceed for a custom duty for my rechargeable battery pack
By the mob of taxi drivers who hound you promising five-star accommodation at three-star prices, when you just manage to see the Indian twilight
By the excitement that fills you to meet your childhood through the nostalgic lens of your family, friends and by the barrage of memoirs that hit you before or during, meeting them.
By the welcome you receive through the yelling of the friend and his ‘pure’ usage of my mother tongue that I am so fat that I can sell shade in summer.
By the confusion whether to choose the 20 USD coffee at the best hotel in town or the 20 cent café at a pavement-stall.
By the satisfaction rendered with the Indian coffee on the roadside stall at 3 am and by realizing that your little wishes can be fulfilled at any hour in this part of earth.
By the bargaining mood for transport that automatically gets tuned into you to make your way to the home
By the signboards and mammoth disfigured movie postures that stand in silence against the roaring sounds of traffic
By the deja vu of thoughts, recollecting what celebrities would think seeing themselves in a ‘creatively crippled’ fashion of painted movie-posters.
By the irritation at the disorderedly traffic and accepting it wholeheartedly as the way of life you were/are part of.
By the warm touch of parents, sister and that of the cute little niece, whose eyes pry at the stranger in her wonderland.
By the sparkle seen in the family’s eyes that sends the message that your homecoming is insurmountably more than taking a 30-day off and booking to-fro air tickets.
By the festive mood that beckons at “home” signaling your arrival and the joy spread out through umpteen number of your favorite dishes cooked
By the firing inquiries of my family and friends, in person and in phone, asking about the life in far-out lands and the joy experienced in the irritation of repeating the same over a numerous times.
By the usual remark of mom that her son slimmed down and inquiring whether he was having a normal diet.
By the funny thought that you needn’t cook or work and all your responsibility is to get pampered.
By sliding to sleep in the same old corner, in the same old bed and over the same old pillow thinking of all the above, realizing that the list is still incomplete and trying to sink in the feeling that you are home.

The Journey aka Close Encounters of Air-travel.

2005-01-11T11:01:00.000+01:00

an achronological memoir that aroused from the gossamer of nuances that I experienced in my brief-hibernation in India...

"Wonder no one mentioned: As ugly as an airport” said an insightful author.

Sometime ago, the traveler in me always used to be optimistic. You know, a mighty angel would come like a purple bird of happiness and flutter her presence in the seat next to me and the rest would be history. I think its the average fantasy of a lot of us around. But the splattering of reality would always be bitter. The anxiety of looking down the aisle from yours truly’s seat and calculating the exact optimistic chance of babes searching for their seats, to be seated next to you might make one go down in the annals of irrational probability. This situation is usually aggravated by the conversations we make up in mind as to how to address the divine chance: “ Hi I am xxxx and you are…lucky” noooooooo… ‘Hi care for a chat. The journey is boring’….no….
All in all, in an ideal world: with no disrespect to Etats-Unis, a plane journey is supposed to incite one’s analytical, communicational and social potential. But then, remember the splattering of reality?

So, over the years, I got used to it. All the while, with the funny feeling that you would get something when you don’t expect it. But some things are irreparable beyond logic. Ugliness of airports and expectations for beautiful company in travel, fall in the category. Learnt the defense mechanism of sleeping in different postures making sure I informed the staff to wake me up only when my food or destination arrives. Pretty smart huh...

As usual, this time I boarded the flight with the window seat option under my belt. This inkling of fascination dates back to childhood when in bus or car, you want to sit by the side of window. It’s because, we tend to imitate elders or because they asked us not sit there or because we are happily irritated by the little green things that pass by, during the travel.

And again, some elderly person occupies it and I have to play the gentleman role of sacrificial disposition. I sit by this gentleman from Gujarat, India who welcomed me by a quarrel with a passenger behind him. Should be an actor of extreme caliber, I thought by the way he is switching his role of a welcome-make-yourself-comfy-here to me and his other half of how-dare-you-comment-when-I-slide-my-seat-back to passenger at the back.

So, he started the conversation as expected. “Where did you say you are from?” was his first question. “I did not….” I was about to complete. He shot back “ I am coming from New York. My son is in a good position. I am a union leader in Gujarat and some executive member of National party blah blah”. “Oh that’s good” I retort. “Good??? It’s great. Simply great” he replies. I tend to bend to take a look at the single wide-screen of the plane. He continues giving knowledge about the pros-cons of globalization, Indian culture and American customer potential and still how his son is doing well. He finally distracted himself to ask about my where-about’s and gave his pearls of wisdom:
“ I guessed you are from South India. South Indians are humble, gentle and responsible, unlike the north Indian counterparts”
“How can u arrive at such a thing”, I inquired
“Well, my South Indian tenants pay the house-rent by the first of every month whereas their counterparts don’t do so”. He declared capturing the arm-rest between us all to himself, catching me off-guard with his statement.

“Demographic characteristic as an extrapolation to Rent payment” Interesting, I thought and was immersed in my next strategy to capture the arm-rest and slept. I could still hear his quarrels with the same person behind but couldn’t pay much attention as I felt I had sufficient stuff that can be blogged.

Why people stop blogging? : An analytical study

2005-01-09T11:02:00.000+01:00

Have been doing research since my last blog on the-last-url, on why people stop blogging. The study has taken me over continents and countries, experiencing the reasons themselves and finally I have come up with some decent bullet points. Ironically, I also observed that my research has extended its claws in making me part of the 'elite lethargic indolent crew', who have nothing in common except possessing the usual faculties. Here you go...

The predominant reason is the Internet connection. It can be qualified further as: “all websites are opening except the blog site”, “I am able to access my blog but the feature to post a blog seem to have been absent” or may be more creative: “Someone hacked my blogger account”….howzzat?. One can qualify the reason by adding the phrases : slow connection, dial-up, ISP has blocked-inciting-websites-as-cyber-nanny-is-absent etc.,.

There is a theory which states that human brain is capable of thinking. There is another theory which states that the above statement is baseless as human brain is oxymoronish. To make it more authentic, these people go on to claim that Dolphins are the creatures to reckon with and mice come next. In fact, check out the seriousness of the fact that what if mice have always misled us in all the experiments. (due credits to Douglas Adams). So the point of this whole point is that every writer has this phase called Brain Dead in which any extraction of creativity will result in ……..nothing, in fact rien de tout.

The third issue might be related to the first one as in people might forget user credentials. This is in fact a sensible reason not to blog. Or in fact, can you blog?

Travelling is one thing that might change the dynamics of your physical, biological, thought cycles. In fact, the issue is more serious if your destination is infected with time differences and you are confused enough that your survival is at stake , let alone blogs.

Kids can bring in a lot of change to the perception of how you look at world or look inwards or look wherever you what to look. The point is , instances abound when you realize and get lost in the little angels’ antics. It’s a humbling experience trying to extrapolate what hey might try to say or see and confuse yourself in the process. The situation can get worse when you have the self-actualization that you don’t know much about the world. This might incite you to stop the blog.

They said, Love is blind but marriage is an eye-opener. Lets talk about marriage and save Love as the unreasonable reason on which its unnecessary to undergo any thought process( in fact, terribly tried to find some sensible word starting with ‘u’ instead of thought process, but failed )

Yeah marriage. How can a marriage affect one writing a blog? May be , if one has the purpose of marriage in writing the blog and may be if they come across it finally.( what does it refer to, here? Asks my GMAT friend).
Or one can find a valid reason in marriage to stop the blog. I think the whole purpose of my article is to give the reason. This particular bullet-point qualifies under I-know-what-I-wanna-write-but-no-more-thoughts syndrome.

If the soul abides by the genuine ethical principle of Procrastination then Q.E.D.

Good books might fill one with so much insecurity and aspiration of imitation that one cant type in a word further. This would be a reason for humans not to blog. (feel like a
4 th standard kid answering a 2-mark science question)

What if the writer believes in hibernation? What if the writer decides that (s)he excersied his faculties to some generous usage for the past so many days, so may be (s)he should let them go. What if the writer opinions that the word hibernation sums up all the above issues? What if, in my quest find that this is in fact the question of answers.

More details later... in the mean while, I should find a way to publish all my drafts i have been piling on. That would in fact add another point in the research : What if the writer is not satisfied by his/her work and all the while waiting for that Divine Intervention to add the extra-little-thing thats missing in the work and hence would find enough reasons not to blog. ( finding a reason like this, can come under my favorite word: Serendipity )

When Vacation Calls...

2004-11-16T15:03:00.000+01:00

So, finally I decided to get out the November slumber and travel east. Yeah, its one year since I have been home and more importantly my French holidays were getting decayed (for starters, its 37 paid-holidays per year and you still want to work somewhere else) and still more importantly I got to enjoy the bliss of my new-born niece.

My trip to India, every year, has significance as it’s my point of retrospection unlike the New Year for most of us. With the reflections with my family and good-old friends, I could see how much I changed for good or bad or worse. My sis always reckons with the last choice.

So, what’s the big deal about writing about my trip? Some of the firsts… (I am getting obsessed with this bullet-point-approach of-late, I gathered. But I should confess that I like the nice little flower that I get against my every bullet point. Few friends confirm that’s a syndrome.)

The first issue is that I planned a surprise for my family. Like travelling thousands of kilometres right to the main door of my home and “knock, knock”. The excitement wasn’t easy to contain as we have this irritating tendency to hint people that what an endeavour we are up to. Like, I called my cousin and said “J, lets plan this surprise well. You are the only one I am telling it to. So better guard it and be privileged”… but the point is, there happened to be almost 6 “you-are-the-only-ones-I-am-telling-to”, in the end. The reason I think, is to soothe thy ego.

So there I was, wrapping up my work, hopping between kids-stores in super marts( J’adore playing with the toys there, my tiny titbit of trance) and improvising my mother tongue to be sans-expletives, for obvious reasons at home. I should admit that we humans have this knack of group adaptability when it comes to way we speak. The fluency of my “formal” language, when in a group of friends, is like sliding on a oil-infected-floor. But when it comes speaking to my Dad or mom, yours truly’s language is reflexive in sounding that thy has Respect Incorporated. None of us have to make any extra effort for that feature of us (goddamn it, I should stop writing customer support mails) and an atheist can thank God for that quality.

Packed the bags, bid adieu to the humans I wouldn’t be seeing around when I come back, drunk(read dunked) behemoth of black café to remember France for long, made sure I remembered the suit-case code after some 103 efforts on the number lock and surprised myself genuinely by travelling in Air-India, mama-mia, Air India…

Oh that old white bird in the sky
Draped in grandeur with that look I donno why
Ornate with baffling beauties to regret the ticket I buy
A single TV wide-screen that makes u bend-raise-see and cry
Cold war with your neighbour to win that single arm-rest-in-between or die
After all these, this is the one I chose to fly
Apres cette experience, I question myself, Why am I?

To be continued …

Next: Close encounters in Air-travel
Next Next: How can one experience a Surprise : A Facial approach

P.S: To extremely maintain chronological integrity, I am posting the blogs the dates they were/or supposed to have been started. The syndrome being the fear of acute chronological disorder.

As Cool as a ...ummmm...as a...

2004-11-10T15:26:00.000+01:00

Talking to my Norwegian friend as to why Scandinavians are as cool as ice. Well, I got the obvious answer: “I don’t know”. It’s like asking Angelina Jolie, as why she is sexy. One of my friends was recollecting the incident that happened in a Ski-class somewhere in Alps. As usual, there were students from a lot of countries, participating. And, as beginners and that too obeying the laws of gravity, people fell. The instructor got the loudest of yells from the group of Italians, with the shrills coming out even for the slightest jerk in their stance.
On the other hand, during the course a Scandinavian met with a deadly accident with his leg hanging almost loose. He took all the strength to call the base and when the Instructor arrived and asked how he was, all he would say is “I am ok”, with a tiny smile. That is something.

That would take to the second part of my blog as to when, I have seen or heard someone's cool acts. The nominees are…

The one above

It was snowing outside and it was the first experience for my friend to see the tiny little flakes forming a white carpet for no adequately explained idea. So, with his penchant for photographs or rather posing, and the excitement to dunk the ice-cream at hand, he goes out in shorts and manages to give in a “tooth-paste-ad” smile for the photoshoot. This with the background that he comes from a tropical country.

He was drinking coffee. That alone was the objective. Nothing else. He was drinking coffee and the only mistake it did was it wasn’t sweet enough. So the protagonist picks up the sugar cubes and manages to lobby a spoon, with the noble intention of resting his case in the comfort of the leather cushion. The rest that’s happened was:
The spoon was in the karma of making the liquid sweet. But with a little of extra force, drops of coffee spilled on the table , in fact on a sheet of his work contract between the drops and the table. Hero manages to ensure that no one watched and bends to clean the evidence of his clumsiness. But the muffler ,resting on his neck, obeys by following the motion. The garcon doesn’t like it being so obedient. He manages to ward it away which one should say with 99.99 % success. Where he failed is in averting the few threads of muffler getting stuck to the spoon dipped in coffee, that was still resting in his hands. So the spoon comes atop along with some café to design his adorable Lacoste sweater. Hero has the emotion that the hapless liquid besmirched his love, so habitually he picks up his right hand to wipe the stains from his beloved cloth, dropping the coffee cup from the hand adroit during the process. The stain on his Love becomes bigger by his excessive passion with hands. The cup, the token of love between co-locotaire and his ladylove, breaks on the clean carpet. Yeah, the Hero’s work contract is the paper he could pick up to clean the stain on his Lacoste. He manages a grin in the end saying, 'c'est la vie'

G was on his way to Paris, to send the plethora of clothes and snaps he accumulated during his 3 year stay in France, through air-cargo. The next day would be his return flight. Reaches Paris and finds the Cargo office with his debatable sense of direction. The cartons were carefully packed, the previous day and G was dexterous in carrying them into the office that the bottom of the boxes rips apart and all G had to offer was to say “Sesky!”. Manages to come out fulfilling his rolls of a cleaner, sweeper, cartons-shudnt-be-packed-in-cardboard kinda activist and finally as a customer at the cargo office. Now, this act is just an appetizer. G now gets his car out to the Gare Du Nord for some unknown reason. He comes out of an Indian Store claiming that the credit card was broken while swiping to pay the bill. Finds his way to the car park to discover his car towed away as Monsieur calmly parked it in a bus-stop. Now: no money, no cell phone battery, no proper French. Comes back home in the evening on his car and claims that it was his most exhilarating day in France.

two hundred Indian rupees, 40 kgs of Baggage, French SIM card rejected as payment-cheque bounced back, battery ran down of Mobile with friends contacts(none of which she could recollect), mobile charger misplaced, Credit-card code forgotten, Public phones that accept only calling cards, Calling cards available in denominations no less than 15€, Stranded in Airport : and finally makes her way back to her place 63 km away.

To be continued…

titbits of trance

2004-11-04T16:22:00.000+01:00

1. Completing a complicated Salsa step with atleast 10 moves and the confident wink you give to your partner

2. The sense of language superiority and "spreading joy" you feel when an french-ignorant MBA soul asks you to configure his mobile voice-mail and in the succesful process you make him hear a job-confirmation voice mail for his kick-ass consultant position.

3. relief when you accidentally delete your professional work folder on the computer and finding it gazing at yourself in the Recycle Bin

4. confidence in predicting a movie story in the first 16 min since the movie started.

5. finding washed socks or a new pair of socks after trying to "get into your shoes" being as fresh as a mushroom.

6. discovering that your cubicle has been ransacked and all you lost was your friend's mutilated webcam.

7. Finding a place in a restaurant after 22h00 in a sleepy french town in August and surprisingly disappointing yourself finding them "closed" and then giving lift to a stranded tourist family, all the way to their hotel.

8. The feeling of not troubling your soul to do the irritating ironing, because of the cold wonderful gloomy day outside your house.

9. Spending hours at the kids section of the supermart playing with all the possible toys and at the same time, catching up with the curiosity of the intended customers.

10. Trying to weigh out which sense is more beautiful: the first rain drops on your shaven head or the scent of earth when it rains.

11. humming the middle-part of the song all through the day culminating in the serendipity to find the start of the tune.

12. Finding out that the opposite of what all I have stated till now, will conveniently fit under
"Titbits of de-trance". ( The preceding sentence will actually not qualify)

....will sprinkle more observations in due course.

at the moment, signing off from Fontainebleau

In celebration of being alive : II

2004-11-03T15:56:00.000+01:00

It is a well established irony that one best realizes the value of someone, something only when they are away. Be it a person, place, thing or an emotion.I dont want to get into these details, for I shall save it for another blog.So the point of my quote is the movies. A wise soul pointed out that one needs to go their sources in utter times of need for thats the comfort they had and need since their childhood. The sources typically or very simply can be your mother tongue through music, movies or chat, or it can be walking in a room with square tiles :stepping only on alternative tiles or it can be as complex a solution as sleep.

In one of those moments, long back, when I had the serendipity to find that telugu songs/movies make one of my sources,i had this idea to translate some movie songs in telugu to english.Agreed that most of the songs nowadays sing ode to the mole beside the belly-button or the short frock or withering top... but I was/is always interested in memorizing songs where the height of creavity/subtility vested in just 10-12 lines of prose. It always used to be the case where I know the song is good and innately remember it, but never used to dissect and understand the lyrics.So one of the days, when I was inundating my friends with my telugu music, I was asked for translation.Trying with the endeavour, I happened to feel like Alice and the rabbit-hole.Never ever I could appreciate the meaning of a song so much which was always in my ears but failed to drew further attention.

The post is in celebration of that prose. Also, for others,listening to songs in a foreign language has this uncanny ability to provide a creative space for imagination.So, I suggest one can listen to the original version through the link( i know I am being ambitious) and then dig into the meaning for the prose thats "Lost in Translation". This is a indegenious product of creative-plagiarism and all credit goes to the lyricist(Sirivennela) and www.dictionary.com for its invaluble thesaurus :-(

Click here and select the second song : Nuvvu Nuvvu. And yes, plug in your headphones if your soul is still in office space.
http://www.raaga.com/channels/telugu/movie/A0000258.html.

The song title means "you". Its sung by the girl(for a change) to tell how much her lover means to her.Yeah, its not the typical plot of a boy-being meeting a girl-being under a silvery moon which explodes for no adequately explained reason....

You are in me...you are with meyou are around me..and you are all me..

you are on my end of my lip...you are on the curve of my neck's tip..

you are on my heart's sole and you are everywhere in my body's soul

in my cheeks its you...like a fresh blossomingin my sleep its you...like a pleasant morning

you are the warmth troubling my creationyou are the chillness comforting my emotion

you are the rawness making my saree heaveyou are the craziness wanting to leave

you are my every war, my armyyou are my favourite enemy

you are the first rain drop which pinches me like a soft thorn you are the incoming difficulty thats never worn.

you are the embrace which hides meyou are the desire which robs meyou are the crime which tenderly bites me you are the friend walking with shoulder around me

you are the unquenchable passionyou are my unending infactuation and you are the essential emotion...

you are the unlawfulness which makes a sweet wound and still you are the liked one to which I hound

you mesmerize and you tantalize.you are the one i wish to revitalize (myself)

you seduce and tease to make me tameyou are my new name I dont even know in this game...

you are my beauty and my blissful helpand its all you of whatever is referred to as my self

you are my determination , my possesion and you are my culmination.

In celebration of being alive : I

2004-10-25T11:58:00.000+02:00

After the ‘stress’ful Squash session on a Friday afternoon and a hot shower to compensate for all the vices endured, food will definitely be on the agenda. Another reason to persist this calorie drain on noon is due to Friday evenings. Friday evenings are eventfully painful to engage in any sort of calorie-measuring activities. (You know what I am talking about). Lets beat it, when the pervading scent of the air senses “bon weekend”, going to gym and desperately waiting for the calorie count to reach 100 is quite an epitaph for jolly-good-me.

So, there was this Friday noon when I was humbled as enough as a domesticated wild animal in a game of squash. Something totally startling happened on my way to the restaurant for my instant karma.

I spotted a friend of mine who 2 weeks ago gave birth to a baby girl. Work place is the last thing in mind that I thought I would see her. So, thinking it to be the weekend prochaine delusions I moved on , just to realize that she in fact came to the office to show her newly born to her colleagues.

Orienting my spects appropriately, I was able to see an unmistakable McLaren navy-blue-baby-basket. The excitement evaded my sense to excuse to the people on the tables I displaced. Then what I saw was the most beautiful moments an eye can capture. Mother holding her 2-week born with all the care and tenderness and the blissful charm pervading her face for the life she gave birth to.

My friend even had the time to tell about how she conceptualized the idea of the card announcing the baby’s arrival. She shot the photos of all the shoe pairs in her family: of her partner’s, two children’s and hers’. And inside the card she had the snap of baby’s shoes and the title mentioned that space has been made for it in the shoe-rack.

So there is the tiny little human with the vague formations of eyes, nose, ear, hair lying in her mother’s groove, with all the peace in the world. The hands and legs are so tiny that you are soon lost when they began and ended. That might be the first visit of the little one to the world around….one can sense the curiosity her eyes were preying on the surroundings. I cannot but imagine and soon get lost in the mental cognitions she might be having: of shapes, colors, and movements.

For a person like me, who has substantially submerged in the materialistic pleasures of projects, pennies and parties, seeing such a pristine and divine sight is in fact a touching movement.

It showed me that how pure a person starts to be.
It showed the height of satisfaction, a human could attain giving and sustaining life in form of mother.
It showed the sense of satisfaction a father can perceive through the adorable sight of the mom hugging the child and the bliss one breathes in the process
It showed the manifestation of curiosity in the baby girl in wanting to know where she is, what is around her and who the shapes that are surrounding her.
It showed that there are in fact few things more painful than the baby crying unisonant with all her sense organs pulled into one and for which she couldn’t give a reason in our language and for which we are stranded in a helpless situation to find out the reason.
It showed me the glimpse of the emotions my sister would have had giving birth to my neice.
It showed me the flash of satiety she would have had returning from the operation theatre and demanding the doctor how the baby is. She in fact did not even bother to ask if it is a guy or a girl.The doctor seemed to have replied that the little one is in the best of health and shape, and that it’s a girl. Sis sighed a breath of relief and slipped into sleep of anesthesia.

P.S: I was returning my lunch tray when I had a carrying glance of the divine creation. She is busy in her father’s lap trying to motion her cute little arms in the air.
It might be a notion of independence from her father just to be on her own. Or it might be a sign to point out at my insecurities: ‘you are 24 years older and still cannot swim in still waters.’ Divine creations, they are.

In celebration of being alive : Prologue

2004-10-24T12:10:00.000+02:00

Looking back, it's hard to believe we have lived as long as we have ... As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. When we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot about our brakes. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us. No mobile phones. Unthinkable. We got cut and broke bones, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank fizzy drinks, but we were never overweight ... we were always outside playing. Not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment ... some people weren't as smart as others so they failed an exam. Horrors. The idea of parents bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! We did not have PlayStations, video games, cable, DVD's, mobile phones, PC's, internet chatrooms ... we had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes and knocked on the door, or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! Out there in the cold, cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we survive?

"The Times Magazine" published with "The Times" 1/2/2003, p8 - Global Village

The text above is my source of inspiration to write about a series of blogs of the little nuances which in fact make a huge difference to our otherwise mundane day. All it takes is to observe them and recognize them. Hence the celebration of being .....

P.S: Thanks a ton NM for forwarding the wonderful content...

Six earthlings and an Intruder-III or Ich liebe es

2004-10-19T17:32:00.000+02:00

I love the fact that ...

- beer'z available only in denominations of .5 litres

- waiters blabber and we could only understand what it is, after they enlighten us by mentioning its a joke

- the pleasantness you can be under , surrounded by some 100-odd cuckoo clocks, in a souvenir shop, all cuckoo-ing for 12 o clock: "slightly" out of sync.

- adding Z before every word you try to speak

- stranded in a no-B.O.G.S.-boat in the middle of the lake when you have the serendipity to find out that toilets in fact are the sources of ultimate happiness.

- entering a restaurant for the same, when the waiter mistakes you for a guest whom a customer is waiting for, and literally rushes you through the maze of tables when you have only one place and one thing in mind.

-mixing a volatile liquid with black coffee and observe the effect it can instigate on a muggle

-coffee and tea have an "option" to be served hot.

-knowing how to blow your nose strategically in different corners of a kleenex.

-the Intruder rushing at you whenever you go outdoors

-discovering that Sex is in the German system, i mean number system

-vouching that any person who has seen a scintilla of german TV can muster 2 numbers: acht and null for sure. and arguing that 0 not 9 ,follows 8.

-using a WC in a german train to find the flush in an entirely inappropriate place.

-finding a scare-crow-to-drive-your-nightmare and lingerie hung beside each other in a shop

-seeing vegetarian burgers in a MacD in Germany, of all places.

-discovering that in German, you say what you write. unlike the instance of: my name is Peter, P as in psychology.

- bidding adieu to the wonderful company and soon getting lost in a maze of fahrts.

-realizing that even after the trip, i still use only four-and-half fingers to type the blogs.

- how on earth ausfahrt can be german for exit. I mean, not that I know, but u can have a sense of intuition that this word can never mean that.

Six Earthlings and an Intruder: II or Pizza, Premature Wine,300 seconds and a birthday treat

2004-10-18T17:32:00.000+02:00

First, he maintained a distance. Then he was in every direction we could see, relenting to give up the chase.Initially, we found the attention on us pleasant but it soon turned out to be a damp affair. Yeah, its the bloody rain (number: 42, type: angular) :as bent as as the soviet sickle and as hard as the hammer that crosses over it. Well, he didnt deter us from lazing around in the green meadows(yeah the ones you see in Bollywood movies, where the divine couple of hero-heroine roll over each other at the beginning of the song) ,,,,,again a long sentence....or playing connections(the irony is that we are lost in direction) or eating some aloo-potatoes aka the chips or counting the remaining bus-stops on our "short 6 km" walk back.

The joy of ecstacy(???) of seeing a Cafe is something relieving especially after an early breakfast at 11 am, a petite ballad for 5 hours and a cool breeze making us feel at 3 degrees.So the obvious emotion is to grab whatever you can lay your hands even if its going to be nemesis of taste-buds for cake till your next birth.

"I hate to sit after being in the rain. Thats when I actually feel the shit I have been through!"

So we ate, like some amicable fronzies, drank and paid the bill. Some managed to try drinking the pizza under the delusion that the topping is infact a milk shake and not the goat cheese.Some managed to drink this pizza fully. and all the while some managed to hold on to their explanation about premature wines..

X: bugger, what is this Zeisefreiqenger ?
Y: you know, when the grapes are ripe and gone to fermentation...
X: No man, is it a pizza
Y: grapes are allowed to ferment prematurely and
X: So its a fruit salad?
Y: When the grapes are fermented early, the color
X: fine...got it man...thanks.
Z: zI think zits an early zfermented zdish.

When you eat some German dishes at 6 o clock, its harsh on your body to impose a dinner at the usual time. may be one should give a day-or-two to recover. But I guess we have learnt it the hard way.

Picture this: you enter into a restuarant and then you are thrusted upon the menu card in the user-friendly-German language and you are given 5 minutes, mind you, its not our 5 minutes which we grossly misuse...its 300 seconds, no more but could be less.And in this scene, you happen to be the happless earthling speaking German and 5 others are pounding on you to make a choice with added constraints like:

Vegetarain without garlic, egg, onion or mushrooms
Non vegetarain without beef, pork, yada yada...no yada yada...is not an animal
Non vegetarain that could be fried only in olive oil
Vegetarian with egg, without mushrooms, with garlic, without tomatoes..
Its very easy for your german speaking friend to consolidate your orders in 300 seconds and finally telling the waiter,whatever he feels like ordering from the menu carte.

I felt the restaurants had a different recipe for size here. For instance, just because I came to this region and ordered a salad, they brought an entire vegetation of the forest for my sald dish. after sometime, I felt more like a cow than with a person trying to imitate -eating-smart.A couple of us even vouched never to eat for a month altogether.

One event can change the entire course of the evening.No, its not about the after-effects of eating a pizza-sized cake and thus forcing yourself to remove the term: "cream" from your dictionary. After all this hullaballoo, the warm conversation we had with the chef, made us forget all the tiredness we have been through (eating also counts here) but we sure were in our senses to remember to thrust the bill on the chap whose only mistake is to be born a few days after.of course, we sang happy birthday in 4 different languages in the middle of the road,to drive us off the guilt.

Six earthlings and an intruder

2004-10-18T16:58:00.000+02:00

It is so hard to imagine how the paradise of an entire country can be named after a dessert.It is even still hard to imagine that you can , in fact, endure the same karma after eating a small slice of that dessert ( by all safe imaginations, no less than some Indian bread in surface area) as you would envision by tasting a dropful of "death-by-choclate".I know the previous sentence is long enough but in order to relate to the poet's idea,you have to read that sentence ignoring the words within brackets. Then, why the hell did I write them...is another thread altogether.

Yeah, Black Forest is the name of the place and I am the victim of over-nutrition of that dessert.So first thing, I got to mention is that I still maintain only 6 of us were originally part of the trip.The seventh one was an uninvited guest who clunged on to us, till the end. He even threatened to follow us until Fontainebleau, but by some nice moves of God Almighty prevented him to follow us further.More about this intruder later.

The second thing...oh no,not again. I still have the deja vu of writing TOEFL essays.Yeah, I always thought there would be nothing interesting to indulge ourselves in Zee Zermany.(yeah, Turkish at work, again). Hold on, Me is speaking about not-so decent things here. I had to revert back the idea, a bit, after being to the places I have been to, in the course of last two days.

Ok, Freiburg is the place. VW Golf is the car. A patient babe with a pillow in the backrest is the "car"taker.A more patient somno-maniac is the entertainer in the back-seat and thy is the navigator.6 hours through no-hits and no-misses took us to the destination...well, near the destination.Its funny as how difficult it is to search the accomodation booked than to make our way through all the 546.3 kms.But in what can be termed as Divine intervention,while we were about to barge into a residence-mistaken-as-accomodation, a lady (read:hostess with no honey) kept on waving at us fervently in Zee Zerman, as fervent as a clock or a door squeak in a Hitchcock movie.

After playing a bountiful of dumb charades and imitating most of the things that man invented since Stone Age, we conveyed the (exact opposite) message( I still believe so) that 2 more of our friends are still to come by train and she has to wait outside waving till then!!! this should go in the annals of effective (mis)communication.

Always a day in a weekend trip starts by exchanging blames as to the observations of snoring symphonies in the room, the categorical denials and shoving the responsibility to shower on others. After much deliberations and disappointment that honey isnt served in breakfast nor is hot coffee, we decided to walk.yeah, like forrest gump, just like that.The mission at hand is to walk 22 km roundtrip with an ambitious aim to see some snow. The reality is that we walked for 42 min to climb up a hill and come back to the same spot, downhill.Although, some are quick enough to point out that the walk is a warm up to the 22 km. Whatever, legs got screwed is the fact.

This is exactly when the intruder followed us in the sneaky fashion...

All you need is...

2004-10-05T11:26:00.000+02:00

in the time when you unfortunately press the disk cleanup and wait for it to accomplish its karma

in the time when you eagerly wanna listen to some Beatles but the CPU has other things in mind

in the time when you are working on some translation project in Chinese but the program relents to display anything other than Russian characters

in the time when you actually have time to google to know that the characters displayed are infact Russian

in the time when the sticky straps on thy sandals , im wearing, are refusing to gel

in the time when you habitually stick up your headphones just to hear the moaning of your comp

in the time when you type some 10 characters on the keyboard while only 1 is displayed

in the time when you peel the banana off its skin and put it in the bin instead of the skin

in the time when you realize that you can never type with more than 5 fingers on your keyboard
(the comp. responding is another issue)

in the time when you forget the username for this blogsite , even after pondering all through the morning, but your fingers automatically type it when you sit before the comp

in the time when you try listening through your headphone with the jack disconnected

in the time when you realize that what if the comp. blows, sparks all over my head, the strange reactions of the electronics on my skin make me invisible aka in the movie The memoirs of an Invisible man..the fantasy ends when I suddenly hear the screamin of my CPU via the head-phones connected, still in a desperate attempt to hear Beatles,The.

in the time when you realize that you need to take a break and embark on the ambitious activity of opening this website to blog all these...

In that time
the above are the facts you would see...my earthling...

P.S: After all,

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
There's nothing you can make that can't be made
There's nothing you can save that can't be saved
There's nothing you can know that isn't known
There's nothing you can see that isn't shown
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you meant to be

But its easy...
All you need is ........... (i think a system reboot)
Yeah, that is all you need.

Quote..."Dance" .....Unquote

2004-10-02T08:48:00.000+02:00

Dance:
A vertical expression of a horizontal desire.

It took me sometime to come in terms with the vertical alignment of letters in that horizontal sentence. Not that I understand it now, but just that some quotations mean a WOW even though they remain indecipherable.

Still trying to find the source of this mind-boggling quote. The problem with these quoters is that they have this situation where they usually have a single sentence to wrap up their thought, experience, emotion or whatever category you might want to fit in the quotation. That brings us to the genesis of the problem , "Why on earth should one quote?". Well, the bottom line is if that sect of humans hadn't been existent, then these 4 lines written would have gone to , pardon my french, poubelle. So for the sake of continuing this blog lets take them for granted. If still someone feels the necessity of oral contraception , pardon my english, "NO", then you may, actually feel so. I feel that I wrote the previous sentence just to let out the self-gratification element that oral contraception is indeed a nice phrase to use.
Thanks Woody Allen.

Dance. As Vincent Vega puts it, not verbatim, you know something is happening. She knows something is happening. There is something sensuous happening. But none of the two wants to talk about it. Thats what is ****ing cool about it. Yeah, Dance also follows the philosophy of a foot massage. I am talking about the horizontal desire with no strings attached. Suelement the passion, the joy, the unpredictability, the confidence.
Thanks Quintin T.

First, one can hear the music on the dance floor, the people around, the pressure on the hommes trying to impress the damsels with the moves, the air filled with alcohol. That isn't a great ambience to have the passion, joy, unpredictability, confidence to let loose, ain't it? Well, first of all, we need a partner. Yeah, the quintessential hard-fact which unequivocally proves that the world is unfair. And the icing is the fact that the books with synonymous titles of "10 ways to find a man?" are sold like hot-cakes. (I have discounted the percent of gay community, buying these knowledge sources) Come on... look around! we are all there!!!
Thanks, Jerry Seinfeld.

So,getting a partner to a dance floor is one thing. And making her dance is another. The point I was wagging around is the definition of the dance partner. For all fairness sake, here I have to assume that the dance companions should be minimal of expectations in after-thoughts, in blunt terms, of taking the activity physically further. Things ,then,would be as smooth as sliding on an oil floor. You needn't try to impress her with the energy of even your next-incarnation, needn't be inebriated to sink in any embarrassment of your movements, needn't need to make a pass, yet you can have the bliss more than blowing the J from Nepalese mountains at the Goa Coffeeshop on 42, kloveniersburgwal, Amsterdam. (my self-gratification at work, encore)
Thanks, the match-box-I-found-in-my-house-one-fine-sober-evening.

When the Art starts in this conceivable manner, you needn't talk, she neither. Neither its the case of comfortable silence. Its just the medium of conversation is interlaced in the synchronized moves and counter-moves of your vertical expressions. Take the lead, inject the sense of unpredictabilty of making her guess the next move(dance...pls no perversion), make your confidence ooze by the looks in the fellows around you, sync with the rhythmic interludes of music in the air and voila , you are bound to carry it on in passion. Passion: unrestricted by space and time. Remove space, you are left with here. Remove time, you are left with now. between here and now, there is no way you can be stopped. Thanks Richard Bach.

Not at all bounded by these dimensions, the show will go on horizontally until you realize that the DJ has to call it a "day" for any reason related to earth: be it a simple case of a Vogon Invasion to destroy earth for constructing an Inter-galactic highway or be it a more complicated reason that he/she has to go home.

P.S: The cases of libertine souls, couples in a relation : dancing, needn't be mentioned. Their enjoyment is obvious!

So, we are talking about that WOW quote about dancing right! What was I saying? It took me sometime to come in terms....................
funny, how we have the uncanny ability of writing about random thoughts. Amen.

Food for thought

2004-09-07T15:03:00.000+02:00

“I am a vegetarian not because I love animals. Because I hate plants!”

That’s how the legend goes. Vegetarianism. Personally, utterly bitterly difficult to translate. The pristine meaning would deprive one to eat or breathe air altogether. Since none of us would probably survive with such a conjecture, lot of revisions were proposed to the definition. Debates and wars ravaged the civilized world whether milk should be a part of it. Because of this white luscious liquid, Mammals in general and Cows in particular have been the classic case of parody ever since. They belong to both the vegetarian and the non-vegetarian sects in their consecutive incarnations. Most of these animals couldn’t digest this dilemma and rumours are rife that this might be a cause of the recently unearthed mad-cow disease. Holocausts resulted because mushrooms seem to be a boundary case. Oysters, instigated by the efforts of mushrooms, fought a lost battle being part of the “verdant” group.

Since the Vegetarian domain always was a constricted community, lot of earthlings generally wanted to be part of it. This is for no reason in particular, may be as the quote suggested, they were upset by the little-green things growing around. But being upset is nowhere a valid reason to adapt to this new “food-for-thought”. So, people came in and people departed the “green” club. Some critics even went forward and applied the Black-is-white-Zebra-crossing theorem.
It seems Man encountered God and asked him to prove himself. God said, “I can’t do it as proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing.”
Man went on to say, “The elite group of vegetarians couldn’t exist by themselves. Humans were supposed to be higher up in the food chain for unreasonable reasons and the vegetarians clearly defy it by staying down the order. This may be attributable or extrapolated to their humbleness or nobleness or irritated-by-little-green-things-ness, which in general shouldn’t exists in the conception of the humans! Such a special sect of people even defies the theories of evolutions which YOUR children proposed that man originated from ape. The “plant-loving” community goes on to prove that they originated from any herbivorous animal in general.”
“These qualities that make up these people couldn’t just be attributed by Big-bang or nucleus-atom-molecule-life theories. It proves that YOU have YOUR sneaky hand in creating them. So, going by your logic, you don’t exist.” Q.E.D.
God happened to think of a while and seemed to have vanished in a puff of logic.

The critics break the argument here, and proclaim the genesis of Atheism. That’s a different issue altogether. That’s not the point though. The point is the special status of the veggies in this western spiral arm of the universe.

The Sect underwent transformations for generations, including–excluding members and including-excluding the dishes in the menu. The retro look, retro music and retro design are in vogue now, proving that the earth is round and that we come back to the same point blah blah. So is the case with the renewed interest in the Vegetarian club of late. It’s a status symbol to proclaim that one doesn’t touch even milk products. Being Vegan or whatever. It’s posh to be enlisted as a member of P.E.T.A. This acronym always amuses me, People for ethnic treatment of animals? Ethnic: to treat animals as compatriots or butcher them only after giving morphine? Well, the acronym doesn’t amuse but in fact confuses me. Just as the song lyric “Old Acquaintances should be forgotten”.

So the renewed interest in the people (people is a euphemism in this case for counting purposes) has suddenly affected the economic balance of countries altogether. Imagine now, the trees being ripped out of their clothes, I mean their leaves and serving as salads in millions of verdant dishes. The ecological balance, soil erosion, food-chain alterations due to survival for fittest between herbivorous creatures and humans….oh la la, world has never been the same place.

In fact, the issue (refer: prior Para) has snowballed to such an extent that the caterers in a humble, small school, adjoining a forest some 63 km from Paris, have to be changed after 13 years. The problem in this institution has been a double edged sword:

There are these caterers who have never heard of the word vegetarianism in this part of the world. Sort of people, who would envision fellow-beings to be higher up in the food chain.Yeah, they don’t read Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, and Elle to know what’s in vogue. Even if they did, how many of them would relate food and fashion or food-for-fashion! So they went on with their cuisine unaware of the veggie club influx in the school.

And on the other-side there are these Vegetarians. Let’s call them victims. Some by choice, some by birth and some for a reason not specified above. A bunch of humble optimists. They study, work, research in this small school all through the morning, just hoping that the Vegetarian Section at the restaurant will be open that day. And of course, they all say the daily prayer, “Give us today our daily bread”. But our Father in Heaven seems to turn a deaf ear. Expectations indeed are vicarious entities. A normal, unassuming veggie might start in the morning with an expectation that (s)he would find something vegetarian in this restaurant-in-small-school-beside-forest.
Lunch time arrives for the victims, after two veggie breaks in the morning. Now is the killer. The menu is written in a foreign language which just goes on to aggravate the expectation. After much deliberations and cerebrations, the soul is still confused. Something like: “Does pepperoni mean pepper only? Is it chicken-tikka or fried cheese? Is it the day I cease to be a victim in this restaurant-in-small-school-beside-forest?” Finally a choice has to be made as the biological law demands that thou shall eat or thou perishes. So, in a blunt defiance of the European law, which goes on to say that in this continent of multifaceted and diverse cultures a Vegetarian ceases to be a chooser, an average veggie makes a choice not to opt for the dish in doubt. And that’s how the struggle continued/continues.

Those are the two edges of the sword and struggle is still on to design a scabbard to fit both the edges in. Let’s face it. It’s like a postal department sending e-mail to all its employees requesting them to create awareness amongst public in writing letters. Amen.

Last heard it in an Ali G Show: thanks for reminding it, Sadron! Believe it at your own risk...
Ali G goes to this celebrity who happens to be a vegan or is part of this P.E.T.A. Miss X goes on to say she loves animals, they are sweet(not the literal sense, I guess) etc. Its Ali’s turn now! He proposes that would she eat if there is an exciting, juicy Mc Donald’s hamburger in front of her. She maintains that she is a vegetarian, animals etc.
He goes on to ask her if she would grab a bite of a juicy burger with chicken in it, if kept in front of her. The lady amplifies her voice and holds her line that she doesn’t dig into chicken. Our man offers the punch line. “Will you eat da chicken if I tell ya that I will kill another one if you don’t grab a bite?” The show ends.
This dilemma is hence named the Divine paradox for vegetarians.

Stress: The 5 letter word

2004-09-06T10:58:00.000+02:00

Stress : The 5 letter word (lack of counting is directly attributable to the word) responsible for the revenues of the leisure industry of-late. The much hyped word surrounding a common man’s tryst with the sprituality industry,these days. Well, you can go on right now, with the therapies and meditation techinques custom made for corporate clients or you can read the blog and then proceed with the therapies and meditation techniques custom made.............................

First technique

Get a soft rubber article big or small enough to grasp your hand. The article can assume any shape. whatever suits your inimitable imaginatoin. Now, hold the article on your palm tenderly and carefully. Then,maul it. mutilate it and more importantly , squeeze it. For better effect, take turns with both the hands or even better, get two rubber articles for both the hands. This is called the handsome techinique.

Second technique

Video games. The cornerstone for the mal-nutrition of any child. Surprisingly they offer an amazing method to add fantasy, brutality and revenge (yeah, that dish which is best served cold) to the medium of stree-relieving.

For example, take the famous game of a good-being killing loads of bad-beings for the obvious reason. So, the simple case is to name the bad-beings after your boss, your specific issue of work conforming to frustration and any other living-or-non-living entity attributing to your discomfiture. The order of naming is not important unless you have a degree of devastation associated with the soon-to-be-living-the-rest-of-their-shortass-lives-in-agonzing-pain (Marsellus Wallace strikes again) victims. To add some intelligence or dumbness to the names, you can follow the Binomial Nomenclature.

Third techinique

Sports. Choose an appropriate sport which can translate your emotional outbursts (stress, frustration and irritation: over anything as trivial as windows taking a few more seconds to boot) into an appropriate sporting skill. The fun can be exponentially aggravated if the sport in question can actually appropriately translate your stress.

Encore, an example.Squash. All you need is a wall, you-can-never-deform-me sorta tiny squash rubber ball and of course a racquet. The color of the ball assumes signifacance if you want to colour your stress.

Moving forward (not in the game but in our conversation) the aim of the game is to channel the ball to its nirvana by directing it to the wall. The vigor with which you carress the little-black-thing is directly proportional to your stress-relieving. The tangible measure of your objective ,which by the way is to relieve the stress not just to keep on hitting, is felt upon when you are visibly tired and physically drained.

Thy should add that the noble deed of your objective can be thoroughly impeded in this technique by your opponent. So use your discretion to choose the appropriate muggle who might endure you some taste of winning in the process.
And please aviod this guy: dmk_bits in any form of your sport as your opponent. Because if you did choose him, you might just end up like me writing some 60 lines of ramblings on a god-forsaken cause literally for free and in the process enduring utter stress.

Consolatione Philosophie de la Jerkin

2004-09-02T15:31:00.000+02:00

Bonjour tout le monde

This is to bring to the humble notice of our global family that i have been under the utter trauma after losing my most beloved, "kind-enuf-to-protect-me",calm, plain and pretty soft spoken JERKIN.

This is the second time in the row that such a havoc is conceptualized....amountin intangible wreckage to my poor little soul, in particular to my ears!

As u can see, the entity has physical as well as profound emotional significance to me not only cauz of its monetary status but also because of the soothing feeling of protectiveness it offers me of no reason.

i therfore plead before the most generous, "no-negative-balance-in-bank" & "i will be ther for you" sorta people to extend thier sympathies by contributing their might to conserve the extinct species of my jerkins.

Contributions can be made by whatever mode you would prefer. But I would like
1. A cheque drawn in favor of my name in any of the banks. Preferably Citibank
2. The cheque to kept in any size envelope addressed to my home or office or gym or garageband address. Preferably in a 10*15 cm beige colored envelope addressed to my garageband
3. The details in the cheque can be written by a right-hander orleft hander or an ambidextrous person with any colored ink. Preferably by an ambidextrous person with purple colored ink.

yeah, by whatever mode you would prefer. I wouldnt have any problem.

Note: As per the IMF and WTO regulations, contributions can be no less than 10 € and no more than 121.34 €.
(Taxes exempted, as per French laws, due to the sympathetic nature of the cause). Foreign currency is welcome.

May Fortuna take u high in ur wheel of Fortune.And May the blind heedless goddess wont crush you beneath the spokes of the wheel.

Thanx for your understanding.
me, ur beseiged (non)complacent lad

P.S:
1. Incidentally, "chaith" is the latest word to be included in webster's to mean "bad debt: you cant write me off"

it can be used in the noun form if you wish. for more info about its origin and veracity please feel free to contact ask financial benefactors.

231 Kinds of precipitation.

2004-09-01T10:59:00.000+02:00

I was writing about this rain type in my other blog. I should mention about the source of this idea before you can think that I am creatively capable of this kinda conception. It was DNA: Douglas Noel Adams(DNA) , the best thing that happened to earthlings since Big-Bang, who put it in one of his increasingly inaccurate trilogy of the 5 books : The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

I am still searching for the exact text of the kinda rains he talks about. If someone finds it before I post, please do pass it on. Just happen to google on this one. DNA writes in his "So long and Thanks for all the fish" that Rob McKenna , an unknown Rain God who has categorized 231 types of precipitation, none of which he likes !!!

Coming back to the kind of rains, to start with, its an amazing thought. Classifying something so trivial or something so atomic, is in fact so original. I was ruminating about this the other day. What are the different kind of rains I could recollect. Remember, the word is recollect not imagine.

So, there is this Rain Number: 37, I have earlier mentioned. 37 for no reason. Just like no reason one will say, “As fresh as a mushroom or As ugly as an airport”.

Then, there is this rain which seems to emerge from the center of a circle and sprinkling in all directions. Can be best viewed ( before the techies could say, IE6 sp3, 1024*768) by sitting in the front non-driver seat of the car and reclining the seat to shamelessly imitate a British Airways Business Class. yeah, the view can be enhanced by stretching your legs on the dashboard amid the concerns of the car-owner.

Then , there is this rain which seems to have the uncanny ability to drench you no matter how much of wet-hostility you “shower”. Rain number: 7

And I remember Rain: 16 which is the cinematic version. Quite easily spotted in an average Indian movie. My pick is
Quote

Midsummer afternoon. cut Hero comes to the beach shore to buy peanuts on a bicycle.cut
And Heroine comes for the same in a Merc C Class. cut Both bump into each other. cut Flash-Thunder.cut Rain drenches them without warning or premonition.cut All this while the people are bathing in sun at a distance. final cut

UnQuote
I haven't experienced it though.

And the last one for the session is the Angular rain, (Rain 42) which in context can be as bent as a soviet sickle and as hard as the hammer that crosses over. This Rain comes at a funny angle so the age-old superstition of holding the umbrella up your head doesn't quite help.By the time , one orients the umbrella accordingly, the rain powered by the wind calls its own shot in a different direction.

More inputs in this regard are overwhelmingly welcome.

My more recent muse happens to be the trivia behind the movie titles. Was telling HD the other day that it takes a screenplay to translate the abstract view of a story and characters into a movie. Then its the karma of the title to condense the crux of the crux of the idea or the feel of the movie to fit in one word or a few ( not so difficult to count). I think the longest movie title will be
“The Englishman who went up a hill but came down the mountain”. Any inputs?

And of course the name of the songs will go along with this logic, as well. Same creative responsibility held by the title of the song to convey the gist of artistic expression.

More in the next blog : Which sports are stress-relievers? and How to make an ode to the lump of green putty he found in his arm-pit on fine summer morning?

and Happy Birthday: mraraman and sharan779

Cricket : Not always played in whites

2004-08-30T13:37:00.000+02:00

So after a tangible hiatus aggravated by hibernation, i planned to make my web-presence felt.

This blog assumes significance as I am using my new iBook for the purpose.Yeah, i pod and i book and I Apple.C’est tout ;C’est ¢a.

So, starting where I left, its been a busy week blah blah. More importantly been to Amsterdam last week, hold on, before you derive to conclusions. Been there to watch the mother of all Cricket matches. Cricket, the same sport G.B. Shaw so lucidly enlightened the world.The match was between Pakistan and India. I could have written India and Pakistan. But just felt that I had to put my ounce of sporting spirit or flattering fraternity.

But the problem of going to Amsterdam to watch:

"the compilation of 6 sticks, 11 earthlings with a single leather ball to their might and 2 others with pieces of wood to compete against (All in all, a FAIR game)"

is not a statement that one would like to believe. Its like, I would go to a German Auto Bahn with a BMW Z series , just to see the country side.
So, with the smirks of my friends and collegues, we drove through the night in our mighty VW Golf. we drove for the spectacle showered with forecast of thunderstorms on our Golf. oh what a car! relaxing in the back seat with a comfy pillow tucked in between the window and the seat and guiding my friends to the destination in the wee-hours ( wait a min, the later part was my delusion, as my friends argue).

The best way to loll around a place in Europe is to stay in a country side house with breakfast. Breakfast with some honey.and some hot coffee. and some soft bread. and a hope that the hotel bill will be normal. That had been our hope till we were dunked bad enough by the hostess’ ledger.

Amstelveen, the venue , is a sober little town which resembled a venue for SAARC conference on 21st, Aug 2004. Its more than a feeling at home. Its a claustrophobia to which I am contributing to. The best part to witness this, happens to be the ticket counters which had the privilidge of getting ensconced in Indian Queue Systems. Some one told me the crowd is just a figment of imagination of South-Asian residents of Le Londres.

So in the divne fight between the drizzle-soaked audience empowered with the zeal to catch the sought-after spectacle and the 2 people in the ticket cabins, its the people without tickets that emerged victorious. Unable to control the crowd, the organizers diplomatically put it as “ We are happy to let you in, free”. As if, one comes driving six hours in the night, finds an accomodation 30 km away from the venue and just visit the stadium to check if they can enter without a ticket.

So, the hullaballoo persisted until people could search their friends missed in the commotion or until they settled in a comfy location ignoring that they came with a bunch of others too. As a matter of fact, I was searching for the friends who have settled in a comfy location. In all this epoch, the weather was extremely insecure that it hasnt had its chance to play. so it started raining. Rain number : 37 to be specific: more than a drizzle to interrupt the activity at-hand; but far less than the concept of raining itself to hold it resposible for the annulling the activity.

Finally, the much awaited event, after all the delay, saw post-noon light in a reduced version of the game. I have to mention that it was my first experience of watching it live and it had to be India vs.......ooops Pak vs. India and it had to be in Amsterdam. What a “kick”!

The euphoria in the ground was worth mentioning every second of it. There are these approx. 5999 odd souls like me, who made an amazing effort to come from places with the essential paraphernalia. The drums, the bhangra, the chanting, the passion: all have a pristine karma of enjoying every moment of the “religion” as it is christened in my part of the world.

I had my moments: with the captions we came up and the banter to distract the boundary fielders. balls being bowled, percussion rhythms diffusing in the air, runs being scored, jokes and slogans cracked, voices shrilling with war-cries for their fav. teams: all happened in an intermittent camaraderie.

Well before i could ruminate about it, the match was well under wraps. India lost pathetically to their mighty opponent. Surprisingly, I couldnt feel an iota of sadness for this news but more for the fact that the match was over. Had I watched the same game in the TV, I would have been overwelmed with disappointed. Lets face it ,

I couldnt watch a Sachin straight-drive
I couldnt watch Dravid’s Wall being built
I couldnt watch a Kumble mis-field
I couldnt watch a Inzy getting others or himself , run-out
yeah, I couldnt watch India win.

But still, all said and done, (I am using this phrase a lot since yesterday, as frequent as 18 times including this usage! have still to cull the origins of this professional speaking), I was pondering for quite a while, why I couldnt relate to the rest of my friends about the disppointment. To start with, was I disappointed?

YES : bold and capital

because the people sharing the same vigor and energy of the game departed the stands

because I felt I was again alone like a stranded child in the after hours of the carnival

because I couldnt any more see the professionals playing the game in the best of the spirits with all the hype surrounded between the countries.

because I couldnt re-enact my role of cheering and boo-ing and showing the placard around, in which I had my 2 minutes (yeah, Andy Warhol was right)

because the game is over.

Howzzzzzzzat!

"I was sittin alone in a boring room
I was just another gloomy sunday evening
I was wasting my time and I got lots to do
I feel so lonely and I am waiting to write
But nothing ever happened and I wonder."

Subtitles, I miss them!

2004-08-20T15:56:00.000+02:00

Happened to check out this movie: "La Fille sur le Pont", the other day. Directed by Patrice Leconte, this movie is destined to be different and it doesnt disappoint us.

The first that impressed me is the color of the movie. Its black and white. Not restricted to the falsh back episodes or coupled with color-grading.
Out and out , black and white.

The second thing, is an important and valuble lesson.I have seen it in a french DVD. beware, a french movie in a french DVD doesnt even console us with french subtitles , leave alone "Zee" English. ( Heavy influence of Turkish in SNATCH). that reminds me, to claim the "originality", the english movies translated in French have the titles too translated in their own way. (Note for Hindi speakers: how easy life would be if it works out like "Mai jaantha hoon, pichle garmi me kya hua" as translated title as an ode to preserve originality). I dont know I can claim, but I became an avid googler with the translated titles of English movies in French.

Enough of digression.Back to the movie and "sans-sous-titre", i got the experience of a soap-opera in the movie.
In a movie of foreign language
Somethings you can make out by the action of the characters.
Somethings are so obvious that you neednt make out
Somethings you understand based on the environment . for eg, you laugh as everyone around you laughs, you sigh when people around you do that..etc
Somethings you dont understand because you dont know the langauge. As blunt as that.

It so happens, that the movie falls in the last category. So i watch it for 10 min, pause it, know the meaning from my patient friend and get back to karma .yeah, the soap opera spanned 9 episodes.

The movie is about two persons, but labelling themselves as terrible losers who meet over a Paris bridge while the heroine(Adele) is trying to commit suicide. Her character has some shades of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Though here, because of her insecurites, feels close to whichever male she encounters and admits for sex and swallows the bitter truth later.The starting of the movie is canned as an interview. In fact, I believed that the movie hadnt started and thought it to be the usual jig the actors throw promoting the movie (" My life is contended by accepting this role"; " the treatment of my character is different..read as...I get to wear different clothes in my movies etc)

So, the story is a 40-ish boy-being (Gabor)meetin a 20-ish girl-being under a white silvery moon which doesnt explode for any adequately explained reason. he is a carnival knife thrower who though might appear to have intentions to bully her, realizes that he too is an unconfident loser in life who needs a character like the girl to complement to achieve something. The story with the usual twists and turns aggravates the intimateness of the lead-pair who go on their own ways to meet again at a bridge, this time in Turkey.and did they live happily ever after?

The scene when Adele tells Gabor that she wants to do what she wants to do NOW, the frame transcends to knife throwing which symbolizes their
interaction and communication which makes her have the feeling of sex. I felt the scene to be an unision where both the leadpairs' emotions are discharged.

And about the black and white used throughout, may be its to symbolize the good-luck and the bad-luck manifesting in any ones' life . to symbolize duality of nature and the shades of grey as the transitional phases. may be.

...until later

"There are three stages to sex in a person's life: Tri Weekly, TryWeekly,and Try Weakly."

Company of Heroes

2004-08-19T14:51:00.000+02:00

" From this day until the ending of the world but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother"
- Henry V

That happens to be the trivia behind the title of my all time favorite mini-series. As all good things should come to an end, so did the entralling 10 eposides of BoB.But then, the memoirs it leaves behind is perennial. Its unbelievable to watch the the travails and travesties of Easy Company(EC) of 101 st Airborne in their role of fighting for Allied forces. In being part of the greatest effort to liberate humanity. In a true spirit of a solider,as told by a veteran in the show, what they have done is playing the part, their little part in the war.

Yesterday happened to watch the 9th episode "Why we fight?" where the EC witnesses a concentration camp(CC). Its a very moving sequence of scenes especially as i could relate it to the Strasbourg CC, which is indeed one of the goriest places I witnessed. Went there with 4 of my friends. After seeing the place , the photographs and the death-instruments n rooms, none of us could speak to each other. The place felt like an attempt to strangle humanity in unthinkable measures. Even the vallies and the cool breeze of this hill-top place did not do us any good.

If after 60 years seeing the vacant space fills me with those thoughts, its uncomprehendable to think the plight of the soliders fighting the war, losing compatriots and witnessing a place like this where people have long lost their self and just live to die. Its unimaginable to fathom the emotions of an allied solider when he is embraced by a CC victim
who cant even know how to react for his freedom long lost.
who cant even recollect the sense of food
who cant even attempt to cry as his very existence is gripped in the euphemism of sarrow, grief and fear of staying alive.
who cant even remember that he is alive

The way its picturized in the series , the minute details to which the prod-team paid attention, and the fact that seeing the episode still sends shivers down your spine , its of course not a big deal to get an Emmy award.

I shall get back to the details of BoB, after may be, watching it for another time. Searching for the script of the mini-series at the moment.All I could say is,

"The price of freedom in World War II is not only the 'approximate' 55 million people dead. Its also the haunting memoirs still resident deep in the compatriots' faculties.Its also the world seeing the maniacal manefestations of denial of humanity .Its also something which can never be tangible and expressed in words. "

With or Without You

2004-08-18T14:36:00.000+02:00

I was thinking about it for a long time. Enought time to see it rise and fall in front of myself.
It has been the reason for my prolonged season of depression.
It has been the reason for reinventing my "personality".
The feeling of It has been the reason for adjustin my priorities of life.
I always wanted to evade the thought of it but I couldnt as it is within me.
I always wanted to think of something else, but nothing seems to be more important.
I always wanted to wish for its well-being. But something are just out of your control.As exactly as you cant fiddle around with the genetic pattern your father has passed on.

To trace back the problem to the "roots", may be it concerns my very existence.Yeah,may be my father is responsible for it.I could dare say, he is the one responsible for the limbo I am in.Yeah, I even thought I should sue him for his remote connexion.

The point is, with the gravity of this unfathomable measure , human psyche cant escape the destiny for long. for 1 day fine. 1 week ok. 4 weeks not bad. 84 weeks...no way. yeah, no way.
84 : a multiple of the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.

So decided to opt for the remedies available to soothe this intangible pain.Its beyond any sort of medication as my experience suggested. Its beyond the monetary standards. Falls in the "there are somethings money cant buy" sort of a thing. Its like a bad debt. you can never write it off.Where Am I? yeah, still searching for remedies.

So after prolonged contemplation and how it would affect my life and following incarnations, I decided to opt for it. I decided to weed off the problem from its "roots". yeah, I know it will effect my demeanor in every sense. I know it will change the perceptions of the people.I know I can never "look" like myself with all the after-effects.

But then, some issues of life have not-so-easy solutions. I decided that I own full responsibility of the decision and the radical changes it may bring in my life.It will indeed begin a new chapter in my book but may be I will be changed for ever.

With all these circumstances against me, I couldnt think of living with it. Living with that feeling. Which the nobel rock-group has aptly worded as " I cant live, with or without you".
So I took the drastic step one fine August evening.Even my walk and my composure was tensed up. I decided to confront the feeling myself.And finally, I knocked on the door. those moments, I waited are some of the longest I have felt. The door opened and the rest isnt history. Rest is how you see me today.

After the rendezvous, I felt that I triumphed. Felt good with the responsibility.Felt as if thats the noble thing I have done in my life.
As Jerry Maguire says, "I am used to flying below the radar, enjoying my life and friends. But I have notbeen truly tested. I have not gone to India to explore my life, as my brother has. I have not been in a major car accident, or fathered a child. I have not created a life, nor have I killed anyone. I am nuetral. I haven't started a war and I haven't stopped a war".

but that day, I felt I did something. I felt that my breathing was worth it.

Yep, you guessed it right. I am talking about my hair and about the dilemma in my decision to go to the coiffure to shave my head off.
As my boss said once," Its embracing baldness gracefully".

Yeah, " I cant live with or without you".
you just dont fight for somethings which are predecided as early as your father's 30's. Its better to give-in as you dont have any choice.

P.S:And yes, My dad is bald.

Lost in Translation

2004-08-18T11:42:00.000+02:00

Lemme chip in what the movie meant to me...(all within the context of the movie)

all i (im using a small case 'I' as i seemed to be less ego'ed today:-) can relate is that my thoughts on Lost in Translation are due to the mild frustration,the hazy unconvetionalism and huge understatement of relationships that the movie offers when u almost always assume something specific of the result.

i(read as we) , in general, assume that if some chemistry goes on between the lead pair , it should cascade;no matter what. That ,barring all consequences, is logical. goddamn it, thats how a movie should end.Extending the logic to the movie, the lead pair(shud i say that!)- going to discs, strip clubs and roaming in the streets for 1 hour- shud leave the movie in the same vien but not by whispering something and parting ways.

The movie portrays the two leads with a crisis at hand. he with the ordinary midlife crisis after 30 years of marriage where the color of tile is more important than how one's feeling. She is two years down the marriage and suffers from over-professionalism of husband and disappointment of what she expected from marriage.Its irony that she studied philosophy!
Both lives are aggravated with the alien land and language and the commercialism involved.

Even the camera shows that the two souls relate to each other well ( The scene when both suffering from insomnia staring out of the window in back2back shots). they buffer each other and reflect each other and while we can conveniently assume they can elope the director underplays and leaves thier relation to our interpretation.The subtelety in which they tresspass each other's lives and carry on reflects the delicate line that the diro has taken. personally, the very thought of such relationship is emotionally exciting. Its more than a friend, not a lover. It is emotional not physical. It is refreshing but doesnt die down.Its not like strangers meeting for a few days in tokyo but someone catching up with lives after being away only for a couple of days.

i cant but wonder how open the plot is...making the characters vulnerable to our interpretation when compared with a tight screenplay of that of AITHE(http://www.idlebrain.com/movie/archive/mr-aithe.html). Both the movies fool us, both have unconventional approaches.This is one movie for me where i relished more of it as more the hours passed by seeing it.

i think Bill Murray whispers about the tile he would be using for the office while asking her to guess which model her hubby would have shot:-)

Footnote: My friend from Portugal saw this movie and phones his sister there to go and watch 'Lost in Translation'.Apparently she tells that there is no such movie thats released.And he concludes that the title might have lost in translation(in portugese) Of course, this is one interpretation of the movie.

F1 is the religion. Get baptized.

2004-08-18T11:34:00.000+02:00

This isnt excatly a on-the-spur-of-moment-here-i-put-my-thoughts-kinda-blog. wrote it long back (11july 2003). just that got a "space" now to publish.

So I decided to write. Again. With the hangover of weekend still finding it hard to succumb to reality . Again

Its about the thought I have been yearning for the past four years...right from the days of gazing the spectacle in the eco-friendly hostel common room, so environ-sensitive as to ruffle the telecast ‘cauz of a crow on the cable wire. My journey of a spectator started in that Ouverture Grande fashion at BITS and carried on to home amidst the sermonic parents waiting to switch to the soap-opera-filled channels and then forwarded to the wide screen telecasts in dark corners of Bangalore pubs with like-minded people...like minded I meant not for dark corners though. It has always been my dream to watch It Live. Being part of the 1 lac odd crowd getting frenzied…. just by being THERE.

Yeah...it’s about the spectacle I am interested in, rather than the environmental effects of crows on cable wires. So what are the peripheral sermons I am thrusting in? Well, let me tell you how it is to me to be a Formula One fan.

Formula One. The sport. It’s about money pumped in and for 10 teams (at the moment). It’s about 20 drivers repeating the same manoeuvre for one-half odd hours and shedding around 2-5 kgs by the end of it. It’s about teamwork, rehearsing yearlong for a blink-of-eye precision. Yes, it is about racing.

And above all...it is about speed and control. A six speed gear box cruising at 300 kmph on the straight, with a 3000cc engine having 1000 moving parts and responsible for horsepower exceeding 800bhp. It is about braking from 320 kmph to 70 kmph within the span of 3 seconds and producing 1000 C of heat in the process. It is about the sound: wroooooooooooooooooom.
According to me, there are two kinds of people: people who heard of F1 and people who follow it: Who follow it like a religion. Who get baptized every fortnight from March to October. "What is the kick?" an impious might ask…. Wowwow, I am not proposing any conversion laws and theories here. Nevertheless, you got to have a taste for speed which is ironically dangerous and safe, taste to appreciate one's presence of mind to criss-cross opponents while driving at full throttle, taste to feel that the engine isn’t cacophonous but it "roars" ...and things alike.
So getting back to trivia, I got the chance 2 years ago to be at the oldest grand prix venue at Magny Cours.But the reason I had offered myself is: lack of company! What a shame. It is only the last Sunday that I had to rest that argument in peace. Yes, I did it last Sunday. I have been to the French Grand Prix 2003 and thank God people remember it cauz Michael Schumacher hasn’t won it:-) for a change.

6th July started off unlike any typical Sunday. Early to rise and early to get strapped behind the seat belt for the 180 km loooooooong drive which really seemed to take ages at the fag end. Imagine taking 1 hr for the last 15 km stretch! No wonder there are more nuts like us jamming the traffic till the venue. The excitement was deep down like champagne waiting too kick out of a shaken MUMM . bottle. In fact, it needn’t be MUMM. or Champagne for that metaphor cauz I just want to make my point that the success in this Sport is celebrated with that brand of sparkling fizzy alcohol.

The one hour final phase wait, 20 minute drive again to find the parking space amidst the sea –no- ocean of cars, envy towards the carbon-based-bipedal-life forms camping for days together with barbecues, just for this eventful day….I thought of saying all these things didn’t deter my spirits, but have to be honest that the last one did. It just showed the extent these Europeans relax and it showed how the haughtiness and the air of booking the ticket six months before could be worn out.

Rounding off the souvenir shops finally made it to the sanctum sanatorium: The Race Track. 60 laps to go from the start of the race averaging 1.17 seconds per lap. (I was wondering if an amateur F1 statistician post is empty some where.). The commentary started off no wonder in French: ooh lala. Crowds drowned in red and the bluest blue filled the galleries. After the maddening sound and the deafening stunts of a Virage fighter jet, the melodrama began.
First I thought it to be the tifosi honking-horn decked in a typical scarlet sprayer can…I was wrong within the split second. It sounded like a Top Gun jet pumped into my ears with a BOSE. home theatre. I then got to see what speed is about. I had then seen what control is about. Coming at the full throttle, the Renault car almost screeched to halt at the almost 90 degree turn with a sound of a staccato from a machine gun. Then the engine rose again like a phoenix driving past 100 kmph within the next second. I knew something…if God made man, man made a F1 engine. It took me almost 3 laps after the race started for the feeling of a grandprix-happening to sink in. All I remember until then is the fusillade of engine roars just mellowing cauz of the hairpin turn and kicking back to their karma within you breathe.
Thought of freezing the moments with an SLR, but what to frame? By the time you try to capture a bit or part of the car, it vanishes! Even a video cam couldn’t do its duty. Inevitably decided to pull them off after some vain attempts ducking the gadgets in, with 4 rolls and 20 min recording as a testimony for the time lost in following the race.
So the machines going on and on, pit stops happening, positions changing and the climate vacillating making it tough for the teams to decide on the strategy. The engines blew out in the meanwhile, as a few meek machines couldn’t bear it anymore and the stronger ones creating the void with their niche. After 60 laps of maniacal manifestation of melodrama, the winner emerged. The dude who could tame the beast in the automobile with his composure passed the chequered flag premiere.

The victory laps with the drivers thumping their fists in the air, the accomplishment, and the goose pimples of our excitement: saw themselves happen in a scenic sequence. The race was over. The stands were getting empty giving me a clearer view of the 60 m patch of the track straight ahead. I was just trying to recollect what unfolded for the past one-half hours, but in vain. The only thing still I remember is the cannonade of thunderstorms marching in an unassuming camaraderie. Irony has it that it has to be a race!

By the way, my ramblings here are to ruminate what else I could recollect from the prized moments I cherish. But seems like the author missed his point again and has to start reading again from the beginning.

"Lost in thought and lost in time Outside the rain fell dark and slow While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime I took a heavenly ride through the silence I knew the moment had arrived For relishing the memoir and coming back to life" - David Gilmour
(Doctored to suit my purpose.)

Acknowledgements:
Prashanth, for enduring the responsibility of driving all the way and down. Especially for bearing the brunt of 1st gear drive for 1.5 odd hours on our way back! And of course for the company and strategies in photo shooting!!!

Shravan and Krishna for venturing at 02 hrs, to make some space in the Hi8 videotape to record the event. Well they succeeded or not is a different story

Our ever-reliable Hyundai car and the morning half-fries, courtesy yours truly! And the friendly neighbourhood goggles, which made me "see through" the spectacle.

Note: Dedicated to Douglas Noel Adams and the spirit of F1 for 42 unreasonable reasons.

"They depended on each other. And the world depended on them"

2004-08-18T11:03:00.000+02:00

Hello All,

this is my first log as a blog with a bit of agog. yeah, too much of 50 cents in the early hours of office.

So, the logic and laws governing the title of the blog are to be dealt in a seperate thread.What concerns me now, is the amazing effect last night's episodes of Band of Brothers(BoB) had on me and the perennial resistance of my workstation refusing to relent even after prolonged physical assault. Yeah, I treat computers on par with humans.

coming back to BoB,(URL : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185906/) World War II and especially D-Day has fascinated me a lot of-late thanks to my ex-colocotaire Monsieur Gangavelli. If the Caen Memorial gave me a mental orgasm of enlightenment, the BoB is nurturing the same. by far, Caen Museum is the best I have seen.
Personally, D-Day was/is/will be the most meticulously planned and executed event of history, of course with a nobel cause.

Sermons n statements apart, yesterday I watched the seventh episode : "The Breaking point" which is quite sad as most of my heroes in the wardocu, died or retired of wounds. Some of the dialogs which talk about the booming nightclubs, crowded beaches back in US in 1945 when still soliders are fighting and losing lives reminds us of the price of freedom and how often its importance is overlooked.

by the way, David Schwimmer aka Ross of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. has an interesting role in BoB. you would love to hate him for a change. but still, its pretty tough to visualize the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. actors in any of the role other than in the lines of their character as depcited in the soap opera. may be thats the price of acting for 10 years. well, if i get 1 million USD for an episode, i sincerely dont mind getting stereotyped.

I have 2 more episodes of BoB to complete and sall get back on this.

back to mutilate my computer
¬C

Your birth certificate is an apology letter from the condom factory.