Schumacherinis and Montoyeshwaris

In Bangalore, you can never be certain about a few things. For example, sambar. Just because someone tells you it is sambar, it neednt be that. But then, there are few things which you can be very sure about. Like for example, when a car harasses you no end by flouting traffic rules, you can be sure it is NOT a guy who is driving it.

Double Road, jam packed, bikes touching autos touching cars touching bigger cars touching vans touching buses, and am not even close to doing justice to the real traffic scenario. Amidst all this, the cops decided to raise the bar and test our sanity. There is this narrow, uphill bridge which connects to another traffic madness. Climbing it in itself is okay. But since life was lacking spice, our cops install removable road dividers in it. Now these road dividers can be tricky. I am in two minds looking at the lanes, lane 1 has this tired carrier-auto in its lazy walk climbing four feet up and three feet down and a tankload of black smoke, lane 2 has old uncle who doesnt want his kinetic to hurt itself, so goes at an unearthly pace. Since i choose uncle over smokey-auto , i pick lane 2 and am moving up. As i am slowly overtaking uncle, B-A-M, in comes a Hyundai Santro like its possessed.

Turns out that our cops wanted one final surprise, and left exactly that amount of gap between two dividers, just to give people that false hope of confidence that they can sneak in through it. Figures that our santro got stuck behind smokey-auto, decided to play daredevil, looked to the left, found a grey haired thaatha (grandoldman) and someone with "mow me down" written on his jacket and took a mad swerve at both of us. Grey-haired uncle was the first line of defense. I have heard such a screeching of wheels in the climax of the 70s jaishankar movies, but this was the first time i heard it live and so close. From the looks of Uncle's face, you can be sure that he might have expected even godzilla to come out from nowhere, but definitely not a maroon colored metal monster charging in. In spite of all the action happening so close to him, GHU knew that he shouldnt go towards the car, which was good for him, but at the same time decided to move in the other direction, which was not good for, errrm, let us say the other parties involved in this three-way dog-fight. Now, i can hold my line like moronic michael schumacher does, but considering the given circumstances, that would be "tata, bye bye, cheerio" for GHU. I can move to the other side, but somehow this concrete wall doesnt seem to budge like it does in the movies. So as my rear-view mirrors start scratching with the concrete, GHU drives his kinetic right into my bike and while both of us end up with scratches and stop our bikes, maroon santro picks up speed and flies past.

Hot in the head, i chase it down in a hope of stopping right in front of it, catch up with the car and look in, voila. The driver, early 30s maybe, was busy adjusting her hairline in the rearview mirror. Now i looked at the odds of what would happen if i stop the car and pick up a fight. Let me see, we will first have a gang of jobless b*ms walking in to arbitrate, and looking at the drivers of both vehicles, it was quite obvious with whom they would side. On one hand, we have someone wearing a dirty jacket, dirtier pair of jeans and an even dirtier pair of shoes, talking in english and with "I cannot speak kannada for nuts" written in his face. On the other, we have an early 30-ish, santro driving, lip-stick laden, shade wearing, high-heel totting dame who is a mobile perfume factory on the loose. The odds were straight forward. I would get lynched even if i had been run over by the car in front of everyone in public view. She had won it before even the fight started.

Now, regardless of what people say or do or portray, the house is a place which men have lost their control on. Yes, the ration card reads "Head of the family", but thats as far as any man can ever get. There is only one voice at home, a really loud one, and it is always right. Even when it is hopelessly wrong. So, when the man leaves home, thinking that the road is his and he need not feel threatened or oppressed or censured or knocked about, B-A-M, we see yuppie women driving the wheels out of their cars with an evil smile. The bigger the car, bigger the trouble. While maruthis and santros cause danger to limb, we have women driving scorpios and CRVs which can only mean an advanced appointment with your great grand fathers. Now that men have unconditionally surrendered the house to all the women, cant they just come down a bit and leave the road for us ?? We promise to drive around the corners and have our own little bit of fun without disturbing the hierarchy. And that too, we dont want the road all the time, but atleast during peak hours. Somehow we all strongly believe it is imperative to reach office in one piece.

In another galaxy, far far away, men would still have a chance at calling something their own. There is still hope.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Thirteen ...

.. Reasons why you should see Ocean's Twelve.

- Catherine Zeta Jones: Gee, that hairdo.

- Star Cast: Let me count. We have 3 Oscar Winners, 2 Oscar Nominees, 2 from oscar winning families and an oscar winning director who got nominated twice in the same year. And this is on first count. Casting Coup is the word we are looking for.

- Brag Value: A complex plot, the sooner one understands it, the more one gets to brag. Sheesh, i reckon its not __that__ easy to get the plot after watching the movie just once (see, i told you .. "brag value" ;-) ).

- Camera: Although at times you are scratching your head wondering if you are really watching "Blair Witch Project", what with the now-popular "shaky-cam" feel, it fits with the theme of the movie (a haphazard heist, instead of the meticulously planned one in the first) and gels well (Although i still think it would've been better if it had the clean-and-cool look of the first one).

- Soderbergh: Soderbergh has this unique touch to each of his movies. He fiddles a bit with the color settings and for some artistic reason, which is my beyond my understanding, it strikes a chord with the feel of the movie. With innovative camera angles, brilliant long shots and that experimentation with colors, Soderbergh scores again. I personally thank him for choosing Ocean's Eleven to do a sequel and not Solaris. That would have been tragic.

- Catherine Zeta Jones: Wow, that accent.

- Cameos: Struck us when we were least expecting it. Mind you, these are not just cameos where some celebrity walks in, and before you shout "hey, its him", walks out. Watch out for how innovatively it has been slotted in the movie.

- BG: Just like in Ocean's Eleven, the music scores in this one too. That 70-sh rock feel can do only good to any heist movie. Particularly the one with the "laser lights" sequence. Right up there.

- The Pull: The Heist isnt as thoughtful or well-planned or colorful and humourous as it was in the first. In fact, on first look, it leaves you disappointed wondering "is that all". But as you sit back at home putting things in place, it gets better when you realise it was __not__ meant to be thoughtful and colorful and what not. Nevertheless, once the missing pieces in the plot fall into place, it probably is as humorous and well-thought as the first one.

- Catherine Zeta Jones: Drool, for no particular reason.

- Brad Pitt: Soderbergh better call the next one "Rusty's Eleven". Brad Pitt wipes out the lot with his sheer presence and his personification of the devil-may-care rusty. If there is someone who stands a chance against him, its Matt Damon with his coming-of-age quips. And no, all this "Go Brad" bit is not for the women who got offended with the earlier "Richard Gere Sucks" remark.

- Humor: The in-joke on Oceans Eleven, Kashmir, A dig at George Clooney, The Pull itself and the opening prologue. Bwahahaha.

- Catherine Zeta Jones: If you didnt need a reason last time, am sure you dont need one now. Curse that darned michael douglas and keep drooling.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Grounded

Grandmothers ooze of wisdom. It seems to be why they were created in the first place, and this week one of my grandmothers just did what she was due. She is not technically my grandmother, in fact she is more of an aunt, but somehow she has this grandmotherly halo around her. Her name is being withheld for the simple reason that she is quite well-versed in arms and ammunitions. Now, i was talking to grandma about something and suddenly the topic turned to "Friends" (Oh yeah, this grandma watches "Friends" .. Even have a have a nagging suspicion that she watches "Sex and The City") and started off with the characters. As time went on, the conversation, for lack of a better subject, just kept going deeper and deeper into the show with things like why ross's first son was called ben, and who exactly is joey's brother in law and stuff like that.

Suddenly grandma straightened up and went silent as if grandpa had got her by the throat for taling with unknown strangers. And then she asked "what is the difference between folks watching 'kahani ghar ghar ki' and 'kahin kisi roz' and us ??". In the silence of cyber-space, the echo was resonating. The hi-flier in me got shot right through the head and was grounded, grounded for life, because frankly, there seems to be no difference.

When folks at home watch 'metti oli' (itz to complicated to translate, i swear), I ask them if 'gopi' and 'viji' are re-conciled with a sly smile that translates into english as "christ, i cant believe you guys are watching this". Whenver a gang of friends is bored, the topic eventually turns to how folks are so uncool at home watching 'chiththee' ('aunt'), how funny it is that they spend hours together wondering if 'annamalai' (just a proper noun, so chill) and her brother would ever get reconciled and before the wink of an eyelid immediately delves into frasier and seinfeld. So how different is a radio psychiatrist's life experiences different from a father with five daughters ?? Hmm, someone from the crowd says "Seinfeld is quality entertainment". Oh yeah, quality entertainment allright. But then, one of the most misused words in entertainment is quality. My grandmother (this one is my real grandmother, doesnt specialise in arms and ammunitions, but in chinna vengaya sambar (stew) and pagakka poriyal (bitter gourd fry)) thinks the lives of five girls battling out in contemporary settings ('edhirneechal'(to swim against the current)) is quality entertainment. Mom seems to think quality is anything benchmarked by a balachander serial. Managers think that quality is something that is just one step above what anyone can humanly achieve. (now, for "anonymous" management graduates, let me add "maybe not all managers" .. fine :-) ??).

In essence, quality is this really undefinable guy in one hand and possibly the only-individually-definable guy on other. Finally, that leaves most of us with one choice, if we still want to laugh at all those "Aadugiraan Kannan" (Lord Krishna Dances) fans, stop discussing about friends and seinfeld and curb your enthusiasm and what not coz we are as bad, if not worse. If we cant live without sarah jessica parker and debra messing, let the old folks have fun watching what they please, without our smart-aleck jokes. If this is extremely difficult, then take the easier way out, buy a dictionary without the word "hypocrisy" in it. Peace.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Confused Critique - Clients & Daemons

If you reverse engineered from the topic and figured out that this is the review of "Angels and Demons"(AD), pat your back with a nice turkey towel. You going to crack algorithms, fix bugs, create processes and design new patents. You are a certified geek (applause). Women ?? Err, no mate, not in this birth atleast. Why do you think i suggested a turkey towel ?? Thatz the closest you are going to get to a soft pat in the pack for the next hundred years.

After the supra-hugea-mega-grossa-monstra success of "Da Vinci Code"(DVC), dan brown (DB) has become a household name. So much so that everyone who claims to be capable of reading english has read it, and keeps talking about it until you drop dead. It has also become an additional baggage along with a makeup kit for look-i-read-english-books women. Just to make sure that there is something else about dan brown that i could talk about, picked up his other books and got through this one first.

After reading AD, the first thing that strikes you is that DVC is an eloboarte joke played on all the reading public by DB. Replace france with the vatican, the priory of sion with the illumanti, an albino with an arab and a long legged mademoiselle with adventurous signorina, and voila, you have Angels and Demons. The start, the clues, the unravelling of the plot and the standard description reading "all art works in this book are true" make you turn back to the cover pretty often just to make sure that you are reading a new book and not DVC again.

So, what do we have in AD ?? As usual, we have a historic and occult brotherhood, which has lived through the ages in secrecy, swearing to wreck vengeance on its sworn enemy, and while all this is happening, we have an unsuspecting villain pulling strings with an hidden agenda. Langdon wakes up one fine day, gets pulled into a quagmire, meets a bold-and-beautiful lady who is related to a principal character who got killed in the opening chapter, keeps running, solves clues which only he can solve, runs again, solves more clues, keeps running till you wish he should probably stop, take a deep breath and enjoy life and in the end gets the better of the bad guys and takes a break for a romantic weekend with the lead lady. Sigh, no matter how hard i try, it sounds like DVC again and again.

One refreshing thing about AD is the fact that it is definitely better than DVC, but suffers from the sibling curse, where talented folks are and would remain relatively less popular than illustrious siblings. The last act in AD is a bit far-fetched too, but definitely better than the oh-so-he-was-the-bad-guy-all-along lame ending in DVC. Langdon tries hard to be the american bond, trying too hard to be a hero whom someone can take home and introduce to your friends, unlike bond who ends up in bed with most of them.

All this doesnt take anything away from DB's extensive research and usage of symbols and paintings to further the suspense. The ambigrams used in this book are so true and intelligently designed. All this looking for symbols gives you a nice feeling until you end up trying to read almost everything that you see and find some occult phenomenon from harmless scribblings. Heck, I tried you read some coded message inscribed in my wardrobe, in the universal language of mathematics, and eventually figured out thats just the measurements written in pencil by the carpenter. So much for my symbology.

My cast :
Langdon - Hugh Jackman/John Cusack (for all the women who wanted richard gere, he sucks .. oh yeah, he does)
Vittoria - Charlize Theron (or monica belluci)
Kohler - Ben Kingsley
Olivetti - Jean Reno
Carlo Ventresca (the camerlengo) - Guy Pearce
Hashashin - Art Malik

In the end, does AD deliver ?? Yes it does. Is it better than DVC, most likely. Would one recommend it to others?? Yep. Would one bother reading it again ?? Errrm, No. AD is a good read, even unputdownable at times, but a second read is required only if you are an aspiring symbologist or if you lied to your girlfriend that you have been to the vatican. It is no piece of booker-worthy literature (if it had been, i wouldnt have read it to begin with :-) ), but nevertheless a very good company to kill time unlike some recommended robin cooks i was cursed enough to have read.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Always

This has to be some plan and a real picture-perfect plan at that. I left work to book tickets on the train. Now, all those real enthu-cutlets out there who want to know why i had to go the railway station to book tickets when i could have booked tickets over the web:

1. Am a onlinie-transactiono-phobic
2. Did you ever ask Tolkien "why was the ring even forged in the first place" ??

I left my desk to pick my bike and voila, some symbologist had parked his bike cryptically. The front of his bike was almost locked with the silencer of mine and the back, right across the parking lot such that only nadia comancei in her prime can reach my bike's ignition.Working out gives you a false sense of confidence that you can move mountains. But the bikes these days, do they make them with some sort of adamantium alloy ?? Harder than moving that monstrosity that someone had the nerve to call a bike, was withstanding all those curiously sneaky visits from our security folks who were puzzled at a thief being so conspicous and noisier while stealing a bike. Everytime they come murmuring something into their walkie-talkies like they are going to take me down, had to stand up, turn around and show them the embroidery on my tshirt that has my company name, and they would give a broad smile as if they came there to check if i needed a drink. Some sighs and lots of high-squeaked grunts later, got my bike out and left.

After a failed collision attempt with a toyota qualis, i reached the station. Someone should have spread out a rumour saying they are distributing rasagollas with tickets. There cannot be any other logical reason behind that mad crowd in the station at that time of the day, this time of the year. Ran into a slightly older localite who was very possessive about the ticket counter. "you werent in the queue".
"Yes ma'am", i wasnt .. i came to.. "
"I'm telling you, you werent in the queue". Didnt she hear what i said, or is she simply trying to emphasize how right she was to fellow middle-aged men ??
"Yes, am just trying to .."
"You have to come in a queue"
"But am only trying to pick a reservation form"
Embarassed silence for a few seconds followed by this: "youngsters these days have absolutely no sense or respect for elders". Mental Note: Next time around carry a nice, polished, hattori hanzo samurai sword, just in case.

Out of all the 9 ticket counters, i find one. The next counter looked enticingly lesser-sized and i moved in just at the right moment to nudge out another chap who wanted the place. He should have a liking for white doves i suppose, he just accepted his fate and stood behind me. Our counter moved quick enough than most other, until a monster, who was holding only one form till then, picked up a bunch from inside his folder. Before anyone could say anything, he threw the whole lot into the counter. The clerk looked ahead just to make sure he received it from one guy and not from the entire queue in one go. The clerk cursed his fate and started typing and stopped.
"Train Number ??" he asked.
"Ooo .. Sorry .. What is the name of the train that goes to howrah .. some express it is".
"Howrah express"
"Ooo .. Sorry .. I forgot". Someone should recommend him for the next "Brittania - Monster Genius".
The clerk started again and stopped.
"Which class??"
"Oooo .. Sorry .. I forgot .. Second class".
The rest of the queue was happy he didnt say something to the likes of "First Class with Distinction".
Clerk started and, as we all guessed, stopped.
"Your address"
"Why??", pat comes the answer.
The collective groan of the queue probably sounded like the death knell and he started writing the address in not one, not two, not even three, but four darned forms.
"RAC 25" says the clerk.
"Will it move ??" asks Monster-man. The last time i looked, the clerk didnt have a parrot to pick out chits, nor did he have a magnifying glass. For chrissake, he is a clerk, not a clairvoyant. The clerk looked up, gave a resigned look and gave a non-committal "maybe".
Our man started "what about the other train ??". I thought i heard a few in my queue drop dead.
The clerk replied "There are no other trains". No one knows if he simply lied to get MM out of his view, but we all appreciated it. Monster-man gave up saying "Its okay".
"4420 Rs" (or some such) says the clerk.
Our man opens his purse, and one look into it, the lebanese finance minister would've let a sigh of despair considering his limited annual budget. Takes out a wad of beans and throws it the clerk. Whoever groaned mildly before, took a step back and kept safe distance. The inch-thick chain and that vadakayiru ("rope that pulls juggernauts") bracelet started to give a strange feeling and everyone unanimously decided that they did not need it clarified.

With all this happening, i take a look at the other queue where i was originally standing, and the nudged-out chap was collecting his change to leave. While i was busy minding someone else's business our peace-loving white-dove just moved to the next queue and got his tickets. If a crooked leer can be called a smile, yes, he smiled at me. But it was more like a taunt. Thankfully i hadn't lost my parking ticket, which is actually my speciality. Some saving grace.

By the time i reached work, I was fuming so much that you could light a few city blocks.Cursing the species as a whole, as i entered workplace, i noticed the big conference room was full, jam packed, the screen changing between pie-charts and manhattans in varied colors and someone reading an annual report. Yeah, as in most meetings, tears in every engineer's eye, smiles from ear-ear on management folks' faces. As I walked across them, with the smile of a holocaust survivor, wistful faces turned and fogged the windows with sighs.

Strangely, i felt lucky. Monster Man, Local Lady and Psychotic Symbologist, __Anything__ should be positively better than __that meeting__. Maybe there is still hope, heck, there is __always__ hope :-).

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Repeat After Me

1. Change That Tag

So, what are we ?? software engineers. A statistic : If every 10th person is an indian, every 7th person is a chinese, Every 3rd would probably be a software engineer. And guess what it does to our already depleted sense of humour ?? If the girl keeps talking the same thing, we laugh tell her she is in "an infinite loop" (bwahahahaha) and if she doesnt understand something then we ask her to "switch to an interrupt context" (muahahahaha). The girl runs miles before you even think of anything to whisper in her ear. Can't blame her really. With bangalore overflowing with our kind, and more often than not, every man competing against each other without a sense of brotherhood, where is that USP for a software engineer ?? Shouldn't there be something that makes the girl think that one more time inspite of such appalling sense of humour ?? If we were meteorologists, or paleontologists or atleast gasteroenterologists chances are that the girl would think twice since these would be seem to be cool professions in the girl's clique where the norm is a software engineer. Something like bragging with a broken down ferrari amidst all those camrys and vitaras. Make a decision, throw the monitor out of the window and start digging for fossils. Godspeed.

2. Never Hunt In Pairs

Havent we seen enough movies already ?? This plan of "you find the right girl for me, and i would find the right girl for you" usually works in only one way. "Hopeless Hero" does his part pretty well and the girl he found for "Fiendish Friend" swoons at the mention of anything that remotely sounds like his name. Perfect. The predestined girl was all set to fall for HH, and according to the grand plan, came to HH's place one day, read all his poems, music tapes and other romantic stuff, but then either our HH so intelligently wrote all his stuff using FFs name as pseudonym or the poems were piss poor that she started hating HH so hard and fell for FF on the rebound. As a consolation prize, HH gets to be the witness at the grand marriage ceremony and if he is really lucky, gets to sing that standard "Unna nenachen, paatu padichen" ("I sing thinking about you") outside the showerroom for once. Things are even-stevens now.


3. You Are Always Scratching A Level Down

You got a 180 cc bike, the girl just graduated to a 350cc thunderbird. You stretch a bit, cutting on that fancy shades, super-cool sneakers, and manage a thunderbird, but the girl just realised that its difficult to ride in the rain. you borrow a 800 from some long lost relative who has hardly seen you for the weekend, but zen rules. you beg for a zen with another friend, but ain't the chevrolet optra looking cool ?? you steal an optra, when she just set her eyes on a landrover. Optra turns out to be the incumbent MLAs. You get arrested and go to jail. Girl lives happily ever after. Credits start rolling.


4. The Golden Rule

The girl is taken. Yes, you read that right. The girl is taken. If you are really drooling over someone, having all those strange dreams running around in all whites, chances are she is taken and the chances are 100%. Frankly, What makes you think that the girl is going to wait playing bhajans, when you are as old as four donkeys ( this "four donkeys" is patently thamizh and is attributed to people, whom others think ought to have been married atleast once by now, while in reality, the guy pledges his life to finding life on mars than finding a girl) ?? Although it still hasnt been conclusively proven if guys fall for taken girls or if the girl is eventually taken because the guy fell for her, its just that it works that way and the gods are under no obligation to explain why it is so. The bottomline is that, once you start getting all those mushy-mushy dreams, mail-order a hurricane light and a shawl, preferrably a black one with red and white strips on it, anytime soon to walk into the sunset.

5. The Other Golden Rule

Never look for advice in blogs. I mean, blogs, what are they ?? They are just textual representations of someone's neurotic self. If one actually came down to reading blogs looking to lighten up his love life, oops, things are worse than they seem. Such desperation can be hard on the digestive system. But do not lose heart, you just picked the last straw. Usually, in such cases an outside chance springs up from nowhere, when the girl actually gets to know of this plight of reading blogs, maybe you'd win by a sympathy wave. Remember to share the good news if something works, or else you would be cursed to spend the rest of your life with some "backstreetboys-are-god" girl. Until then, have andhra meals and majaa maadi.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Of Mice and godMen

The TamilNadu Police Force dropped the biggest bomb for deepavali 2004 by arresting Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal, the headpriest of the Kancheepuram Math (A Religious House). The media, the police, hitherto unknown politicians and retired old men are having a field day. The deal being, the headpriest of a very powerful math in south india, is accused of being the kingpin of a criminal conspiracy behind the murder of another individual. For all non-indians (permanent and temporary) who had seen the likes of Jim Jones and The People's Temple and wondering what the big fuss is all about, oh yeah, this __is__ big deal out here. We have had embezzlements, power-brokering and even sex scandals, but murder, nope.

The first moron off the block is Sun TV. One of the seriously stupid television channels around, second only to Jaya TV, you got to see it once to believe the kind of nonsense they are capable of creating. Everytime they show him walking out of the police van, it is always accompanied by some psychotic background music which you last heard when norman bates was stalking marion crane in the shower. The next piece of joke starts with Sun TV going down amidst the "general public" to gather their "unbiased views." One look at those luminaries who offer their views, and you have a faint feeling that this guy was so similar to one of those pictures in the rogue gallery in your nearest train station. They read out from a standard script which has keywords like "No man is above the law" and "The law would take its course". If rehearsing those geniuses is a tough ask, atleast teach them some modulation for chrissake. They sound like they are testifying on deathbed with the Grim Reaper dangling his scythe from behind.

The next two bunch of idiots are similar in one aspect in that they choose to wear some sort of uniform, either saffron or black, depending on who pays them the most. At the blow of a whistle, we get our own version of "World Wrestling Entertainment meets World Rugby Union evolves into Whose Line Is It Anyway". It is only then you understand why they so wisely tie their colors to their foreheads than anywhere else. When you are running in with a stick in your hand, you dont care to look at the other guys face, only the color of the turban suffices. Look, match turban color, and hit if it doesn't. Simple. Sometimes, due to busy schedules and ambitious deadlines, over-worked individuals forget what color they are wearing currently and end up whacking their own team. Since all those cuts and gashes look well on their resume, they have accepted it as another occupational hazard and get on with their beating.

The last bunch of morons are the ones who hire the aforesaid. If you have more money than you could ever spend, let me give you a number to leave it for some other worthy reasons for spending like DVD buying and bungee jumping. To top all this idiocy, guess where they organise all these agitations ?? No, not in kancheepuram where people are busy knitting those world class silk sarees, caring in the least for all this chaos, but in every other city where there are a bunch of cameramen on the loose to shoot just about anything. The politicians choose to call it political mastery, while the general public calls it simply "lack of common sense". Usually, the public is right. One after other, a familiar set of folks go on air talking the same load of gibberish, using eloquent vocabulary, but beating the horse to death about how justice prevailed. By sheer talent and practice over the years, they suppress their laughter while generating all those pearls of wisdom. Yawn. Continue to watch that, we'd become the last bunch of morons to join this illustrious list.

For Steinbeck fans, If the title led you believe this was metaphysical review of his works, whoops. If you really wanted to know about Kanceepuram and the Math, you probably need to read your IXth standard history book for once or buy a Sthalapuranam ('History of the Holy Site') from the temple premises. If you wanted to know the history behind this case, read Junior Vikatan or Kumudam Reporter (Investigative Journalism Magazines of the south) or sit close to some jobless relative of yours who would be discussing this to tooth and nail, with his fellow professionals (read another jobless relative) over filter coffee. If you are really disappointed due to any other reason, dont be, life is like that. Maybe another blog.

This blog did not take any stand. If you started reading this looking for some staunch viewpoints, do remember that one of the things about this blog is that, more often than not, it does not take a stand on anything. If "Kareena Kapoor Sucks" is a stand, then yes, this blog has one, but apart from that, i dont think this blog stands for anything at all. Personally, i think godmen is an oxymoron and most godmen are morons. There have been a few of them who deserve respect, but reading the future, they safely left this world for another, and now they are chuckling at what we got the whole thing reduced to. The average godman's 'statement of purpose' reads that they 'take you from the world of mortals to the world of Gods'. That makes them more or less similar to those limo drivers who take you to your date with that girl. Yeah, the limo driver takes you through all that maddening traffic and gets you to your date before she gets bored and leaves for another table, and you sincerely appreciate his service, but you stop with thanking him, probably a generous tip and thatz it. You save the gifts, roses, kisses (and all else, depending on how romantic you are) for the girl inside. The driver is happy enough with his limo, or atleast he is expected to be, and let him remain that way. Don't let him get ideas by asking him what your girl friend needs to wear for dinner next time around. If you do, you have serious relationship problems. If you dont have a girlfriend or you think limos are snobbish or you hate analogies which go round and round, the grand idea is that you should talk to your wife before investing in something, talk to your daughter if you want to get her married, and talk to your parents if you are thinking about relocating and if you want to start a new business on, say recycling seagull refuse, talk to an oceanographer or an ornithologist. Leave godmen to do what they do best, whatever it is, it definitely isnt an opinon on the composition of seagull refuse.

Limo drivers, Oceanographers, Ornithologists and Communists, please excuse. No offence meant to any of them, I so badly wanted to use that analogy. The rest, leave the heavenly creatures to fight over whose right and who is wrong, mere mortals have other important things to do. Now where was that exclusive winona ryder montage site ??

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Bushwhacked

All news sites, news channels, discussion forums, weblogs and some sophisticated tea-kada benches were discussing this as if their lives depended on it. It is official now, and Spot gets to generate as much trash as it could inside the white house for another four years, while others get a chance to do the same outside of it. Bush joins the elite club of defiers alongside JJ and Rabri as extraordinary specimens who play a practical joke on the press when they are looking elsewhere by somehow conjuring a victory, something akin to creeping up from behind and saying "Boo".

With bush and kerry appearing on all forms of media, the creative heads in india racked up their brain that bit too hard and guess what, they came up with a mock-election for the american presidency in chennai at the Taj, jointly organised by some american cultural mission and the embassy, reads The Hindu. Some sort of black humor i presume. Our folks got so over-enthu that people came and queued outside the hotel long before the mock-voting started. Folks have gurgled a keresone-looking liquid when pepsi called it "The Color of Team India" during the cricket world cup, and bought tonnes of Fair and Lovely when dark-complexioned women are stereo-typed (am so glad nandita das didnt fall for these ads, that would've been heart-breaking) during beauty paegants, but being bored to death sounds an infinitely honorable option than to go early for a mock election of the american president.

For all that i know, the american elections are so slow that they would give balumahendra's telefilms a run for sweet money. There are only two parties, which means, you vote for one guy or you vote for the other guy or you vote for some millionaire who wanted to be on prime time television. Is that it ?? No freedom of choice ?? When we have elections here, one would see harmless-looking next-door neighbors file nominations and scream their throat out about how they are just that one step away from making saidapet the next singapore, while in reality their wives keep kicking them out of bed for not fixing that leak in the gas pipe. Their aspirations are pretty limited though; Their vote count needs to be just one more than the number of adult blood-relatives they have, and if they do, they'd feel victorious and later return to fix up leaking gas pipes with double the enthusiasm.

So, let me get this straight. There are no book length ballot papers, no buying of opposition MPs, no hiding them in unheard-of resorts and making them appear in the house out of nowhere, no veshtis but only pin-striped shirts and suits, no ballot snatching and most of all, the loser actually concedes defeat instead of ranting. Gee, Is this an election or some sort of spiritual exercise ?? In accordance with the latest trends, I guess they should start outsourcing elections to india and the pros will tell them how to go about running one.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

SageSpeak - Take That Step - IV

As always, flik fell back to his lieutenants.
"guys, i need to tell her .. i need to tell her before my heart explodes with all the love and eyes pour them out onto her feet", a dazed flik blabbered. The situation was bad than woody and fiona had imagined. They couldn't picture flik reading out of an english book, leave alone listening to his poetry.
"dude, maybe you should just go and tell her" said woody.
"what do you mean 'tell her' .. i cant just go and tell her"
"but flik, you have to .."
"i know fiona, but i cant seem to think of anything spectacular to tell her"
"dude, you could probably take her on a luxury cruise and propose to her in the deck", fiona quipped. fiona, the unreasonably romantic.
"that, that really seems a great idea .. thanks fiona .. am off to book a .."
"flik, i didn't know you were an onassis", said woody bringing flik down to earth.
"well, yeah .. you right woodsey, .. fiona, a cruiser is err, maybe slightly expensive", slight seemed to take a meaning which no one had ever heard before. "how about some kind of football stadium with flood lights which we could rent, just for the two of us, with a big cake in between, which has my heart written all over it", eagerly flik asked.
"last time i heard, your last name wasn't rockfeller either".
"guys, you are my friends .. you gotto give me ideas"
"dude, we have one idea and you better take it .. take her to some restaurant on a moonlit day and tell her what you think. am told women have a liking for the full moon", woody, who saw relationships as sour grapes finally came up with one brilliant idea.
"yo woodsey, thatz a great idea. flik, go for it dude", approved fiona.
"you .. you .. guys think it is a good idea??", flik asked eagerly.
"yeah", they said in unison.
"i mean, doesnt it sound slightly mundane, a hotel, few candles .. i mean, my jess deserves better". Woody and fiona noticed the inclusion of the word "my" in it. "This guy is going bonkers", they thought in unison.
"maybe i should just wait for a couple of more months and i would definitely hit up with something spectacular".
Knowing flik's creative capabilities, "dude, before you finish up on your great idea, the guy next desk is going to take her away with probably one rose and a few chocolates", although they didnt say this in unison, this was more or less what they suggested. That did the trick and flick decided it was the restaurant, even if the idea was not grand at all.

Few weeks later, flik told woody and fiona that the appointed day had come and it was today. A good, dark newmoon day. Since woody and fiona didnt want to dissuade him now, they said it was a master stroke to choose the newmoon day since the candle would glow brighter than ever. Never an enthusiastic student of physics, flik rolled his head in pride that he came up with his idea himself. Without him noticing, woody and fiona banged their heads on the nearest lamp post. Late in the evening, flick said he was leaving. "All the best mate", " Go get her tiger", "If you can't, no one else could", "Its written dude, your futures are one" were few of the cliched statements which woody and fiona managed to utter.

The next three hours were pure tension. All said and done, flik really loved jess. He actually loved her more than he loved sleep and sloth, and that means something. So woody and fiona ended up praying for the rest of the evening. Late into the night, flik's volkswagen came into the apartment garage. Woody and fiona were there before one could say "hey, the car has come". They had taken their courses for all kinds of reaction. "Relax dude, she is not worth it", "Don't give it up dude, you are our own private robert clive" and other assorted remarks ready, they opened the door before flik could. And there flik was. A smile occupying 9/10ths of his face. He did it. He proposed to jess and jess said yes. This was great. Flik wasnt able to talk. In fact woody and fiona were secretly happy he didnt talk. His vocabulary would be so fake with words picked from that day's newspaper. The smiles said it all, and they walked silently patting him in the back to their apartment, even if it sounded horribly cliched.

Woody couldn't hold it back, and looking at fiona he realised she couldn't either. "Well dude, after all, a simpler plan with restaurant and candles worked", woody said.
"yeah sort of .. only that we didn't go to the restaurant .. damn, this key doesnt open the door", said a non-chalant flik, fighting with the apartment's lock.
woody was speechless, fiona was worse. "But .. but dude, we thought .. err .. we thought you guys had worked things out .. if you know what i mean".
"Oh, yeah that we did ... whatz wrong with the keyhole today ??"
"You proposed to her ?? where ??"
"On the way to the restaurant in the car, when we were stopping for a signal", said flik without looking up.
Woody was losing breath while fiona gave a look like she was just hit hard.
"in a car...", woody said.
"waiting for a signal...", fiona said.
"but thatz so ordinary", said woody.
"and so boring", said fiona.
"and really dumb", both of them cried.
"dude, who cares .. she said yes, didnt she ... ahh, the door has opened .. i need to catch up on some sleep .. good night folks" and saying that flik hugged a bewildered fiona and woody, "guys, i love you two ...".

******************************

"so, are you suggesting ...", started cuthbert.
"i am not suggesting son, am telling you ...", said the Oldest Member.
"I am telling you that it does not matter if you are not in a posh restaurant, with all those tall candles and bearers dressed in black, holding hands and you going down on one knee .. Even if it is the living room of the girl you love, and all that you have is one tubelight, and you are sitting 10 feet apart in shoddy work clothes, dont think twice .. just go for it "
Before the Oldest Member could finish, he heard a the rattle of a bike screaming through the streets scaring pedestrians. The Oldest Member lounged back on his seat and ordered a lemonade.

******************************
******************************

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

SageSpeak - Take That Step - III

Being the lazy coccon he is, woody and fiona were startled when flik proposed a trip across the hills to jellystone national park.
"Guys, it would be great guys .. Imagine seeing buffaloes ...", flik started off.
"But flik, we get to see buffaloes across the road, dont we fiona ??", woody said.
"Guys, imagine all the fauna and the flora and the serenity and the tranquility and ..."
"flik, please .. we know you are preparing for your GRE exams .. woody, maybe we should go .. itz been a while" said fiona. Woody looked back to check if it was a tube-light flickering, but they never figured out that it was a glint in flik's eye.
"so flik, both of us are ready .. shall we hit it", said woody, yawning to show his disinterest.
"guys, there is just space for one more in my car .. maybe we should take someone .. how about"
Before flik could go anywhere with his master-plan, fiona jumped in. "Doryyyy !!! we can take Dory with us .. she wanted to go on a trip sometime"
"But i was saying .."
"yo fiona, i was thinking of dory too .. poor thing is already half-mad .. maybe we should take her"
".. maybe we should .."
"let me call Dory .. woody, you just check if we need to buy anything"
".. call jess".
There was silence. Jess had been a friend, but no one was sure if they could hit it out on a trip. But looking at flik's eyes which oozed of love and all its closest cousins, woody and fiona shook their heads.

The rest of the trip to jellystone park is edited to save the reader of going through this demanding writeup. Of worthy mention would be the fact that Flik faked an injury and chose to spend the drive down with Jess in the back seat, while rookie drivers woody and fiona drove the car close to the jaws of death than they would have liked.

Couple of months later, in the apartment where flik and woody stay,
"I have to tell her", said flik, determined.
"I told her already", said woody without emotion.
"What, you told her ?? What the hell ??"
"Relax dude, someone had to tell her .. If you weren't going to, then i had to"
"But I ... I wanted to tell her and i thought, i thought you knew", flik's voice was quivering.
"Yeah, I knew .. but you were taking your own sweet time and i couldn't wait .. so i just told her"
"And .. and .. what did she say ??", anxious flik sounded even more anxious.
"Of course she said yes, what do you think ?? i guess she was thinking about it too", woody was not even looking up.
"Congrats dude, maybe both of you should go .. its probably the right thing" said flik, with a voice that tried to mask some hidden sorrow with magnanimity.
"Why, you arent hungry ??", said woody.
"What??"
"I said 'arent you hungry ??', i called up fiona and she said she can join us at central perk".
"fiona said yes"
"yes"
"fiona said yes"
"errrr .. yes .."
"so that means jess didnt say yes"
"i didnt call her, you want me to call her ??"
It was at that moment that woody found it would be great even if he remained unkissed for eternity than being kissed by a man, no matter even in the cheeks.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

SageSpeak - Take That Step - II

Flik Jones was one of those young and brash kids one sees in college [the Oldest Member said], who always believes that the first step to success is to have a good, long, undisturbed sleep in the dormitory and eventually skip the first hour of the day. It probably started off as an accident, but as time went by, he had made it his passion and had perfected it so much that even the alarms clocks stopped ringing knowing the futility of these exercises.

Flik was not tall, was most definitely dark and according to a select band of girls, was handsome too. As young as he was, he was never short of polite gestures and forth-right statements of purpose, inviting him to join them in blissful courtship. But flik wasn't falling for it. No, not that he was averse to women, his registrations to dating services would be ample proof and his antics in his home-town with women were legendary. Just that he was stuck to this cool-sounding phrase, "waiting for the right girl".

She joined college a year later. Jasmine "Jess" Gardner was an anti-thesis to Flik. She came there to study, she did not bunk classes and most importantly, she was sensible. If there was one thing that connected Jess and Flik, it was the fact that both of them had had proposals from the most abominable of folks, from their respective batches. It is never mentioned in recorded history as to when flik fell. But his folks swear that they heard a grand THUD when jess crossed by flik's seat for the first time.

Like every successful commander, flik had two trusted lieutenants. Woody and Fiona Ferguson. As everyone who is really in love, flik laughed it off everytime woody and fiona brought it up. By the time college was getting over, flik was drowned in his love for even the three blind mice to see. He was in a limbo now. He needed a reason to run into jess, make it look like an accident, but at the same time lay a strong foundation for the rest of the things to come. He couldn't ask her about anything related to studies for the simple reason that he would be stumped if she asked something back and he was positively sure that he could not pull a conversation on cricket with her for more than 45 seconds.

It is at those times that one profusely thanks people up above. No, not God. But otherwise-scorned seniors and always-hated professors. If not for them, no college could have a cultural-fest. The general conception was that such fests were organised to brew inter-collegiate camarederie and ignite sporting spirits. Although they failed miserably on the "igniting sporting spirits" part, they succeeded overwhelmingly on the "brewing inter-collegiate camarederie" part. No one is sure if the words "strictly between men and women" were intentionally missed. No one is complaining though.

So under the grand auspices of the annual fest, flik moved closer to jess and bombarded her with his usual nonsensical wit. Being the city-bred, soft-spoken dame that she was, jess would probably keep a conversation with even a mountain troll. Although flik would give a tough fight to a troll on his day, jess showed no signs of disapproval. flik had his own problems though. Women from other colleges. But finally, after all the euphoria subsided and the other women promised that they would introduce him to their football-playing boyfriends soon, flik resigned to his fate. "It was jess, no matter even if her boyfriend was a wrestler.", he told himself.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

SageSpeak - Take That Step - I

Cuthbert walked into the pub like a goat who had just stepped out of his own herd and walked into a pride. Bewildered, flustered, tense or it was probably all of the above. He pouched himself in the plush sofas and started looking at one of those corners where the paint was coming off. This by itself was probably not unusual, but since there was a bipasha basu item number on the television and everyone was stuck to the television like flies to a lamp, it would be considered a bit off-color. Now and then he would give a smile at that nothingness, only to took even more forlorn and lost than he was before.

The Oldest Member, as usual spoiling himself in his grand ottoman couch, was looking at this, his eyes like a doctor watching a patient writhe in pain, knowing what the exact cure is, but for some crazy reason, waiting to make his entry with panache. Looking at cuthbert, or more precisely his eyes, he decided to make his entry, lest something grave might happen.

"Son", called out the Oldest Member. "...", with a faint wink in the eye, was the reply. "Sonnn", called out the Oldest Member. Cuthbert decided that painted walls dont call him that way and turned around.

"Beautiful Day, Isn't it ??"
"Uhh.. Yes sir, a beautiful day it is" said cuthbert, his voice souding like a kid who lost his mathematics notebook and was facing the wrath of his teacher.
"Flowers blooming, fruits ripening, grass greener. Just about the right time for a young man to pick up his bike and take his girl down to the waterfall. Isn't it Son ??"
Cuthbert returned back to his gaze, saying "And for dumb, lacklustre, boring, ordinary folks what better than a cup of coffee and some peace", and started up to leave.
"Being smart, intelligent or resourceful has nothing to do with it"
"Well yeah, tell me about it."
"Son, I __am__ telling you", the Oldest Member's voice had the seen-it-all pride in it.
"Bah, I have been trying for so hard to tell her for the last six months, but i havent found one innovative way to tell it. I scourged the web sites and i couldn't come up with anything".
"Son .."
"Maybe i should just rent an airplane and somersault my love message with smoke to her"
"May I.. "
"Or get a flat full of candles, kneel down in front of her with the costliest ring that i could afford"
"But ..."
"Or take her scuba diving to the coral reefs and open my heart"
"Wait .."
"Or maybe i should find some more research material on the web and do my homework properly"
"Son, you are not trying to invent a light bulb here. Maybe i should entertain you with the stories of Flik Jones or Thomas Anderson or both .."
"Errrr.."
"... over a pint".
"Okay".

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Confused Critique - The Andromeda Pain

Crichton has always had a raw-deal from hollywood. His roll of honor reads : The Lost World, Sphere, Congo, Eaters of The Dead, Timeline. A vaccum cleaner would suck less. So when i read a positive review on the movie version of "The Andromeda Strain", i started hunting for the book and one fine saturday, i found it on attu's rack and took it home. The blurb, as always, was interesting. "A true story that could have changed the face of mankind" or some such is what it said.

The start was explosive. An unmanned space-craft, A small village, A virus outbreak, Recovery team tries to communicate it to Base camp, but gets it before they could complete transmission. Perfect. All high-funda codenames are exchanged between the military folks all night through and team of world reknowned scientists are picked up. Not one. Not two. But five of them. Enough characters to lineup an all-star cast. Good. The lead doctor of the team sort of hates the youngest for some reason. Ah, Character conflicts ahead. Neat.

But crichton eventually forgets that he is writing a novel and not an article for the british medical journal. What follows is tonnes and tonnes of tongue-twisting medical names, their effects, their cures and if that wasnt enough, diagrams about their molecular structures, chemical make-up and full-length reports. Science always had this ability to put me to sleep since school and this was no exception. The book talks loads and loads about this highly-secretive underground research center ala "the hive" in "resident evil". Crichton takes us through the building to all the corners and painstakingly explains about every type of quarantine procedures in each level, and somewhere in between doing that, loses the plot.

If that wasn't enough, how the virus is destroyed is what that takes the cake. Now, people, our virus is one serious brat. It spreads through air and it causes your blood to coagulate and kills you, and if you are anti-coagulant, it makes you go insane and drives you to kill yourself. Eventually gets you one way or the other. Pretty scary, huh ?? So how does the virus get destroyed ?? Well, thatz a really complicated procedure. Just wait till you hear it. The virus mutates, becomes a harmless organism, and vanishes into thin air. Yes, One has to read through 300 pages to get to this heart-pounding finale. We owe a lot to the real life scientists who put their lives on the line, but crichton, maybe he should stick to bigger organisms like dinosaurs.

My cast (for all those who have read the novel): Stone - Ed Harris, Burton - Gabriel Byrne, Leavitt - Kevin Spacey, Hall - Ben Affleck.

Two points to note:
1. when the blurb reads "A story of two star-crossed lovers, from the hearts of rural india to the plush streets of colombo, in a war led by blood brothers, loaded with dynamite action", just check if someone is actually trying to sell you "The Ramayana".

2. Unless your girl friend is a practising pathologist, you can safely skip this book.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Mother Of All Formalities

When you are about to finish your under graduation, you eventually end up at cross roads. You have no clue what to do next, and in fact, you really wonder if you have to do anything next at all. I mean, you've got a great bunch of friends at college, dad got you a bike and even pays for the petrol, you get to come home pretty late and the girl you met at that inter-collegiate function just returned your call. Life couldnt get better. But then, towards the start of the final year, you can hear faint murmurings at home about something that doesnt even remotely bother you, "higher education" and guess where every parent wants their kid to do his masters, Indian Institute of Management.

What bites every college senior bit me too. Suddenly there were signs of unrest at home and mom told me to take up the CAT. Actually she wanted me to join either in ahmedabad(since it was number 1 that year in the Business Today ratings) or bangalore (since it was closer to home). I was to reject calcutta and lucknow and not even apply for indore and kozhikode. I laughed, mom didn't. She was serious. I told my mom that she might as well give me the 700 bucks and put it to some use than flushing it down the drain. Mom laughed, i didnt. I was desperate. I guess she sort of concluded that i was clark kent.

Since CAT had become a ritual by then, i had a pretty decent gang at college, since there were other parents who thought their sons were peter parker or bruce wayne. Now that we all had a reason to go and lock up in a friend's place for the weekend with regular supplies of tea, biscuits and other assorted junk food, CAT suddenly didnt seem that bad. The 700 bucks part still hurt though, but we reconciled ourselves considering the fact that we were making a small contribution, without expecting anything in return, towards a noble cause, the betterment of indian education.

The big day came. The second sunday of december and our parents said their byes and started their prayers. Me and Settu were taking our exams in chennai since chennai happens to be where i was born. Bulljith, Rumkumar (no spelling mistake here) and the others took their exams in bangalore since "CAT exams" sounded a loftier reason to visit bangalore than "guzzling beer". Me and Settu got off the train and were on our way to my place. Just then, a big black cat crossed the road right in front of us. Settu frozeand decreed that we had to wait until a white cat (four legged feline) uncrosses the way, or else our CAT (the exam) would turn out disastrously. What on earth ?? Even if a 10-megatonne tyrannosaurus rex uncrossed our way, i wasnt going to clear the exam. Since this was delaying breakfast, I tugged him to walk with me, but he solemnly refused. I asked him if there was any way out, without involving a white cat. There was one, thank god. It was to let someone else cross that path and let him take all the bad luck. How noble. Anycase, now that i was sure i cannot drag settu across, we waited until some poor old man came for his morning walk and crossed the line. For the record, Settu didnt clear the CAT exam. I am not sure what happened to the old man.

Loads of advice from folks at home, asked me to take some 7-8 pencils since time was the key. They missed the skill part and i didnt bother to remind them. The venue happened to be the only thing about my CAT exam, Stella Maris on cath road. On any other day, i guess they would've called the police, but that day was a riot inside stella. I reckon i didnt need more than two pencils to finish the exam. Most of the candidates came out all the more wiser knowing that women are as good as men when it comes to graffitti on desks. The rest, as they say, was mere statistics.

After a while, the results were starting to come. My gang started getting regret letters with the usual melodrama. I guess no one paid enough attention to it since that was our last semester and we had so much more to do than to spare a second to think about foregone conclusions. After a week, and then 10 days, and two weeks later, i didnt get my regret letter. Boy, what do we have here ?? Is there some sort of tug-of-war between the IIMs as to which one is going to call me ?? Are there companies that are already offering me placement looking at my scores ?? I'd bury the rest of the conclusions i made to prevent hypertension for the reader. After another week came the much awaited letter. So, which one is it going to be ?? A-bad ?? Bangalore ?? If it is calcutta, they better offer me finance. What do i do if it is Indore ?? Should i send a letter regretting my lack of interest in joining them ?? Would that affect my chances in Bangalore ?? Mom reminded me it would be easier if i open the letter first. It started "We are sorry ..". I checked the "To" address. It was mine. Then it struck me, Its okay to count your chickens before they are hatched, but to do that before the hen and rooster even decided to make a go at it, was criminal. A costly lesson, but worth every penny of the 700 bucks.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

I Was Wrong

Now i know. Its all coming back to me, nice and clear. I just didnt build my "Raakayee Talkies" on Miss. Murphy's land after cheating her blind father over a game of "aadu puli aattam" (the slightly-violent, indigenous version of chess). I guess i did something even worse, like screen ramarajan (a supreme being who turns angry bulls into milk-laden cows by singing) and vijayakanth (a matchless hero who literally "repels" electricity and blasts transformers) movies in turns to make a quick buck. Yeah, that should have been more like it coz i dont think anyone can do anything heartless than that.

The reason why you are seeing this blog is because, murphy got reminded of misogynistic-me tying him (her??) up and making her watch "Villupattukaran" and "Vallarasu" in one sitting, had a small talk with the powers-that-be and ordered another barrage of rain as my weekend special. I'm sure hez up there watching something pleasant, say, sharapova playing pierce or the likes. But then, if i had actually made someone watch "Vill." and "Vall.", i guess they'd be justified even if they mail-order a deluge to drown me.

I dont know how murphy looks like. But i reckon he would look like that figure which apparates in the middle of the rain everytime i go out and check if it has stopped. Its okay if it stares at me, itz actually okay even if it laughs at me, but the unnerving thing is that it does that with a hyena-like howl which goes "machan maatikinaru, kodiya naatikinaaru" (translates to : the brother in law is caught, and he has hoisted the flag .. means: dude, you screwed, and royally at that .. now why a brother-in-law hoisting a flag could mean someone screwed is debatable, but chennai lingo enthusiasts have had their final word already).

Either that, or i have religiously watched the multiple re-runs of "Mummy" on HBO.

Notes:

Villupatukkaran - denotes a Singer, who plays a bow-like-instrument, only turned upside down. In this case referring to the hero who is a professional, world-touring, crowd-pulling, jibba-wearing artiste. "Villupaatukaran" is a timeless Ramarajan classic. Like any other Ramarajan movie, the highest allocation in the budget was the "lipstick and rouge kit" for ramarajan. The heroine, the report says, came a distant second.

Vallarasu - a nation capable of nuclear warfare, but in this case, for no particular reason refers to the hero's name. Vallarasu is a landmark movie in world cinema where the hero is a all-conquering police officer who drives from spencer's signal to marina beach, right from the middle of a traffic jam, within 5 minutes, in a town bus, laden with explosives, to save chennai from total annihilation. Mclaren Mercedes are said to be astounded by this fact and are negotiating with "Karuppu Nila - The Black Moon" to drive for them next season.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

So What Am I Exactly Doing Here ??

I wish i knew. I should have left two hours back and for some seriously dumb reason i came back to work from the class to send mails to couple of folks and thatz when the rain started. Now, last week, at around the same time, the aussies had india on the mat. no, it was worse. make that the laundromat. The indian batting order was soaked, whacked and rinsed clean and almost everyone was praying for the rain. And what happened ?? beautiful sunshine and butterflies is all that we get.

And today, i keep my jacket at home hoping to leave early, and damn, the rain comes in a week late and keeps on spraying like sidhu's commentary. non-stop, irritating and difficult-to-comprehend. Now why did i come back ?? To send an echcha update (paltry update). Can't I send it tomorrow ?? I can. Is someone going to freak out if i dont send this update ?? nope. Is it going to send our stock prices up ?? hell no. Does my update have any bearing on the total scheme of things of this universe ?? you gotta be kidding.

Then why on earth did i come back inspite of knowing all this. The reason is pretty simple. When murphy was a poor village girl on the outskirts of sriperumpudur in his previous birth, i was some aphrodiziacal pannayar (with the standard issue red-transparent-jibba, with some cattle-nail-masquerading-as-tiger-nail chain, red bullet and a crony to hold the umbrella) who destroyed their farm lands to build a cinema talkies. Thatz why even the right things, half-way into happening, suddenly change their plans, take an X-turn and go wrong.

Its 11:30 in the night, my flat is 15 kms from my place of work, the last 2 kms are actually one giant hole with a bit of tar smeared to give that "road" effect, i have a natural lake and multiple artificial lakes over that stretch and am so hungry that i could eat a herd of cattle in one go. If only someone stops by and asks me an update or tries a bad joke or some such thing, they would know how it feels to be steamrolled by a locomotive. Grrrrrr.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Chewing The Cud - Am I Sure ??

After having preached for hours to vicks about so many cliched things (which i labored in one of my earlier posts), i started to think about it on the way back to bangalore and at work. Now, that train of thought was quite depressing to say the least.

I asked viks to continue his swimming class. chap had been pretty decent at that for a while and was doing all sort of strokes like butterfly stroke, breast stroke, sun stroke etc inside the pool. (sun stroke ?? yeah whatever). The instructor had come home and went ga-ga over how he had taken to water like a fish and stuff like that. No clue if that was what he told every student who is due to renew his membership, but he did. I spent some time with viks talking to him about how important it is to learn swimming as an activity, an exercise and a hobby. And that awakened something inside and i rememberd something i tried so hard to forget, my very own swimming lessons.

Dongs and Pradeep took me to the YMCA pool in nandanam when i was in 5th standard or some such thing. The same stories i spun with vicks, they had spun it with me. Now, these two monsters knew all sort of swimming styles right from the much-popular surface swimming down to the dangerous (for everyone around) deep-pool swimming. I, being a self-learned sinker, had a tough time keeping up with their antics. Folks, we are talking about the mid-nineties here. So that means dongs and pradeep were all young in the late twenties wanting to prove something to younger, equal-aged and older women alike (women of any other category were out of bounds). The schedule of the day was very simple. Once we took our shower and walked in, these guys would make sure that all the floatees (rubber tubes) are safely hidden from eyesight. While i was looking at all this in suspicion, came the real thing. The grand idea that they hatched was to throw me into the pool in some deep area where i could not possibly stand and encourage me to swim. Somehow they forgot to remember that this thing of "do-it-yourself" works only in women empowerment movies. Real life though, is slightly original.

Co-swimmers were non-plussed at the splashing object right in the center of the pool screaming expletives. The swimming pool care-taker was wondering how someone can make so much noise gurgling water. Eventually, It turns out that everyone there was really surprised at the vocabulary i had. Now, dont let your imagination run wild. I started shouting stuff like "dei, neenga ellam annan thambiyoda porakalaya .. yenda enna mattum ipdi paduthreenga" (roughly translates to "you would know what i am going through if you had a brother") which was profanity for a 10 year old to shout at his uncle. Reading it in english, it probably sounds senti now, but the thamizh equivalent is, err, slightly obnoxious considering how old i was then. From that day on, whenever we came into the pool almost everyone was pointing to dongs and pradeep as "keepers of *that* kid" which didnt add much to their plan of impressing all the womenfolk and it sunk faster than i could ever do in a pool. and along with that went one of my now-favorite career options. scuba diving. anycase once i learn to swim the way humans are usually taught, there is only one stop: great barrier reef.

Now, this bit about "am i sure" isnt over yet. viks has started this serious debate within me so much that i am wondering if i am capable of advising __anyone__ on __any__ matter. Damn, a philosophical tug-of-war with my conscience was the last darned thing i was hoping for. One good thing is that i have got enough material for few more blogs. sigh.

My Conscience: lateral thinking, idhukku oru korachalum illa .. (translates to "lateral thinking, my foot ..")

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

The Big Question

Now that i got a blog like every kandasamy, munusamy and govindasamy (tom, dick and harry for the uninitiated) there seems to to be this the big question hanging right in front and going tic-toc, what to blog ??

Tried looking at a few blogs of my friends and acquaintances to see what folks generally do with their blogs, but the content of their blogs are as widely spread as a glutton's lunch table. You've got different people writing different things in different styles.

There is one style which writes whatever happens in their lives. My diary with day-to-day affairs would make an interesting and pulsating read if my name was one Allan Quartermain or a certain Max Rockatansky. Since i happen to be neither, all that i would be able to write is my encounters with traffic signals, dumb drivers and callous pedestrians. Thinking about all these again would make me feel bugged. Writing about it would just throw me in a sea of depression and Reading about it can cause you mild schizoprenia. We dont want that, do we ?? Lets move on to another style.

There is this style where the __only__ thing that people write in their blogs is "I found this interesting" and a whole bunch of links to something that talks about
a) flying turtles, talking snakes or anacondas with a sense of humor (or some such supernatural phenomena)
b) how one krishnaraj found a diamond while cleaning his cowshed, with which India could buy America seven times over (you would have to forward this to 7 Indians if you are a patriot).
c) how an IIT student wrote an OS powerful than microsoft and how an IQ calibrating machine went b-o-o-m coz it just couldnt match up with his IQ (14 indians this time).
Not that I am very original, but why do i need a blog if all that i wanted was to have a newsfeed in my site ?? Might as well redirect all misguided souls to rediff or TOI.

There is a third style. To write about social evils, To talk about how much our society has degraded, and how so much muck is present in our day-to-day lives. Angry Young Men and Women pour their heart out looking at the way things are. Ho-hum, all this sounds too dystopian for my liking and secondly, although i might remain angry most of the time, i reckon am not young anymore. Orwell rules, I agree. The future is dark, Agree again. And yes, No one around me is holy, but i dont think i can complain so badly, coz at times, i get this strange feeling that i myself am a social evil, and so if i choose to write stuff that way, dark and dystopian, i would end up being the biggest narcissistic blogger of all times.

There is this one style where people write all that they like. It initially starts with what they like in movies, books, food and music which is all fine. That seems to be a nice and easy premise, but then to continue to do it, one has to be well read or try to sound well read or atleast pretend to be well read. I am not well-read, i basically stick to fiction and let all non-fiction works rest in peace in the book shelves. I do not sound well-read, for that matter, when i tried to find out how actually i sound, the results werent encouraging the least. Pretension seems to be an option, but since am overworking on pretending to be a software engineer, that is ruled out too.

Whew. That discounts all possible styles that i could think of. Oh well, I guess this blog didnt actually turn out the way i thought it would, did it ?? Rule number 1 for all bloggers: stick to writing whatever comes to your mind, you can think about your excuses later.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Carpe Diem - Not Like This

When arun.s. walked upto me with two tickets in hand, i had just one reason to take them up. Rahul Sharad Dravid. The best there is, (one of the) the best there was and (one of the) the best there ever will be. I have never seen him bat in flesh and blood and he is one of those batsmen who would make you wake up early in the mornings, sleep late in the nights, skip food in the afternoons and drop deadlines at work even when hez batting on television. Now that he was playing in the real, and that too 500 metres from my place of work, it was too good to be true.

Morning, "Indrajith" gilchrist and "Mahiravanan" clarke ate some bheema pushti legium (thatz something on the lines of zandu pancharisht) and came in with maces instead of bats. Anything red that comes in front of them was delivered to the audience at twice the speed. When everyone was losing heart, ganguly suddenly got the wisdom to bring back bhajji and boy, did he strike. But by then, Oz had cruised to 470+ which in itself was staring ominously at us.

That was the right time for us to go in. Veeru was basically a Dhanda Soru (good for nothing in thamizh) and Akash Chopra was always waiting to go back to the pavilion soon. So RDx would be in any time and we ran into the stadium like crazy. This match was made in heaven. With "Ravanan" Mcgrath firing up from one side and "Kumbakarnan" Gillespie on the other, "The Wall" standing tall on one side. What a script for an otherwise boring thursday afternoon. As we walked in, we saw people walking out with a forlorn faces. Bad news. Veeru would've tried to whack the day lights out of piegeon and the ball would've did the stumps a favor. Bad news for them. Not for me.

As i walked in, i saw a familiar figure, crouching at the crease at anything that came at him, all bloated up wearing all kinds of protection devices that mankind could've ever thought of. Now what was Ganguly doing here so early ?? Dont tell me he got courageous and walked in to face ravanan and co. Even donna wouldnt be able to coax him into that. And then something struck me. Now, did we lose *two* wickets by any chance ?? I turned around, found a guy who looked like he would answer me.

"How Many" {anxiety, someone give me a towel }
"Two" { half dead }
"Dravid??" {higher levels of anxiety, can i get a glass of water ?? }
"Bowled" { non-chalant }
{throw the glass of water away, someone give me valium for chrissake}

Dravid, the bane of fast bowlers, despatcher of short-pitched stuff, the messiah for Indian Cricket, his bat as straight as a ruler, his footwork rivalling tap dancers, felled by this mcgrath brute, Bad.
Clean Bowled. Worse.
For Nought. Unthinkable.
In Bangalore. Can't get worse.
When I go to watch him. You know, Life is never so bad that it cant get worser.

But then, I guess it is okay one way atleast. To watch RDx walk upto the crease, take his guard, face that mcgrath monster, give lots of hope and then get bowled for a nought would've been like going to the nearest sivan kovil for an upanyasam, and find out that ozzy osbourne is the upanyasakar. Mind-freaking and depressing.

Next time RDx, there is always a next time.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Baton of Tyranny

When i was packing my bags and leaving for the train, sheelz (mom's sis) stopped me in my tracks and gave me The Sign. I was pretty reluctant to, but then, when orders come from her, you better start doing what she says unless you want to miss the train and be screamed at for the rest of the night for utter lack of responsibility among other high sounding allegations. I sighed (pretty inaudible, coz that would be enough for me to miss the train) and turned to vicks (the scapegoat, guilty as charged, my cousin). The idea behind this whole exercise being I, the elder brother, have to educate the younger brother with his ways of life.

That was when i started empathising with all those poor, round pots, who __had__ to call the kettle black because they were "politely requested" by other bigger, rounder and threatening pots, inspite of knowing that they were, are and in all likelihood, will be blacker. I could already visualize a certain gang of people queueing outside my place with stones, but since, i guess i would go with a tonne of stones than messing with sheelz, I pulled a chair to brainwash my cousin. What followed next was an hour of unmatched sermoning. I missed few mayil-peeli (feathers of peacock), a flute, four horses and a chariot while vicks missed one huge bow with a quiver full of arrows (not the archer shortstory book for chrissake, we are talking the real quiver). Otherwise it was full and proper "Kuzhandhai .." sermon with me instructing vicks about the viles of sun/raj/jaya tvs and the importance of mathematics. And so passed the role of "head preacher of the krishnamachari clan" from my aunt, down to my uncle and now to me and If there is one thing that connects us three, it is the fact that, for the kind of disciplinarian he was, krishnamachari (great grand father) would have shot us down without batting an eyelid, if he could.

At times during the preaching, I thought my aunt was laughing which was allright because she knows me pretty well, but suddenly I had this strange feeling that vicks was smirking too. I heard the alarm bells ringing when brownie (and thatz our faithful, fearless, fourlegged friend .. woah, how many Fs) actually yawned and started showing signs of uneasiness. Before he could actually understand the situation and start laughing, i wrapped up the stuff midway, gave a few cliched statements, packed my bags and hit the road. After i had walked a few steps, i heard this distinct bark, starting as a bark of surprise and slowly turning into some sort of uncontrollable howly laughter. I guess brownie eventually worked it out himself. sigh.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Another Whirlwind Tour

Back to chennai to drop viks back and this time too, stuck in a day train. Can't say if India's population exploded manifold over the week, but the crowd in the train surely did. Can't believe a day train on a saturday afternoon to chennai can be that crowded. People sure have funny hobbies.

Chennai was so overcast that even dodda ganesh could have bowled outswingers. Cloudy, drizzly and eternally cool. To think of how shortlived this whole spell would be, sigh. Met monex and folks on saturday night at the besant nagar dhabba. They had a ransacked poultry on their table by the time i went and thank god for that. Chicken in all assorted forms that could be thought of, in all fancy names, but still smelling the same. All set for ajay's marriage and looks like the whole trip to chennai was courtesy the soon-to-be groom. Surprising what a hint of marriage can do to your generosity.

Met pangs and seagull shiva on sunday. Visited kwiky's at gn chetty road after almost 4 years and the place sure looks ancient now. One of the first coffee pubs in chennai, it used to be __the__ hangout one point of time. Now the place is so empty that you have couple of desperadoes necking their way to glory at 11am on a sunday morning when their parents are busy watching arattai arangam. Coffee pubs in bangalore are a different story though. Another day, Another Blog.

Met the twisters and since that would cover an entire blog network in itself, am dropping it from here.

Got down at bangalore in the morning and it was so darned cold. Now that i seem to have gotten back to this inseparable romance with wheezing, i just wrapped myself in my shawl and walked down. When i crossed the mirror, i suddenly looked like someone familiar. After a while, when a really kind-hearted auto-driver almost threatened me to get into his auto, eyes glinting with pity, promising that he would charge only what the meter says, i realised whom i resembled. It had to be Mike Mohan singing/coughing "maniyosai kettu ezhundhu" or Nagarjuna singing "kaaviyam paada vaa thendrale". In other words, terminally ill.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Gandhi Nagar Jack Sparrow

Gandhi Nagar is this bustling place in Bangalore North (I guess so, was never strong in geography anycase) where when you keep your feet on the road, you would be lucky if it is someone else's feet that runs on top of yours. If your karma decides to catch up with you all of a sudden, you could be run over by a BMTC bus or a stray auto or even drown in the human melee. This part of bangalore, apart from serving as a thrill ride for unsuspecting pedestrians, also happens to be the the seat of pirating just about anything. ACDs, VCDs, MP3s, Video Games, DVDs, you name it, they smuggle it. It also happens to be the place which has been causing the biggest hole in my already-torn purse these days.

DVDs. Aaah. What a concept. Re-mastering old movies with a digital audio track, write it onto a (slighly bigger) pocket size gadget and give it you for a decent price. Aaah. What more, you get even upto four movies in a single DVD (although with a discernible, but pardonable difference in the audio and video department) which rocks.

Extreme Caution: Now, if you are too greedy you even have DVDs with six movies, but you would have to settle with half of the movie if you are really lucky.

The best thing about a DVD, apart from the audio and video qualities is that it lets you follow all the dialogues in the movie, so that you can look cool when everyone else is having problems understanding Jacob's Ladder and Mullholland Drive (In the local lingo, it helps you to "jalli adichify").

Couldn't keep my hands off when i saw all the leone/eastwood spaghetti westerns clubbed with unforgiven in DVD. And then i picked up lost in translation, monster, big fish and cold mountain, all in one DVD. For all those who aren't exactly thrilled, we are talking Anthony Minghella, Tim Burton, Patty Jenkins and Sofia Coppola, all in one DVD. Its like having Thayir Sadham, Vaazhakka Poriyal, Pudina Chutney, Vaththa Kozhambu and Maavadu/Elumichai Oorga on a sunday afternoon. If this wasn't appealing enough too, you are probably not a thamizh iyengar or most likely you should take a long hard look at your values and start living before its too late (No curd rice ?? Sheesh!!). Add to this list the usual suspects (matrix, lotr etc) and you have weekends flying past as if they never existed.

The only hitch with gandhinagar is that you dont get so many good movies. shawshank, memento, bladerunner, space odyssey .. nothing .. not even a hint. Fear not, Perusu is going to china soon it seems, and if he gets my movie shopping list served in shanghai, he wouldn't need a patch above his eye to show he is a pirate.

So here goes a huge thanks for all those __engineers__ who found the dvd technology, dvd player and dvd discs and another bigger bunch of thanks to all the managers who told them, after careful analysis and prophetic forethought, that the idea of a disc containing a movie would never, ever work (grrrrrr).

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

So, What Next ??

The much-awaited review got over today and it got over as expected. Utter, complete and total bs it was. Arghghgh, why did they have to call a conference to discuss this ?? To call up only people who had fixed beliefs (and __really__ fixed ones at that), and close the door shut loudly on us, they didnt need a conference. They just needed a bulletin board.

We came in, we listened to something on our vision, commercial interests, technological partners, friendly compromises, business sense and other assorted terminologies which are uttered every now and then by tie-clad, bald, ageing higher-ups in pin-striped suits making money everytime they open a laptop and make a powerpoint presentation flash on their screen explaining how 1 and 1 make 2 with no less than 10 slides flying criss cross. Duh. They knew they couldn't get us on a technicality, and they knew they could just wallop us over with business bs. And wallop us they did: nice, neat and clean with a burp.

I agree with Calvin. Life is full of precluded possibilites.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Sunny Days

Had been to chennai to pick up viks. Records say hez younger to me by 14 years. I also have a faint memory of carrying him to places when he was kid. Come to think of it, few years back, i remember giving him a ride on my back. I looked at him in chennai and decided the last time was the last time i ever gave him a ride of any sort. Anyone who looks at his birth certificate would call it a forgery. Jeez, the kid (if i may so irrespective of what his physique says) stands just couple of inches shorter than me and more than half my size in width. I sympathise with his mom who still thinks he is a kid and tries to wield her authority over him with a weak voice. Someday, he could actually give her a clothes-line which is going to settle the debate on who is stronger at home, heck, i guess he could give me a pile-drive if he maintains his growth rate. But thankfully, he is not horizontally challenged as i was when i used to be his age.

Chennai is Sunny. And Dusty. And a bit Dirty. Not to mention, Polluted. Did i forget to mention Chaotic ?? But hey, it is __Chennai__ and all the other cities can go hang :-). So took in the sun for a while, looked at the ganesh chaturthi processions with loads of people on the vans who wouldnt be called devotees even in the darkest sense of the word. Thugs would probably do. Pillayar should be really pissed with that.

Met klusener and pangs. Gorged dhabba food with them. Both of them have been given the noose at home and they are going down before sep 2005. Klusener's hunt officially begins in jan while pangs is in the process of receiving profiles already. He told me so many things about some 6-month window, minimum basic compatibility, some queueing methodology and an inside peek on "Pictures lie, and pretty badly at that". Thanks. That was encouraging.

Picked up the day train (with only seats, no berths) since i couldn't get tickets in a night train. I can now write a flaming editorial on population explosion in India. A three seater is called a three seater because, by definition, it can seat only three. All that is shred to pieces in our trains. A three seater fits as many people as it could before someone shows real signs of giving up and walks away to stand near the door. Remember the golden rule, Never, I repeat, Never get up from your seat unless you want to be an unwilling martyr.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Why, But Why ??

Now why is this blog titled arunthur dent of all forsaken names on this planet ??

- I like DNA and his works. Not that i have read much, 've read the usual suspects (the trilogy in five parts + bits and pieces of dirk gently. anyone has a copy of "last chance to see" ??). Sad that he had to die before i could finish his famed trilogy. so this blog is dedicated (??) to DNA, his memory, Towels, Dolphins and anything that has Sci-fi, Fantasy, Humor or much better, all of the above.

- I like Arthur Dent. funny, panicky, unpredictably predictable (most of the times for the better) and a whole load of other characterstics which oh-so-reminds me of someone i've known since birth.

- I like King Arthur. Excalibur, Camelot, The Holy Grail and a tonne of mystery with a topping of the medieval age. That must've been interesting. After I saw the promos of the new "King Arthur" movie, i realised that he also had someone like Keira Knightley for company. Now, __That__ must've been more than just interesting.

- "I, King Arthur Dent" is an anagram which more or less summarises the author of this blog.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...