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My first post from a phone-Blackberry rocks!

2011-02-14T13:50:00.001+03:00

Until about a month back I never thought I would be so nuts over a phone.Blackberry has made a big fan out of me. For someone who has used a Nokia all his life, BB is a revelation.it is the closest you can get to a PC which can be pocket carried. you can literally chat with anyone for any amount of time.You get upto date twitter, facebook updates, are always online on Gtalk, yahoo messenger. You get push emails too.This is my first post from a BB. It has made life much more exciting. But make sure you dont reveal it to your boss, Else, you will endup working 24/7. Not exactly the best way to live life?

Guess all of you should get a BB if you dont have it already. And send me your PIN on my email ID, so that we can chat...i seriously need more chat buddies. I miss my chatting days which feels eons ago....My wife is too busy with her kitty friends...seriously, have a wife is no guarantee to a better life.

Sorry for all the typos.....typing on a phone can be pain in arse!

Tamil films are here to stay!

2011-01-24T14:08:00.001+03:00

In India very fewfilms show the actual act of a man proposing a woman. Perhaps this is because ittakes a lot from a writer to convince the viewers that a girl could fall for aguy this easy or perhaps most of the love stories in Hindi films are abjectfantasies. Anyone who has done so in life knows how difficult and life threateningit is to propose a woman and Hindi films make a complete mockery of thiswonderful art (or science, whatever!)

I have proposed to two women in my life. The second time I didit was a lot easier than the first and it was a success. The first time was a reallydifficult one. The words couldn’t form in my mind. Whatever words formed couldn’tbe spitted out of the mouth. Nervousness, sweaty palms and forehead, palpitatingheart, heavy breathing.A feeling that the world would come to an end if sherefused. A sense of emptiness.

I was a lot more confident the second time. I felt I couldmove on and there would surely be someone else for me. No nervousness, no palpitatingheart. A certain confidence-perhaps my mind said this would surely be a success,just believe in me. I was experienced; I was a master of romantic one linerswhich could even inspire Aditya chopra. I learnt the lesson that failure is a betterteacher than success.

The above scene, though very filmy and clichéd etc, capturesa tad bit of realism. I feel Tamil films are evolving in the right directionover their Hindi counterpart. Tamil films handle stories in a lot more matureway and the treatment is very creative. If you really want to watch some goodIndian movies, I suggest switch over to Tamil Cinema.Hindi films have lost it.

I wish i were Sexy!

2011-01-21T15:59:00.001+03:00

If I were to have my way, I would get a lot of plasticsurgery done on me. Seriously, I am sick of looking the way I look, and I havebeen looking this way for more than 30 years now. I need a change.

I want to get a permanent smile on my fac. My face has this permanentfrown, and I look as if I have taken a permanent vow to sulk. One of my exgirlfriends even went on to say that I should smile more often and I look muchbetter that way. I look like this serious man, like you find in the portraitsof seventeenth century Englishmen with wavy, springy wig. The result is thatmost people, who don’t know me quite well, think I am arrogant and unapproachable…Ihave this image of a brainy guy who talks only hardcore economics. Damn!

I would like to have more hair on my head.At this rate, in 3to 4 years I am sure I would look like Anupam Kher-with only few oases on abarren desert. The only solution I have right now is to completely shave it offand pretend it’s the next big fashion fad to have originated from Paris.

My butt- I get groped by my wife and she says I have a largebutt, though she says it looks good and a man should have a bit of butt. But ona personal level I feel I have a bit too much of butt and would consider beinga bit less butty( that’s a new word BTW)

With almost all the Indian actors going through a surgeon’s bladeand even people who are not supposed to be traditionally glamorous like Nita Ambanigetting a face job, I wish one day would come when even I would have a perfectface. And also a butt.

But the thing to ponder is that some of the actors whowere my favorites earlier, I have come to dislike them for the reason thattheir beauty has become plastic. Even if Rakhi Sawant, with all the siliconeunder her boobs were to stand naked before me I probably wouldn’t give her a secondglance. Most Bollywood ( I hate that word) actors have more plastic than a plastic mannequin, andan undressed mannequin with all the right bulges hardly make a desirable woman.

my first blog post for 2011--wohooo i am so excited!!

2011-01-19T19:53:00.001+03:00

YeY, bloggers- here i come!!.....My soon-to-be-2-year-old-and-feeling-proud-of-it-already daughter.

To all those who are married, are honeymooning after a tirsome Indian wedding , about to get married soon , already are much too married ( and are thinking of the next logical step-No, not divorce silly)-thinking of having babies and are ready with the mis-en-place, if you are in two minds over what t0 choose-boy or a girl?........I strongly recommend a daughter...they are the best thing a man can have in his life.....:)

Does Sachin deserve Bharat Ratna?

2010-12-24T15:47:00.000+03:00

How silly do people get when it comes to Cricket in thiscountry?Sachin is Undoubtedly great as no other Indian has hit more centuriesthan him and no one has played more cricket for such a long time, that too withsuch consistency.But has he made us proud?

We felt proud when Kapil Dev lifted the cup in 1983 and Sachinwas not even in the team. Sachin started playing in 1989 ( if I am not wrong) andIndia has not won a major tournament until the Twenty-20 world cup, whichSachin didn’t even play.How has he helped the team and the image of the nationthen?

What is all this cry about Sachin deserving a Bharat Ratna?No doubt Sachin deserves the highest Sports Award of any country, but is he trulydeserving of Bharat Ratna? If that is the case I feel Saina Nehwal too deservesa Bharat Ratna, so does Abhinav Bindra for winning the Only OLYMPICS GOLD forwhich we Indians are TRULY PROUD.

I feel Bharat Ratna shouldgo to a person who has made a difference to the nation and its people. I feelit should be regarded as the highest civilian award , and for a nation of over1.2 billion people this award recipient should be truly special. It should be recognitionof public service of the highest order and in that sense we have many morepeople who deserve this award over Sachin. We have great entrepreneurs who haveshaped the way Indians do business. we have parliamentarians, artists, actors,social workers, who have made us proud and to single out Sachin on the basic of50 centuries, which in no way defines Indian sports , is a bit far fetchedaccording to me.

Friends friends everywhere-Random acquaintances....(Photo heading)

2010-12-17T19:00:00.005+03:00

My daughter is close to her 2^nd birthday. Sheis turning more and more human, in asense that she now understands and expresses emotions. Though mine was a caseof love-at-first-sight, she is kinda experimenting with love in her own unique ways.Sheis slowly discovering that I can be trusted and she can count on me forsupport. She now runs to me for comfort when her mother, who has a pepper-hot temper,scolds her for apparent silly things like stuffing fingers in her mouth, poopingon the floor and not on the potty, wetting the bed etc. And though I understandthat her mother may be right, I cannot stand without suffering a heart meltdownwhen I see her tiny face with lips curled up….

I have had several love affairs, but this current loveaffair with my daughter is completely fresh and unique. I miss her when in office,when I climb the stairs of my apartment the excitement builds in that I would be seeingher soon, I hate it when I leave in the morning for office and she cries andruns to me and holds my trousers. I love to watch her excitement to see me atnight when I return. I love buying cloths, chocolates and toys for her, morethan I buy for myself. I love it and take great pride in the fact that only I (andnot her mother) can put her to sleep at night. She sleeps only when she’s nextto me and I have to hug her, before her mother takes over and I move out toanother bed. On certain nights she wakes-up and cries for me and I move herto my bed. I love it when she sleeps on my chest and I feel her faint heartbeats. I take secret joy in hearing from her mother that she is a complete papa's girl.

It hurts when I think that one day she would be on her ownand perhaps move out of our lives, but I keep reminding myself that that’s along way down and all I should do now is to enjoy her company and see her growfrom that tiny pulsating dot which the gynecologist showed us on the computerscreen while scanning her newly pregnant mother, to a woman who makes her ownchoices in life. But taking a cue from the weekend holidays which has almost passed-Life and weekend holidays have one thing in common, they pass much too sooner than you realize.

Howwwzit????????

2010-12-15T21:37:00.001+03:00

Photoshop magic
plain joblessness
creativity gone bonkers
All the above
none of the above

Please select the right answer.

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago".

2010-12-12T12:24:00.003+03:00

I Had a dream last night- Its somewhere in the future. India is the 2nd largest economy after China and its become a fully developed country.Clean, great roads, swanky buildings, internet has become the largest channel of communication, Tablets a bit larger than iphone4 have overtaken PC/laptops....and then comes the recession.....Unlike the current recession which started off as mortgage crisis and real-estate bubble crash, this recession is due to people taking huge loans to buy mobile phones, and other gadgets, and then they fail to pay back the banks. SBI and ICICI has become the Lehman brothers and Goldman Sachs of the current recession............................ To sum up a nightmare, are we spending too much on gadgets? Are we going the American way of buying large houses, super luxury cars etc, with borrowed money, money which is not yet owned? I feel the recession teaches us few things which our fathers believed in and we took for granted.

Value of compounding. Small drops indeed make Great lakes, if not oceans.
Invest: I feel Saving without "investing" is just not good-enough. Buy gold or buy assets. Invest in things you understand, Like shares or real-estate.
Frugality: Value-for-money is indeed important. There is a huge difference between Need and Want.As my father says "buy only what you need and not what you want."
Believe in Long term-Save for the future, or for the next generation: To quote Warren Buffet-"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago".
Budgeting: My dad always says to plan expenditures. Spend in the same manner, when you have surplus or when you are broke. Dont get carried away with extra money.
Credit of any kind is BAD. Be it Loan or Credit card, keep away as much as possible.Never buy grocery or things you use daily using Credit cards. Only Use them if you think you can pay the balance next month.

Arabs are GREAT ( no offence please)

2010-12-09T18:35:00.001+03:00

Arabs are indeed a bunch of lucky dudes….Not only becausethey dig petrol from barren places but also because they can marry as many timesas they want to, provided they stick to number 4 by divorcing the odd one out. Ihave often pondered how it would be to live with 4 wives, all of them young, prettyand HOT, no matter how old you get. Perhaps it’s my testosterone which makes methink this way, but on a humane level I wonder how a man can leave his wife, justlike that. Is sex so important in life that you spend a fortune on it? ( anArab has to shell-out a ton of money as man-dowry).Will my sensitivity allow athing like this?

The other day, after a bitter fight, I told my wife: If youthink you don’t need me, if you think you are better-off without me, then let’sget a divorce. And she agreed on it, and I left the house for office in silence.

After few hours I was all regret and sad and apologetic atmy temper, though as they say ‘it takes two to tango’ ( Hindi-taali ek haath senahi bajti). I looked at my mobile wallpaper and stared at the lady and a smallgirl in her lap, and thought this is the same woman I thought I loved the most.I thought of all the time spent with her, and I felt sad and had a strong wishto go and hug her.

I don’t think I have enough Arab in me to marry severaltimes. I am an emotional bloody-fool. I am stuck with one woman and will be forthe rest of my life. I can never leave her, coz I love her, even if I want to.Even if she tries to divorce me I would beg her not to leave me. I willclimb a water tank, ala Dharmendra in Sholey, and shout suicide warnings andconvince her to take me back as husband. Shame on me!

See why I admire Arabs? They are the only true ‘Men’ left inthe world and tame enough women to their hearts desire. I wish I was born anArab, at least in my next birth, and for that reason I believe inreincarnations. Amen.

Why No comments on this Blog?

2010-12-06T14:50:00.002+03:00

"Does anyone care what a guy wants"

2010-11-30T15:51:00.000+03:00

Going back to the past, or reminiscing is fun. Like the case today, i was reading my blog and stumbled upon this post i had written a very-very long time ago. Reading soon after you write, you lose the ability to discern your own writing. But reading it after what it feels like a lifetime, it sure did bring a smile on my face.

"Does anyone care what a guy wants"-1

Many moons ago, a young girl, reticent and nervous, came up to a guy and said, “I love you”. The guy, or rather a young boy in his early teen, looked into those eyes that were flooded with affection and love for him, smiled and continued his nonchalant ways. She failed to see love for her in his self and left him, albeit with a heavy heart.

Years later, the boy, now in his thirties remembered her, with fondness and love. He wished he could see her again, just one more time and say how much he still loved her. He inhaled in deep sigh, wondering and marveling over life and its many ironies.

Doesn’t that sound a bit autobiographical? Yes indeed. That young boy is no one but yours truly.

I was blog hopping the other day and stumbled upon a blog which raises the question “what does a girl want”. Well, girls themselves make them sound as if they are some alien species from some far away galaxy. Well, most of the time, what a girl wants is what a boy wants. A girl wants a boy and so is vice versa. Did I over simplify, is it so simple?

Reading that blog has triggered my pondering process and many scabs of old hurt have torn themselves open . One such was the case of my would-have-been-sweetheart, which I started this post with. That girl, although quite beautiful and good, failed to burrow my heart, all because I thought she needed me more than I needed her. Why such a rational? After all, its not every day that you find a girl come up to a boy and say; she loved him. I found myself flying in the air like hot air balloon with pride. It was after she left, that the reality sunk in and I came falling to the ground, un-parachuted. I did all that to get her back but it was too late. In plain language, I took her for granted.

I haven’t told you what-and-all she did to express her love for me. She supported me for everything stupid I said, she would keep turning at me between the classes and our eyes would lock( we were classmates), she would wait for me for lunch, call me every day after the school, in the pretence of homework doubts, buy me gifts with her meager pocket money and so on and so forth. Shameless me never bothered to return a gift, not even once.

Then, some years later, I started working. It was then that Deepali came to my life, like quite clichéd saying-like a whiff of wild roses. I found her irresistible. I would do everything for her. I dreamt, ate, slept and many more such things of her and finally, after about half a year being good friends, managed enough courage to propose her. There comes my biggest disappointment! Instead of accepting, which my overconfident self convinced me all along, she rejected me straightaway.

Well, not straightaway, but tactfully. She said, to quote in her own language- “Well, humm, you know, I mean, you are good and all, but, humm, I am not ready, you know, I can’t commit, may be, I don’t know, shall see, I don’t know, later tell you. “ And the later never came. I was frustrated, heartbroken, hurt, and many more such things, all in one. She made me take her to expensive restaurants, movies, coffee shops and least to say, made me poorer by several thousand hard earned rupees. My financial analytical mind tells me, if I would have invested that much in shares I would have reaped rich dividends by now. But as they say, love is blind, so was i.

And again, much later when I finally met my wife, I realized what I thought as love was plain infatuation. This is what love was; the one I had for my wife.

Now, surprisingly, when I look back at those reminiscences, I find all that as a big joke, a rather pleasant joke. I am glad I went through all that in life. What else do you call life-but mere reminiscences, and loads and loads of them? Some pleasant ones, something which you want to share to the world and yet some, which are best kept, locked inside some furtive corner of your mind.

To sum up: Its not all too important whom you love, the people who love you are much more important. There are lessons to be learned at every nook and corner, but never wait for life to teach you lessons the tough way.

Keira Knightley

2010-11-26T15:39:00.004+03:00

And for several magazines, she is the sexiest woman ALIVE..................Duh!

wow-Google translator is really a funny man

2010-10-09T22:30:00.001+03:00

मैं धोनी के लिए खुश हूँ. उसकी पत्नी इतनी सुंदर है, इसलिए घरेलू, तो अच्छी लग रही है और इसलिए ... ... .... और मैं ज्यादा बहुत खुश है कि वह है अंत में खुद को एक से अधिक कारणों के लिए शादी कर रहा हूँ. मेरी पत्नी शुरू में संदेश के लिए ले लिया है जैसे कई-बहुत जन्मों के अंत में उसके प्रेमी गूंगा करने का निर्णय लिया था उसे होशियार किसी के लिए. कम से कम कहने, वह दिल बुरी तरह टूट गया था. वह खाना बनाना और नहीं भी अपनी बेटियों को आश्चर्यजनक रूप से भारी pampers बदलने से इनकार कर दिया था और मैं के लिए मेरे द्वारा पकाया Kitchidi पर जीवित था.मुझे आश्चर्य तो क्या धोनी के बारे में खास है कि मेरी पत्नी की तरह शादी की महिलाओं को अपने sexier और बेहतर पति की तलाश भूलना (कोई गंभीरता से, मैं आईने में एक अपने आप में अच्छा कर इस घटना के बाद लग रहे थे और खुद Hotter धोनी से मिल गया और कई कारणों के लिए ऐसा ही लगता है ). और के रूप में व्यवहार करते हैं अगर वे बस उनके 14 वें जन्मदिन का केक काटा था. कोई आश्चर्य नहीं कि महिलाओं को अभी भी एक पहेली अल्बर्ट आइंस्टीन की राशि नहीं कर रहे हैं! और ई = MC2 इस मुद्दे का समाधान होगा! अचानक जब मैं धोनी की फोटो के ऊपर, मुझे लगता है, जैसे कि, मैं अपनी पत्नी के पूर्व प्रेमी में देख रहा हूँ देखो. ज्यादातर महिलाओं को यह अपने पति को नहीं पहेली, इसमें कोई शक नहीं कर सकते हैं!और अंत में मंदी देश मैं रहते हैं और कारोबार majorly नीचे हैं पर लगा है. मैं गंभीरता से पता है कि जब मेरी विकेट गिर जाएगा नहीं है, लेकिन यह निश्चित रूप से होगा. और कहा कि एक कारण हो सकता है मुझे वापस भारत आने के लिए और अपने दम पर कुछ करना के लिए होगा. एक रेस्तरां या शायद एक डीलरशिप फ्रेंचाइजी /.

And the above is a translation on the below.....which is an excerpt from one of my earlier posts, which could be read here ....:)))

I am happy for Dhoni. His wife is so pretty, so homely, so good looking and so………. And I am much-much happier that he has finally got himself married for more reasons than one. My wife initially took to the message as if her boyfriend of many-many births had finally decided to dumb her for someone smarter. To say the least, she was severely heart broken. She didn’t cook and even refused to change my daughters surprisingly heavy pampers and I had to survive on Kitchidi cooked by me.I wonder what’s so special about Dhoni that married women like my wife forget their sexier and better looking husbands ( no seriously, I had a good look at myself in the mirror after this incidence and found myself Hotter than Dhoni and have many reasons to think so.) and behave as if they had just cut their 14th birthday cake. No Wonder women still are an enigma!No amount of Albert Einstein and E=MC2 will solve this issue! Suddenly when I look at the above Photo of Dhoni, I feel, as if, I am looking at my wife’s ex-boyfriend. Most women can do this to their husbands!Enigma, No doubt!And finally the recession has hit the country I live and the businesses are majorly down. I seriously don’t know when my wicket would fall, but it surely would. And that would be a reason for me to come back to India and do something on my own. A restaurant perhaps or a dealership/Franchisee.

Reflections on India by Sean Paul Kelley

2010-07-28T20:18:00.000+03:00

I read the below article on the blog of my friend The unsure ascetic and it speaks for itself, without me adding a prelude. I feel it explains the sorry state of our country, the dirt, the pollution, the crowd, and most importantly ‘the mindset’. It seems we have been exposed to so much of negativity around us that we have started to believe that its all normal and natural, and these sights fail to move us any further. Please read on…..

Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded the Agonist which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America.

If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you.

These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala. Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless.

India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India’s four major problems–the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation–and then move to some of the ancillary ones.

First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump.

Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common on the streets. In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight.

Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.)

More after the jump..

The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. Without regular electricity, productivity, again, falls.

The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit.

There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older.

Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It’s awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses.

At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now.

The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the over utilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit.

Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.

The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption.

It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one’s phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service.

Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India.

The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job.

Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.

I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way.

Mumbai, India’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia–and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!

One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing.

The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in status. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.

Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does.

And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.

Toys R Us and my daughter

2010-07-25T14:33:00.000+03:00

Hello folks, hope things are fine....Nothing much to write, so thought would post some pictures...Take care and keep blogging. Ciao.:)

India- A funny country

2010-07-19T12:04:00.005+03:00

I am an Indian and I love my country to a point that I turn a critic most of the time when I have to talk about it. And my criticism is taken as antinational and self-righteous. We like to hear about us that we are a growing superpower, and an economic powerhouse, but we hate to hear that we are culturally messed, corrupt and hypocrites.We don’t take a criticism constructively. We are self centered and are least bothered of our environment. Though India is blessed with great amount of Natural bounties, we Indians have fucked it to a point that its one of the dirtiest countries in the world.What we care is to mend our own space. Perhaps, centuries of oppression, superstitions related to religion and culture, poverty etc has made us this, or the plague of over-population, but many great nations of today have had equal share of troubles in the past. Japan, Germany, Israel etc are classic examples.

Being a critic actually helps to know yourself, your country and the society better.

1. Our love for the male child. I know of families who have had five children in an effort to produce a male. We provide the best to him, and starve and ill treat her. We have a tradition where a girl departs the family of her birth, after her marriage and she is no more considered part of the family. Thus, noone to care for, when the parents of the girl are old and in need. Its justifiable, isnt it? Why do we have a tradition of calling a girl PARAYA after her BIDHAI? Why do we call a man-GHAR JAMAI- If he wants to stay at the girls house after marriage?

2. We believe that paying bribes in government offices are a norm aand the only way of getting things done; otherwise they would be taken to task and would be moved around. We cheer when we see movies like Lage Raho Munnabhai, where an old man strips when confronted with a corrupt BABU, but we consider such acts a fantasy or fiction.

3. We have very few entrepreneurs per million people, compared to most well off nations. We believe in getting educated, and then in finding jobs. Entrepreneurs have shaped countries like America or Europe. They may be greedy and capitalistic, but they create jobs, and in turn pay back the society. This may be seeing a change in India and we may be creating Entrepreneurs these days.

4. We are a lot funny people- We feel wearing a lot of Gold ornaments and shiny, flashy cloths helps the world believe of our class. We have no faith in minimalism. We believe that over feeding leads to good health. We feel that a human should work till the old age and only retire because he is unable to perform anymore. We believe it’s abnormal and bigheadedness to question the status quo.

5. We believe, per se, in Paisa Vasool. We would travel that extra meter on a Rickshaw for the worth of every Paisa.. Or we would include the entire family and stuff them inside a Tata Sumo, instead of the intended 4-5 passenger. We crowd the Airports, Railway stations etc, by accompanying a relative on his journey.

6. We believe that a Brahman is born different to a Kshatriya or a Shudra. We( in Kerala/Tamilnadu) believe that a Brahman has more brain power and can excel in places like Bank, finance, Maths etc. A Baniya is a born businessman and it runs in his blood.

I cant think of more, but we Indians really are a bunch of funny people. Think about it, removed from the Idealistic, Jingoistic and pseudo patriotic outlook, and you would agree to it.

People I love the most.

2010-07-13T16:26:00.004+03:00

My Wife and daughter. They are priceless and I can do away my life for them. I do fight with my wife but it takes only ten minutes to make up( counted it with a stop watch), though she takes a day of sulking. When she sulks she will pretend as if I don’t exist in the world and she would pass me as if I was as transparent as thin air. And when she does something stupid and knows it, she would come to me and rub her chin on my chest and pretend as if she is tinier than our one-and-half year old. When I whine about my family, she would listen to me as if watching the latest blockbuster on HBO, but when I say something about her family, she would charge at me like those lions on Animal planet.When I cook something and it turns out well, she would turn her face as if she had been forced to eat it at gun point. And when she cooks and I don’t praise her, she would nag how I never have a taste for good food.

Surprisingly, being notoriously short tempered I have never lost temper on my daughter. The other day she cut her chin and I could literally feel the pain in my body. She ran to me and I lifted her in my arms. She hugged and started to cry with her sign language, as if explaining how much it hurts. I couldnt stop my eyes getting moist.

I never get enough of seeing her play, holding her after her bath while my wife dries her, caressing her hair while she is sleeping, placing small pieces of roti in her mouth while having my dinner after a hard days work-she seated on my lap, changing her nappies in the morning after she awakes and making her sleep with my horrendously unmusical nursery rhymes…..She has started to show her fondness by kissing in return and I wait all day, to return home for that good night kiss from her. Like the Mastercard ad.-There are some things money can buy…blah,blah,blah……but that kiss from my daughter, PRICELESS (she will kiss only if she means it)

My triumph with biriyani

2010-07-12T14:07:00.001+03:00

I love biriyani.We all do. After all we are Indians and India without biriyani is Dutch land without tulips. But it’s really sad that we don’t get the kind of biriyani that our hearts desire. The best biriyani that I have ever tasted was during a Muslim wedding in our neighborhood in Kerala. Dripping with fat, the pieces of chicken so soft that it melted like ice-cream in my mouth. And ever since I have this Biriyani dream which has never been fully satisfied. I have had biriyani from various sources, at five star hotels, specialty restaurants, Dhabas, and now in this country I live the word biriyani brings horror to my taste buds. They serve you some sort of mild pulav in the name of Hyderabad biriyani and the only resemblance is the name.

So, last Saturday, my wife and I experimented with making that perfect biriyani after several YouTube searches, modifications etc , and came out with not so bad result. Though not as good as the mentioned earlier, but being home cooked and hygienic, the experience was equally satisfying.

After the experience we tried again and it was equally good, but this time we realized that it was so easy to make and much less time consuming.

The below mentioned is the recipe, though it may not be the most authentic Hydrabadi biriyani( its also called Kachi biriyani, since the meat is raw and cooked along with rice) you would taste, but what the heck! If you can master a biriyani which is easy, tastes fantastic and takes less time, it’s as good as the original. Convenience is the mother of all inventions.

There are just four steps to follow.(See, I told you its so easy)

1. Fry sliced onion until they are golden brown. Spread them on a tissue to soak excess oil, on a flat surface.

2. Marinade chicken pieces( always with bone) with yogurt, salt, ginger/garlic paste, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, garam masala powder, Shahi Jeera, Souf, Chopped mint leaves, chopped coriander leaves, chopped green chilli, Whole garam masala(Cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, maze of nutmeg).

3. Soak basmati rice for half hour, Boil water and cook them till half done, with some oil and salt to taste. Never cook them fully. Drain the water.

4. Take a large pressure cooker. Drop some Ghee. Put the whole marinated chicken and flatten them with a spoon. On top of the chicken add chopped mint/coriander leaves. Add the whole friend onions which were fried earlier. Add rice on top and flatten to even the layer. Pour some ghee on top.Put the lid and the weight and cook, initially on high flame for 5 minutes, followed by 25 minutes of slow flame, directly on the flame. Open the cooker only at the time of serving.

And ta-daa biriyani ready!Serve it with raita.

Photo courtesy: Google

Am i foolish?

2010-07-11T12:05:00.006+03:00

Once, when I was a kid, we had gone to Maldives for vacation and I was fooling around with crabs and waves when this man in his 50s came and started having a conversation with me. After the initial ‘is-he-a-pedophile’ and ‘will-he-rape-me-or-do-something-the-other-uncle-tried-doing’ thoughts, we settled beneath the shades of a coconut palm, facing the candy blue lagoon and few European surfers and a can of coca-cola(on the rocks).. During the conversation, which was on hard core spirituality, he told me that the best quality in a man is that he should get bored with life. Buddha got bored, Mahavira got bored, Dhirubhai Ambani got bored, Jamsetji Tata got bored, even Albert Einstein got bored with life. Unless you get bored with life you just live like an Animal( a dog perhaps) and to qualify as humans, the most important condition is that you should get bored. The more you get bored the more human you are and the more easily you get bored the more successful you are. I still haven’t figured the veiled denotation of the above funda, but I think it holds true in life.

I am bored with my life.I now want to run a café in Bangalore or Kochi, which has a casual yet a plush ambiance, which serves different types of mocha, an assortment of Italian delicacies, a combination platter of Indian starters/salad/main course/dessert, a buffet for lunch( or a table d'hôte), and rest À la carte. I want to get a bar license (but Not to start with), own a bar which has a lounge serving tequila’s and Kahlúa’s of the world , or even get a franchise for steak/grill restaurants like ‘Ponderosa’, or even Dairy Queen, Hardees or Applebee’s. Wish me good luck!

Dhoni, his marriage and the recession- How things affect a seemingly normal guy!

2010-07-08T19:16:00.008+03:00

I am happy for Dhoni. His wife is so pretty, so homely, so good looking and so………. And I am much-much happier that he has finally got himself married for more reasons than one. My wife initially took to the message as if her boyfriend of many-many births had finally decided to dumb her for someone smarter. To say the least, she was severely heart broken. She didn’t cook and even refused to change my daughters surprisingly heavy pampers and I had to survive on Kitchidi cooked by me.

I wonder what’s so special about Dhoni that married women like my wife forget their sexier and better looking husbands ( no seriously, I had a good look at myself in the mirror after this incidence and found myself Hotter than Dhoni and have many reasons to think so.) and behave as if they had just cut their 14^th birthday cake. No Wonder women still are an enigma!No amount of Albert Einstein and E=MC2 will solve this issue! Suddenly when I look at the above Photo of Dhoni, I feel, as if, I am looking at my wife’s ex-boyfriend. Most women can do this to their husbands!Enigma, No doubt!

And finally the recession has hit the country I live and the businesses are majorly down. I seriously don’t know when my wicket would fall, but it surely would. And that would be a reason for me to come back to India and do something on my own. A restaurant perhaps or a dealership/Franchisee.

I am already an established crackpot, but these days it looks like I am the only one in my company who is recession resistant. All my colleagues are shit scared of losing jobs but here I am, happy that it would open another window for me.Below are some quotes to hold up myself.

“When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”

- Alexander Graham Bell –

Or in other words….

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one, which has been opened for us.”

- Helen Keller -

But are these words just words for the sake of forming some quotable quotes, so that we remember the famous personality who quoted them? Is THINKING BIG an over hyped thing?

Man, I will never see an end to my self doubts!

And, Its become very hot here. The sand is mostly so hot that you could roast peanuts on them. Or to provide a better picture, apply some spices on your hand and stand in the sun for half hour,then take a bite of your hand and it would taste like chicken from KFC. That was an exaggeration on a grand scale, but it’s so hot that you can at least make fried eggs by breaking eggs on my terrace….

anymore Blogging?

2010-06-08T21:04:00.002+03:00

The wish to write has waned.

I wrote as if someone out there

was interested in my existence.

But suddenly I feel or else,

it is as though I have Exhausted my ability to feel

or have rendered myself dead.

I am in the midst of an anguish,

and the thoughts of expressing my thoughts

Leaves me exhausted.

I feel I had certain vigour or energy,

or perhaps a certain vanity in me.

That 'energy' seems to be sucked out of me

and the very thought of writing leave me weary.

it is as though

I have tired my ability to feel

or have rendered myself numb.

it started with a tingling sensation,

was not too intricate to ignore initially,

but eventually took over my body and mind

and left me gaping at the pace of my life.

It’s as if I were on an automaton.

I ask, Why, or for whom?

Ok, Nothing of the shit I wrote above. The thing is that I have this defect of focusing only on one thing, at a time. Earlier when I started blogging, I wanted to be a great blogger, in fact the greatest, with millions of followers and millions of comments, each one of it on how brilliant my blog was or how breathtaking my posts were. Now suddenly reality has struck. I am no blogger.I am just an executive, working in a corporation, trying to earn my living, so that one day I have enough money to feel happy about(and secretly pity how poor my neighbor is).

I have loads of problems. Right now my biggest problem is that I have almost nil bank balance.(No that was a lie. I have a fixed deposit of XY lakhs, a mutual fund of YZ lakhs and some gold worth XY lakhs( my wife’s, though I don’t want to call it a dowry, even though my wife feels I was grossly over dowry-fied).

I also have a huge wish list. I want to retire by 45, have an SUV-a Pajero( someone told me its called a Montero in India, Whatever) or a Land cruiser Prado atleast.Now talking about retirement, people around me have always made me feel I was a retard, bcoz noone retires at 45. I had earlier written something on it and people wrote-how they wished they could work till 125, or how their grandfather still works despite being 85 etc. I am sad how Indians see retirement.

In the west, people work solely so that they could retire young, before their joints ached of arthritis, before they go too sick to screw( without Viagra) on the beach, before they render themselves too weak to sail on a kayak, or take a month long train trip across Russian Siberia. An average Indian works until he is 70( 55 years + 15 years after retirement). Cant blame though, They had too many problems and commitments. Daughter’s marriage, Sons education, own house/flat, son’s career until he has a son, relatives in need of help, medical expenses for the old age etc.

I think times are changing. I think so.I see similar thoughts floating around in the minds of people around me here, at least in my friends list. I need no more than one daughter. I am thinking of vasectomy ( nasbandi in shudh Hindi-condoms are too unreliable. ((that was a joke). Why care about next generation? Thank god, I have a daughter. Daughters are much less pain-in-the-ass compared to sons. At least,I worry less that they turn out to be drunkards or drug addicts or criminals. Once my daughter is old enough to have a career and is married ( if she has a wish to marry, I would better advice her to stay single unless she finds an appropriate man), I would fool around. I feel life is all about fooling around. We make a mess of it by taking it too seriously.

And now suddenly blogging has become boring. Sad, it doesnt pay me.I am a Greedy FUCKER.Actually, I feel its alright to be greedy. One is motivated and has a reason to live. Its dangerous to have an unmotivated ass. Wealth creation is awfully challenging but its also thrilling. Its great to see the bank balance swell. It’s the ultimate ecstasy. Ode To all the greedy men around the world! Ciao.

.

2010-06-04T19:41:00.005+03:00

Look at the above video. We think of Pakistan as enemy no 1, or perhaps our only enemy and they feel the same about us. I live in a country which has as many Pakistanis as there are Indians. Our foods are similar, in fact Its almost the same. Naan, Roti, Sabzi, Gosht, Chicken, Kebab, pulao, Chawal, Dal. We wear the same-Salwar Kameez, kurta payjama, Dhoti, Sari. We have similar ceremonies. We value our family more than anything. We are jovial, lively people. Okey, We are majority Hindu and they are Muslim. But we are both the same. We are developing. We have poverty, corruption, disparity issues, inefficiency, over population. And we have terrorism.

Did 26/11 happen because of Pakistan? Does Kasab-the lone surviving terrorist caught during 26/11- represent Pakistan? Is Kashmir really such a prized possession that we cling on to it at the cost of a proxy war which has been waging since 60 years and responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths? Is Pakistan sponsoring terrorism and is India doing the same in Baluchistan?

I feel we are the same as the school girls seen in the above video. Just that we are across the border and at the other spectrum of the political propaganda framed by our rulers and politicians. We have been programmed to hate Pakistan and they India.

I feel terrorism is above nationality, religion and race. There are many more terrorist attacks in Pakistan than in India. I don’t feel Kasab represents Pakistan as much as Veerappan represents India. Pakistanis are as innocent and naïve as Indians are. I wish I could see a day when both exist as friends, perhaps like Canada and US. We have much to gain from mutual cooperation. Pakistani food is amazing, especially Biriyanis. They have a rich cultural heritage. It’s a beautiful country and only thing lacking is Stability and terrorism. And India suffers the consequence. I wish peace prevails in Pakistan, so that it reflects on India too.

As my father calls me-I am yet again rebellious, naïve, stupid and abnormal. I love Pakistan as much I love India. I, of late feel less Indian. I feel I am more a citizen of planet earth. Whats LOC or azad Kashmir? What’s Africa and South America? We live on earth. And it’s the only planet, as far as we know, which has life. Whats religion and god? why don’t animals have religion, just because they cant think and are stupid? I wish humans were as stupid.or who really is stupid?

Memoirs of a Geisha

2010-05-29T19:02:00.001+03:00

I am currently reading Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. It’s a best selling Novel, Which is now a Major Motion picture (2005 film), according to the information on the book cover. It’s a fast read and an engrossing book. I found it more like a CHetan Bhagat( add more of metaphorical or lyrical prose) kind of book than a serious literature.

Memoirs of a Geisha tells the story of a young girl, Chiyo, who is sold into the life of a geisha.Geisha are classical Japanese entertainers, who perform various dances or musicals. They are more Tawaifs in Indian term, more like Madhuri Dixit in Devdas, and not prostitutes in real sense.

Courtesy Wikipedia -Their purpose is to entertain their customer, be it by dancing, reciting verse, playing musical instruments, or engaging in light conversation. Geisha are regarded as prostitutes by many non-Japanese. However, legitimate geisha do not engage in paid sex with clients. Their purpose is to entertain their customer, be it by dancing, reciting verse, playing musical instruments, or engaging in light conversation.

Story starts with a young girl who is sold off by her father, owing to the reason that they are extremely poor and his wife( Her mother) is dying of bone cancer. She is taken away to a distant town Kyoto, which is a bustling city and how the girl copes with a new but harsh life of servitude, encircled by extreme difficulties in the form of jealous and offensive tenants, to finally become the most famous Geisha.

It’s an intense and interesting book, (though I have read only 80 pages) and highly advocate to read it if you haven’t already. Ciao.

A close brush with death!

2010-05-26T20:35:00.001+03:00

All of a sudden the pain started. It was not too bad in the beginning, but gradually it became so bad that he limped when he moved. It felt as If his hip bones were being scraped with a jagged knife. And shortly, he couldn’t move.

It was the most agonizing pain he had experienced in his life. No, he remembered. He corrected himself. He had experienced worse.

Memories came rolling, like a cinema on a screen. Two years ago, one day, he got up with a dreadful pain in his right knee. He couldn’t walk. He tried; it felt the pain would kill him. He lifted his pajama; the knee was red, tender and puffed-up. It felt so soft-similar to touching a new born baby-but it hurt as if a sharp rod had been inserted through the sides of his knee. Soon the redness, puffiness and puffed-up-ness spread to all his joints. He could bend none of his joints. He walked, literally, like a robot.And then coughed. A dry cough.And then he coughed some more, but with stains of blood this time.

Blood tests, Liver function tests, whole body CT Scan, MRI, Colour Doppler. Finally a Thoracic Biopsy. His lymph nodes were enlarged. Spleen and liver were enlarged.ESR reading was through the ceiling- indicating high levels of infection or immune activity.

“ All results show signs of something major in your system”, Dr. Krishnan announced.

“Lets keep our fingers crossed. Only thoracic biopsy would provide clues. What I feel is, My guess is, that sarcoidosis, lymphoma, cannot be ruled out, Though its the worse case scenario I mentioned. Lets all pray, keep your hopes high.” Dr.Krishnan said, in his unsettling, matter-of-fact tone.

His first surgery. A thoracic surgery. His neck was going be gashed, and a tube would be inserted, which would travel all the way to the chest lymph nodes. Very close to heart, lungs, liver, and spleen. The surgeon explained in detail. If, in case, they weren’t able to reach the lymph nodes through the neck, then, they would try open-heart method.

“Lets all pray that that never happens. It would be a risky and lengthy surgical procedure.” Surgeon Nandakumar explained.

The day of the surgery. Admitted to the hospital in the morning. Surgery to be performed in the evening.

“Only have a light breakfast.Try to have it before 8. And nothing after that.”Doctor Nandakumar.

No hunger. A disheartened world. A philosophical mind. Aching body.

A visit to Ganapathy kovil adjacent to the hospital in the moring. Once a skeptic, now a believer. How can he be not?

Admitted to the hospital at 8. His parents waited beside him. He looked through the window, from his 5th floor hospital room. Cars, buses, Students, old women, Ladies on scooter, bikes, cows, cowdungs.

Will-I-see-the-world-again thoughts. Will this be the last time I see my father?

Whats of me, if the surgery becomes unsuccessful. In case they punctured my heart by mistake. Human error! Is this the last time I am seeing the world? The tree, people, cars, bikes? What about future? This is it? What about 2010 when I thought I would have a kid. What about marriage? A house! A Car! Happiness! This is it? Unlived life?

Operation theatre! Bloodcurdling! Inhuman! Monstrous, large, lights! Tubes dangling everywhere! Science fiction movie like computer monitors! Sterility! Blue cloths, masks, cloves, scissors, clippers, cutters!

Tubes connected to the body, heart rate monitor, blood pressure monitor. Anesthesia. Several painful shots of anesthesia. Finally a black out. Transformed to Another world. Dreamy, confused, people cutting, wiping, inserting tubes.

Finally the results! The verdict! He is to live or die!If death is what is meant for him, let him be left to die peacefully. Minus the pain, or a suicide perhaps.

“ There is a good news. It’s nothing serious. A benign tumour. As benign as a stone. Only a minor surgery. An endoscopy perhaps. Only a day at the hospital. Least invasive. Thank god. Our prayers have been answered. It could have been deadly. It could have been lymphoma( Cancer of the lymphatic system or white blood cells), it could have been sarcoidosis. A life long on steroids. An auto-immune disorder, chemotheraphy, radiation therapy, A suppressed immunity. Chances of renal failure in days to come. Your prayers have been answered.”

I-am-a-survivor thoughts. A close brush with death. A bit of luck. Or a bit of bad luck! Or both!

The thoughts were intoxicating. And as much addictive.

”A brush with death! God, A second chance with life? Why fear! Death is as instantaneous and unpredictable as an infant’. We live to live, and not to die.”

A transformed world! New energy! A new outlook! As if a layer of opaqueness has been removed from the looking glass.Its wiped clean, to see life crystal clear.

A month or so of enriched life. With a-brush-with-death and second-chance-to-live thoughts.Very intoxicating thoughts, very addictive thoughts.He missed the similar thoughts, but life settled to its tone. Soon everything was forgotten. Back to life, as it was pre brushwithdeath thoughts. Or a secoundchancetolive thoughts.

And now this pain. Now it was different thoughts.

Iam-very-sickly thoughts. How often do I suffer!My body is very weak and how often do I get so unwell?And pain! My life is only to bear pain?I will have a short life. May be I will die soon, with this high rate of sickness,may be I will be only past middle age and dead!Like one Uncle, who had died recently of Kidney failure!

No more enriching, intoxicating, close-brush-with-death thoughts.

He considered a doctor visit. “No!” then he changed his mind.Tests, bloody tests. Sucking blood, x-rays, scans, and most hated:The verdict time. A new disease. A new discovery. “He had this in his body, he has that” . A matter-of-fact lecture.

He hated, for being too sickly. A new disease every nowandthen.Pain, Suffering, all that is there to life!Suffering!

The next day he got up with severe pain in his legs. “No choice.A doctor visit”-he thought.

He explained to the doctor. Pain, everywhere pain. Legs felt as if the bones have been crushed.Doctor inspected. His neck, his hip, his knees.

And the doctor said, “ We would wait for a week. The pain would resolve by itself.”

Then a second thought, ”Would you like an x-ray taken? Actually I don’t see any reasons, but better be sure.”

“why not!” He thought. “what are insurance cards for? Just to remain dead in wallets?”

“Nothing to worry about. Your vertebra,spine bones are in good shape. No tear or herniated spine. Just a little sprain. Don’t strain yourself. Get some rest and massage and you would be fine. Come and see me after a week if pain persists.” The doctor said, looking at the x-ray sheet.

He took the prescription sheet, thanked the doctor and walked out of the clinic.

No more A-close-brush-with-death thoughts. No more a-second-chance-to-live thoughts.

“A life so painful that pain was the only solace.Like a snake poison for a snake bite. An anti venom!”

He walked back, obviously with a bit of disappointment.

Thanks to my daughter, I am growingup to be a tot again!

2010-05-22T10:26:00.003+03:00

I like the above nursery rhyme. I was listening to this in the morning and couldn’t help but chuckle. My toddler girl looked at me with a befuddled face, as if trying to put into words her ingee-ghee-tatata lingo, ‘Look what kinda man I got for a papa. Wonder why he behaves like a tot.No wonder mama always chide him.Poor Mama, wonder how she bears him. ’

I like it. It has certain attitude about itself. It has a message to people who want to fight and smack someone hard. Thought of sharing!

And below is the BEAR which finds itself a guest appearance in the story i wrote not so long ago..... Its my daughter's first best friend..and she expresses all her love by constantly chewing on it...

The Metamorphosis’- by Franz Kafka

2010-05-19T19:14:00.002+03:00

Today, I read a Novella (Perhaps a Long short story) called ‘The Metamorphosis’- by Franz Kafka. It has had a profound effect on me to say the least. I remember thinking something similar in those lines of the story, sometime back when I was bed ridden for almost 3 months. The story though a fantasy- or an example of Magic realism that one finds in the works of Rushdie or Marquez- is told allegorically and one notices the unmistaken reference to changing human values in an event of a crisis. It explains the predicaments of a human, being a burden to his family when hit by difficulties. His thoughts and monologues, changing priorities and how the family wishes his death, which the narrator realizes but really cant help himself. The story ends with the family moving on-like everything else in this world-with their individual lives.

It’s a very poignant story and the insightful narrative by the author is highly commendable.

Below is a Ctrl C-Ctrl V(copy paste) from wikipedia which provides the plot Summery. Though originally written in German,it’s been translated into almost all major languages and English version is freely available- Though wikipedia accuses the version to have many instance of Lost-in-translations.

I suggest you to read it, and I am sure you will find it amazing.

Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed from a human into a monstrous insect. Rather than lament his transformation, Gregor worries about how he will get to his job as a traveling salesman; Gregor is the sole financial provider for his parents and sister, Grete, and their comfort is dependent on his ability to work. When Gregor's supervisor arrives at the house and demands Gregor come out of his room, Gregor manages to roll out of bed and unlock his door. His appearance horrifies his family and supervisor; his supervisor flees and Gregor attempts to chase after him, but his family shoos him back into his room. Grete attempts to care for her brother by providing him with milk and the stale, rotten food he now prefers. Gregor also develops the fears of an insect, being effectively shooed away by hissing voices and stamping feet. However, Gregor remains a devoted and loving son, and takes to hiding beneath a sofa whenever someone enters his room in order to shield them from his insect form. When alone, he amuses himself by looking out of his window and crawling up the walls and on the ceiling.

No longer able to rely on Gregor's income, the other family members are forced to take on jobs and Grete's caretaking deteriorates. One day, when Gregor emerges from his room, his father chases him around the dining room table and pelts him with apples. One of the apples becomes embedded in his back, causing an infection. Due to his infection and his hunger, Gregor is soon barely able to move at all. Later, his parents take in lodgers and use Gregor's room as a dumping area for unwanted objects. Gregor becomes dirty, covered in dust and old bits of rotten food. One day, Gregor hears Grete playing her violin to entertain the lodgers. Gregor is attracted to the music, and slowly walks into the dining room despite himself, entertaining a fantasy of getting his beloved sister to join him in his room and play her violin for him. The lodgers see him and give notice, refusing to pay the rent they owe, even threatening to sue the family for harboring him while they stayed there. Grete determines that the monstrous insect is no longer Gregor, since Gregor would have left them out of love and taken their burden away, and claims that they must get rid of it. Gregor retreats to his room and collapses, finally succumbing to his wound.

The point of view shifts as, upon discovery of his corpse, the family feels an enormous burden has been lifted from them, and start planning for the future again. The family discovers that they aren't doing financially bad at all, especially since, following Gregor's demise, they can take a smaller flat. The brief process of forgetting Gregor and shutting him from their lives is quickly completed.

The unnamed.

2010-05-17T13:15:00.010+03:00

He turns and impetuously pulls the thin acrylic blanket over, till his neck. The AC hummed, spewing icy air, making the room increasingly cold. He opens his eyelids with difficulty. His body ached out of last night’s whiskey hangover. He has had few drinks too many; a reprieve for the agony which the mind caused, which the body refused to oblige. It was as if the mind brawled with body, the mind dictated terms, body being bullied. The body struggled, it caused inclinations-headaches, body aches, heart aches, lose of appetite, lose of interest in life, life became insignificant. The body said to get up and take a shower. It said it had its basic necessities.

“Please don’t visit us anymore.” A feminine voice echoed in his head. His muscles tightened. He throws the acrylic blanket away from his body as if it was the main culprit of all his miseries.

“Us?” He frowns. “Bloody hell she said ‘Us’”.

“Never react only respond- Gautam Buddha said”.

He had reacted when he heard his wife say that to him. She provided no time for him to respond. She walked away with his little baby.

“How dare she walk away on him? Fuckin bitch” He wanted to slap her, shout at her, and Kill her. Drag her, pour petrol over her whole body and light her. He grinds his teeth. His eyes burned, having taken the weight of his fury.

“What will we name her darling?” Words echo again.

“ Diya, Ananya, Tamanna. Select one please.”

“Ananya? It sounds good. And its close to your name.”

“ She has ditto her papa’s smile. Look at her half lipped grin. As frugal as her papa to smile.”

“ She has her papa’s skin and colour. Hope she gets her papa’s intelligence too.”

“ The court has come to a conclusion that in the best interest of the baby, it gives the custodial rights to her mother.”

“The apex court also said that it does not permit the child to be taken away, forcefully, in the manner in which it was done by her father.”

“Forcefully?”, Fuckin bitch. “ I will see my baby when I want to see. Who the Fuck is she to tell me?”

"In lieu of the same, the father will have no visitation rights”. The echo grows stronger.

“A familiar case of male dominance-Men who ill treat women should be punished severely.” Female voices.

“ You called me a bitch? See how I make your life miserable.”

"Go fuck yourself.You Bitch"

“ She is not OUR baby. She is M-I-N-E! You have lost the right to call her yours.”

He looks at the tea poi which has his daughters photograph. He walks and lifts it and stares at it.

He weeps. He lifts the small, velvety, cloth bear. He smells it. It smelled of saliva.

“Oh, cant you see that?Don’t let her chew that bear. She has almost eaten it.”

He smells the bear again. He inhales deeply. He walks to the cupboard. He looks at the top shelf. A tiny pink skirt. He smells it. Tears roll his eyes.

“ Ohhh, She has wetted the knickers again. Can you please change her?”

“ Anu, Please give papa a kiss!”

“Muaaah.”

He lifts the pink skirt again. He smells it- smell of his daughter. His hands tremble. Tears roll.

He walks to the dining room. He opens the cabinet. Pours a large whiskey and gulps it at once.

“ We will send her to the best school in the country. I want my daughter to do what she wants in her life . Not like my father who never appreciated anything in me.”

“ She will live her life as she wants.”

“ Anu, do you want to be a doctor?”

“ Doctor? Hell no. She wants to be a singer.”

“ How will we survive once she goes away after marriage?”

“What’s wrong with you? She is not even a year old and you are into her marriage?”

He walks to the bedroom and pulls a denim shirt from the dresser. He looks at himself in the mirror. He hadn’t shaved in days. He has never looked so worn-out. It doesn’t matter much.

He locks the apartment and walks towards the garage. He can see his car parked in between other cars. He inserts the key and pulls the door of his car. He sits and inserts the ignition key. He adjusts the mirror. He could see the pram placed on the back seat. He feels light after that drink he had in empty stomach.

“I would have had another.” He licks his lips thistly.

The car speeds through the busy street.

Somewhere in another town an old lady lifts her grandchild. She kisses her on her cheeks; she smells of baby saliva.

Her daughter waves her good bye and speeds in her small car.

The baby looks at the old lady, utterly impervious of the world, totally unconcerned with relationships, and then it starts to cry.

"Few things about me, untold until now…..": -Part 2

2010-05-13T12:43:00.002+03:00

CUT to the Year 2000!!Fresh out of college and just joined the “first-job” of my life. No worries, no commitments, no I-supported-you-till-now-now-you-support-me parents, no loans, no credit cards, no girlfriend/wife to please, and life, presumably, one silky-smooth ride. After a harsh 16 years of studies, I believed, that my moment too had arrived. No more pocketmoneyworries, no more papa-please-buy-me-this and no-you-useless-fellow-you-will-make-me-go-bankrupt tensions!

As with life, my heart too was soft and as infusible as a 3M sponge cleaner. Testosterone flowed, as if the dam which stopped its flow abruptly burst. Life was inspired by the teachings of Osho and Buddha. Zen was the norm of the moment. Life was mere moment one lived.Nothing more nothing less. True and only Happiness came in living in the moment. Worldly desire was the mother-in-law of suffering. And Greed was its first cousin.

The moment I walked into the office my eyes searched for anything pretty-in-a-drape.

“Okey,Manoj. Welcome to XYZ Ltd.Being your first day, take it easy.we will start with Induction tomorrow. Just get familiarize with the place and people today. Mini, Please show him around. Let me know if you need anything! ”

My boss said, pointing towards the prettiest thing I had seen in at least a week’s time. Mini,that was her name: My boss’s executive secretary.

I muttered to myself with a sigh, “Aah, what a life. Is this what is work-life that most people blot?This is wonderful. Too good to be true.What a boss, what a beautiful colleague, what an office”.

“Come Manoj.We will show you around and then we will get into your job details.” Mini said directing me to follow her. I fought to keep the pace with her. She sprinted as if she was on engine powered skating wheels.She showed me around as if she owned the place and had been around all her life. I realized that all pretty things in drape are not the potential-for-romance types.She turned out to be the first person I got acquainted with in my professional life and also the type with whom I liked to keep a distance.

In the process of getting to know my colleagues I met Nayan and Sharan. They had rented a 3 bedroom house near the office and invited me to join them. I was staying with an Uncle and had wanted to flee ASAP.The invitation sounded godsent. At the next available chance I moved with them.

The house was an archetype of luxury, at least for the lesser mortals that we were then;The out-of-college-ness and under management training stipend. The house consisted of Three large rooms with attached bathrooms. It was after years that I had the whole bathroom to myself, a stark dissimilarity to our 1-for-50 hostel bathrooms. Blue tiles, a hand held shower and a bathtub, finest European style WC-Aaaaahaa, finally I was living my toilet dream.An escape from the 6am routine and waiting for my turn to use the toilet. The feeling of utter helplessness when one has to wait outside the loo with 10 ATM pressure building under the tummy and the only wish in life is to ease the pressure as if it was some death wish came rolling into my memory. What an ultimate luxury.Really, small things like a personal toilet does matter in life when one knows what it’s to stand for minute after minute, with such hellish pressures in ones stomach.

It was the second day of my moving in and I already had a feeling of Bonne hominess. Nayan came with a bottle of Bacardi and the couch in the Hall became our makeshift Bar.2 pegs, 3, and then 4 and finally the bottle was only air filled. I was drunk! Not pissed drunk but drunk! We looked at each other and out of my drunkenness everyone else looked stone-sober.I pretended To be equally sober.

More about it later…….

Few things about me, untold until now…..

2010-05-10T17:57:00.000+03:00

When did I first see her? No answer to this question. I probably saw her in an unobserved, overlooked kind-of way, but, during the course of the year, somewhere, somehow along the line fell for that unmistakable charm. Simi Venugopal-That was her name, and after twenty years I still remember her name as if it were the name of someone whom I met every other day and had no chance of forgetting.

I observed her whenever I could. When I stood in the school assembly, my eyes unintentionally scanned the place for a look of her.I would gaze at her and marvel at her beauty. It was some sort of meditation which lifted me above everything else that existed in and around me. A sort of extrasensory communication existed between us. I literally sent her emails through telepathy and she returned my mails promptly.

She was no ordinary beauty. In fact she was so extraordinarily beautiful that none of my friends found her pretty enough to give a second look. I was even laughed at for my lousy taste. Dark woman with Glasses.”Have you gone mad?”….But as they say, love is blind, so was I.I was blind and also Mad!

I would wait in the bus stand for the 8.30am bus when she was likely to alight from one of the city buses, having reached in a private bus ahead of my 9 am School bus. To the doubts of my parents, I would simply reply, “Maths tuition dad! So much in syllabus but so little time. Teachers say unless she takes extra classes we will never complete the portions.” My ever suspecting Dad would gawk through the top of his reading glasses, Perhaps muttering to himself, “ Beta, don’t teach your father to screw. After all he is your baap.” Quietly, I followed her till the school, and she would occasionally turn to admit my presence, smiling in return.

I would walk several times to catch a glimpse of her during the periods and she would do the same to attract my attention. My heart palpitated when she appeared before me.I would fear that the world would hear my heartbeats. At least the school would and would also read my thoughts. Songs from chitrahar sounded as if the lyricist had written them keeping us in mind. All the sappy words meant more than what they actually meant when the lyricist wrote them. White doves fluttered, roses swayed as if out of extra load of the dew drops, green grass with tiny orbs of mist sensuously massaged the feet, and wind carried scent as if perpetually air freshened, even still air of the class room felt like cool breezes from the Arabian Sea.

I prayed to gods of all the corners of the heaven and even the satans of the hell to come to my rescue. I Prayed, “ Oh Krishna, the lord of romance and love, please help me. Make her come to me and accept me. I love her and you know it. You are antheryami, you know everything. Help me and I will stop coming to you every nowandthen .Lord, this is the only time I will ask your help, please if she becomes mine, I would visit Guruvayoor and offer you a KG of Butter. Whichever brand you wish!”

But I had no courage to go to her and drain my heart. I doubted if she would reject me at once. I had no idea then that beauty was skin deep or if it was deeper till the hypodermis or some other layer of the body.I looked several times at myself in the mirror and made a decisive observation that I needed little more than mere courage. If I would have had the courage to propose her I would have been a different man with a different wife. But as they say it all happens for good, so was in my case.

But when I look back I do go through fits of wistful nostalgia. The boy I was; hyper romantic, shy, sensitive and emotional. A far cry from the greedy, insensitive, dominating, idiotic, and self obsessed man that was to become of that good natured boy I was.

P.s: This is wriiten in jest.Please don’t take things at face value. Suggest to add doses of salt-pepper.Ciao

Happy B'Day to me !

2010-05-06T20:11:00.000+03:00

I was born on the 7^th of May, more than three decades ago. I know,SHIT! Am old (my hairs have already started graying, though I feel it’s sexy to have a salt-pepper hair).However, not-so-long-ago, I was not so old.

I was born on a Friday, sometime in the morning. The day was pleasant, though a bit hot, but much less hot owing to the reason that we didn’t have much global warming back then. As usual, the sun emerged out of the sea, sometime past 6 and awakened the world.My Dad, out of previous night’s fatigue of not having slept the whole night, decided, that he could do with a cup of tea. He called his Father-in-law(my grand father) and officially appointed him the guard to my anytime-on-labor mother. And as it always happens (more often in movies), the moment my father left for the much needed cuppa, my mother announced her decision to go on labor. Thus I was born, much unannounced, much welcomed nevertheless.

But my story starts much before the start of my mother’s labor. I was conceived roughly nine months prior to the above mentioned day, out of love my father had for my mother. And the love was cemented and put on government registers 2 years before that fateful day when the seeds-of-love was sowed and the universe conspired with Einstein’s space-time to create me, exactly at the stroke of 09.15am.

I had a tough time coming out to the world. The world sympathized with the pain my mother went through in bringing me to the world. But what about me? Not a word of solace. The narrow fallopian tube squeezed me as if I was some carrot passing through a juicer. Seriously!

I was put confined to a dark, intimidating sack for the first nine months of my life, fed intravenously through a tube fitted to my tummy. The place was so dark and silent that it made me feel as if I was out somewhere in the space, between the andromeda galaxy and the milky way. Only sounds were the heart beats of my mother, which sounded like some African percussion instrument given to a child to play. And the food was so tasteless that I had no impression of having eaten anything for the whole nine months. But I had no rat race, no competition, no ego, no this, no that…!I had a lazy long sleep, nine month long sleep, only kicked the walls of the sack few times to make sure I was alive; Or to show the world that I was alive and kicking.

When I was born I was completely covered with a sticky, jelly-like liquid which though to protect me from infection, was so below the grooming standards that I had to yell at the nurse to clean me up. That was the first instance I showed my diplomatic side to the world; my yelling was taken to be cute and the nurse couldn’t stop herself from grinning. Then I saw her peep into my between-the-leg device and shout, “it’s a boy, It’s a boy!”.I was officially declared a boy, having ended nine month old anticipation.

My journey started from that very day, technically, and it passed through several hairpin bends, patchy roads, shaky bridges, and also through some real beautiful Kashmir valleys ( minus Lashkar-e-thaiba). I made friends, who separated every time my Army officer father got a transfer, slowly dissolving into the boundaries of memory like the sun which disappeared into the horizon and reemerged later into another sunrise, through Facebook or Orkut.

A pristine me, as pristine as the word pristine could define, created after a great effort of nine months in the darkest and quietest parts of the universe, soon got tarnished through layers and layers of data that was forced upon me through years and years of schooling and tutoring…..turned into what I call me, writing this stupid birthday post. A rosy, soft, untainted me, who knew not even what hunger meant suddenly had to cry, having suddenly learnt that only a “crying baby gets the milk”. Thus started my cry, cry for food, cry for attention, cry for love, cry for money, cry for salary raise, cry for promotion….a life of crying.a career of crying.

Then was the pursuit of happiness. Happiness came to me naturally when I was born, when my mother placed my tiny mouth over her breast, when she touched my coiled and tightened little fingers, when I was shown a crow, or a cat, when I was given a toy car which moved every time the keys were turned, when she lifted me and rubbed her nose on mine, or even when I wetted my knickers.

But with years belting under my skin, it was tough being happy, or truly happy.It became clear that grinning was one thing but actually being happy was another. Or is it, to quote the chorus of Oedipus:”Call no man happy until he is dead”….

(P.S: Just writing for the sake of writing, I am happy. In fact I was never so happy in life. One can never be happy unless he is content with his life. unless one reflect on life and realize that unless there is night, there is no beauty in a sunrise.)

I Wish myself a happy birthday….

Random Motivational Post ((Pssst-Click on them for better view and xtra motivation)

2010-04-26T18:04:00.002+03:00

Love aaj Kal

2010-04-18T14:07:00.000+03:00

The rose was eight years old. Desiccated, shriveled, devoid of a scent; a mere shadow of itself. Like memories-faded with time. The rose had appeared when he was searching his old diary.

Flow of Memories-As if formed like steam from a pot of boiling water. Produced at once, unconsciously lifting up, and then spreading into the thin air, into the invisible...

The possessor of the rose had held the most important place in his life. That was eight years ago.

“I love you.” He had told her. He was blushing and frightened. His palm was sweating. His heart was palpitating.

Long moments of silence.

“What da?” She looked into his eyes and asked, as if she knew the outcome of this lunch together.As if she expected every man to propose her after few lunches together.

“ I love you Mini. You are the most beautiful woman I have seen in my life.”

She giggled. Her cheeks rosy now out of blushing.

“Sure? How about Aishwarya Rai?” She asked.

“ Ohhh, Common. I haven’t seen her.And she will just pale before you. I swear.”

He was visibly embarrassed now.

“I wish I could enlarge your photograph and post it in my room. Will you give me a photo of yours?”

“I will not give you.” She replied bluntly, though teasingly to reduce the bluntness.

“ Mini. Do you love me?”

Long moments of silence. He was staring at her. She was looking down at the ground.

He left the question unanswered, as if he never expected an answer from her.

The Next six months of life passed, though separated for weeks together and then to see each other on weekends. Daily telephone calls, hours of conversations on mundane of all topics.-Birthdays, childhood, loneliness, future.

He waited for her calls all day, though she called only in the evenings. Everything else was irrelevant in life, except for her smile. Life became a struggle for possession, though all possessions became immaterial. Songs, Music, words, food, phrases had its association with her. The car her family owned became the best car, her favorite food became the tastiest, her cloths became the trendiest, colour of her skin became the prettiest, her hairstyle the most stylish. He searched the dictionary for the words she used- “how conversant she was”.

“Do I deserve her?” Once he asked himself. The serpent called “self doubt” emerged out of him, for the first time.

He understood new connotations of the word ‘love’-Frustration, resentment. He loved her like himself, in fact more than himself, because he was not sure if he loved himself so much. He demonstrated his love as a measurable, quantified essence. He devalued the expectations of reciprocation. Yet he was frustrated. He was too human to understand that true-love was above an expectation of reciprocation. True-love? Was there also an un-true love ?

“You didn’t reply, Mini.” He asked her during a phone conversation.

“What da?”

“I love you so much, I have told you that. I mean it Mini. I love you so much.”He replied, with a tinge of frustration.

“ How much?” She asked giggling.

“Cut that”, He was furious now.

“I don’t know Manoj.” She replied.

“ I need more time.” She replied after a brief silence.

“ How much more Mini. I have waited for so long.What makes you doubt me so much?” He asked.

“ No Manoj. I don’t doubt you.”

“Then? Whats the problem with you?”

“ I don’t deserve you.Manoj.”She replied.

“ WHAT? What makes you say that?”

“You are good. You would get someone really good.”

“ You are the best. I want you. There is noone good enough for me. Its you, Mini. I love you. You are the best,Mini” He spoke with calmness, with a saintly composure..

Long silence.

“ Can I trust you Manoj?” She asked.

“ Yes, Mini. Please. All I want in this world is you. Nothing more.Trust me!” He replied.

She opened her heart to him.

“ I can never imagine getting married to anyone else Manoj. I love him.”

“ But he used you. He used you and dumped you for someone else Mini.Still?” He asked.

She smiled. He could hear her chuckle. He wondered why? Do women smile overly when they are hurt-“ Tum Itna kyon Muskurarahe ho, Kya gam hein jisko chupa rahe ho?” “How true?”

“ We made it twelve times a day once.” She told him once, after a few weeks, during a lighthearted conversation.

He pretended indifference. His heart was on fire.

“ He used me Manoj.All he wanted was my body. And all those words and promises had no value.”

“ I love you Mini. All men are not the same. I respect women. I hate men who look at women as an object of desire. I seriously hate such men.” He replied.

He knew he meant every word he had spoken. In fact, he had spoken only half of what he had meant; only if words had the power to expose hearts. Bloody words!

She smiled.

“ I don’t know Manoj. You will get a good girl. Much better than me. And then you would think of all this as a joke. A big joke.”She giggled.

“ Stop It, Mini. I love you. I can never love anyone the way I love you. I will only love you. Only once in my life.” He replied, distraught now for being made to repeat.

Frustrations mounted with the passage of time. His heart bled bloodlessly. It ached unsettlingly. World stopped to amuse him. Nothing else mattered but her. Her attention was everything. He was starved of her. The woman dumped by another man; used as his object of desire. A woman who had no place in that man’s heart. And he was starved of her love. How strange is this world? Someone else’s trash is another mans aspiration.

“ Keep this rose. This is to remind you of me. Otherwise you will forget me in no time.” She said chuckling, her last words to him.

Climbing the train, he turned to look at her once again, knowing that this would be the last time he would see her. “A lifetime of not seeing her. Forever of not seeing her. Will never see her again in my life.” Very Heavy words filled with sadness.

“What are you staring at?” A feminine voice stirred him back to present.

“ Nothing. A Rose. I was wondering how it came here?”He turned to look at his wife.

“Must have been given by some girl. Isn’t it? The way you were staring at it.” She said teasingly.

He smiled at her. She smiled back. He could never lie to his wife. He was plain incapable of doing it. If she would have probed into his past he would have revealed everything. But she never bothered herself.

He looked at his wife; that beautiful smile of her. Brown eyes, lovely poise. “Could he live a day without her?”.

A woman who presented herself to him. A woman who gave him innumerable joy of a life time; in just a few years. A woman who gave him a beautiful daughter whom he could call his. A new dimension to life. A new rationale to life. A life with a direction and speed limit.

“ Keep that flower back inside the diary or throw it. The pollen could cause allergy to her.” His wife said, directing towards his sleeping one year old daughter.

He crushed the rose in his palm and threw into the thrash bin. He walked to his wife and hugged her-she struggling to come out of his embrace.

“ Go away, the baby would awake.” She said teasingly.

He looked once again at the thrash bin.

“And then you would think of all this as a joke. A big joke.” He grinned as if realizing the essence of a joke.

back to normal

2010-04-13T21:09:00.000+03:00

Hi, I am out of depression and back to being myself. Thanks to one and all for showing concern and valuable comments....Will come back to read your blogs and write more . Just let me be out of this mess called boss's country visit coming Thursday.Until then Take good care of yourself and ciao.

Please checkout this video untill i return to this space.....

depression

2010-04-10T12:08:00.005+03:00

I am back to being depressed…I doubt if I have clinical depression, which is thought to be a mental illness. I am sure I need to get my head serviced…But having said that, I somehow, in a strange sometimes-you-love-things-you-hate-the-most way, love being depressed. Being depressed makes me self centered. It makes me feel that my happiness and out-of-depression is the most important thing in life. It makes me empathize with people who are deeply depressed and are contemplating suicide.

When I am depressed I am reminded: “death is the ultimate truth, an inevitable part of life and is in its own way a moment to rejoice”. It makes me restless. No amount of sleep makes me rested; I still look tired and restless. At least my eyes say so.

It makes me theoretical. I see being part of the cosmos. I feel I have been in existence all throughout and would continue to live through infinity.May be as a stone, or dust.

When depressed, things like money or wealth cease to hold their perceived significance. The feeling sinks that no amount of wealth can bring that feeling of security in my life. I start to wonder if true happiness is a feeling of security ? Why do I feel so insecure? Why do I feel as if I have no-one? Will more wealth bring more security? Will I need body guards, to prevent depressions from grabbing me?

Another interesting feeling when depressed is the feeling that world has no future. It feels as if world would end very soon, perhaps due to our own actions. World would have no petrol in next fifty years. We would have no water to drink, some nuclear power would attack another nuclear country. World would not hold for more than a hundred years. It all would end very soon. Yes, Depression makes me think this way, though rationale says otherwise.

But the worst feature of being depressed is the feeling that I am worthless. I am insignificant. Each of the nearly 6 billion humans are important to the world, except me. I feel as if noone loves me or is concerned about me. Everything is just a big, well scripted drama. Everyone has fractional memories, noone has time for me.I am just a part of a huge crowd, moving in certain path, though purposeless and devoid of any motif.

Am I the only one who gets depressed on and off?or am i too open and over-honest in admitting? Does it happen to you as well? Or am i passing through mid-life crisis?

The neighborhood woman

2010-03-25T18:07:00.005+03:00

He sat on a fiber chair in the Veranda reading newspaper. His wife was somewhere in the house, perhaps in the kitchen, and his one year old daughter slept on the floor next to him. In ten minutes he was through with the newspaper.

He was four days into his ten day vacation. His eyes panned the houses in front of him. The freshly painted house on the right caught his attention. He remembered the conversation his mother had with him the previous night.

“Ohh, You should have been here last year.”

His mother was explaining the events which took place six months ago.

“ God always snatches people he loves the most.” She had said.

“Babu wouldn’t be more than thirty. Only two months into the marriage and this tragedy. You should see his wife Reena: how young and beautiful.”

Mother's description of beauty didn’t register in him, he was used to her exaggerations. The magnitude of the tragedy was enormous no doubt. “Just two months into marriage”. He repeated his mother’s dialogue in his mind.

“Lucky they didn’t have babies.Two months is enough to have a baby.” He thought.

He remembered, his cousin sister had delivered nine months into her marriage. “Perhaps she conceived the very first night of the marriage.They would have hooked-up the very night.” He had thought when he heard the news, though with guilt of having thought like that about his sister.

He could hear some movements in the house. May be it was Reena. Now he wanted to have a glimpse of her, just to confirm his mother: Or perhaps sadistic wish of examining the victim of such a grave tragedy.

He thought if she would remarry. “ How young and beautiful” His mother recurred in his mind. “A young and beautiful woman would have no problems finding a mate. She would have her bodily desires too.” He couldn’t control his monologues.

“ Would she have experienced the bodily pleasures of mating?”.

“Two months into marriage!”

“Their's was love marriage. Inter-religious marriage. She is a Christian. God knows why most such marriages end in tragedy?” His mother had said, with visible signs of distress.

He wondered if mother secretly supported god’s decision of breaking such marriages.

“ They were on his motor cycle. Reena was behind. A fast bus was approaching on the opposite and there, they are hit.” He remembered his mother.

“ He died on the spot.” Mother had explained, as if it was a big feat to die like that.

“ She too was almost dead. We thought she too had. They took her to TMH and from there to the medical college. She came out of the coma after three weeks.four weeks in the ICU.”

“Poor girl. She couldn’t even witness the funeral of her husband.” His mother said. His mind made classifications of death. Not-conscious-to-witness-the-funeral-of-husband could be the worst degree of loss.

"We couldn't control her after she got her consciousness. " Mother had narrated. "She wanted to die. She was saying she has no reasons to live. Her reason for living way no more."

"We stopped her somehow. It was very difficult. I told her that she can consider her her mother and live with her. Like my daughter. " "Poor Girl".

He wanted to see her. His curiosity was mounting. “ Beautiful woman and a widow of two months of marriage. Not seen funeral too. How tragic.” He wasn’t sadistic, but he felt like one.He wondered if it was natural to have such thoughts. Was he turning into a psycho?

He walked towards the house.

A young woman greeted him on the doorsteps. He smiled at her. She returned his smile with a half lipped grin.

“Reena?” He asked.

She smiled in reply.

“ Please be seated.” She said courteously.

He sat on a cane chair.

“ I am Lakshmi Chechi’s Son.Manoj” He introduced himself.

“I know. Heard about you from Chechi.”

“ I will make tea.”

Before he could stop her she had left. He was stunned by her beauty, a real beautiful woman by any standards-Fair, Tall, Slim and graceful.

“Sexy”, if he could call her. He wanted to call her. A woman he would be proud to have as wife. A woman his friends would be envy of. A woman who could provide all sorts of pleasures to a man. A man could never ask for more than a woman like her. He imagined her sleeping on a bed. He could spend hours staring at her. He wanted to look at her, for long moments, secretly, without her finding out.

She walked in with a tea cup.

“How is Divya chechi?” She asked.

“ She is doing good.”

“ How long is the vacation.”

“ We would travel next week”.

“ So chechi is traveling with you?”

He nodded. He was shy. He couldn’t look into her eyes. He felt awkward and uncomfortable.

He wanted to getup and walk back.

He passed the teacup to her.

“Potte.” He said( in Malayalam for “ Let me go”)

She smiled.

“ We will come later.Do come there. Divya said Hi.”

She smiled again.

Walking back he imagined her with her husband on a motorcycle. Her hands had clutched him from behind. She was whispering something into his ears and he was chuckling, very much in Love-Like Some condom advertisement on the TV.

He felt a desire for her. He wanted to be her man; he wanted her touches, her soft caresses on the motorcycle, she biting his ears out of love and bodily lure. Like the condom advertisement.

He felt envious of Babu. “Lucky man.A beautiful wife. A desirable woman. Enough to pass envy to any man.”
He was in love with her, whatever the word meant.

That night, sleep couldn’t get to him easily. He looked at his daughter sleeping next to him and his wife, sleeping further next to his daughter. His daughter formed a void space between them. He admired the innocence and the beauty of his daughter. A smile formed naturally.

He touched his wife’s hip. She turned as if to avoid his sudden incursion.

“You Slept?” He asked.

“ Hummm”. She replied.

“No you haven’t slept.”

“What do you want? If baby awakes you will have to make her sleep.” She fired at him annoyingly.

“ Do you Love me?” He asked.

“ Yea” She replied apathetically.

“ How much?”

“Uff, What happened to you? Gone mad?” She turned towards him to express her irritation.

“ What if I die, will you remarry?” he asked.

She got up and looked at him. She pinched hard on his thigh.

“ If I die will you cry for me? Refuse to eat and drink? Like the neighborhood lady Reena?” He asked her.

She looked at him hard. She got up and came close to him. She pushed him, making him roll to make space for her to lie next to him. She lazed next to him.

She hugged him hard. She rubbed her head on his hairy chest, gesture to show her affection.

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. Her red eyes had drops of tears waiting to roll down.

“Never say things like this at night after supper. Where will your daughter and I go if you are not in this world? I too would die.”

She kissed him on his cheek.

He felt proud of himself. He felt manly; he had a woman who would prefer death than being his widow. He turned to hug her. She hugged him tight and he could feel her warm breath on his body, and drops of tears wetting his chest and flowing through the hairs, faintly tickling him.

Hi, My life updates

2010-03-23T20:11:00.005+03:00

I thought I had just written a post few days back but was in for a super-shock.GRRRRRR……2 months and no updates. I am still alive and breathing (If anyone cares).

Updates on My Life:

· Went to Kerala on a tiny vacation. 10 days passed as if I was put to sleep and brought back to life 10 days later. That’s why I feel I should be more mindful of my existence; else life would pass by as if I were a moth born after the first rain.

· Brought back the family. One year wait ended and my Wife and daughter traveled with me back to Bahrain. When I was alone I felt, as if my flat was huge, cold, lonely and depressing. Suddenly my 2 bedroom flat appeared too small a space. Little Ananya instantly conquered the space and declared possession, getting the life back to otherwise brick and cement and mortar.

· My life has transformed for ever. Our( Wife and Mine) lives now revolves around the discretion of certain Ms. Ananya( my daughter) and we are adapting to her mood, Hunger and sleep. We whisper when she sleeps and only talk in our normal voices when she is awake. Three-forth of my Kingsize bed is now occupied by the reigning queen.She is awake by 5am, which otherwise was non existent hour of the day, and then starts the tussle to keep her entertained. These days, my day start at 5 and until 9 am you could find me in the kitchen or providing amusement to the queen. AAAAAH..My Back.

· Had party at my Wife’s house. It was fun. Whiskey(picked on the way from Duty-free) for the boyz( Bro-in-law, Father-in-law and me) and Martini for the girlz ( wife, Her sister and My MIL) and snacks, mostly consisting of fried seafood, flowed freely.

From Anu Birthday

Celebrated Daughter’s first Birthday on the 10^th of March(ABove photo taken during her bday function). Booked a Banquet hall at the Fortune Park hotel. It was Great Fun to see so many relatives and friends under one roof.

· This year’s resolution of bridging the lost bond with my Father ended in the worst fight we have had so far. My father feels I have become proud and insolent and it’s because of the (he feels) success I have had in my career. I feel he is jealous of me, but then can a father be ever jealous of his son? Or is he jealous of the good relationship I share with my In-laws? Or is it because of over possessiveness?

· After the fight, my father told me to leave the house immediately and it was past 9.30 pm at night. I had to beg him to allow us to stay until the morning because of the baby and the difficulty in getting a taxi so late at night (by Calicut standards). I promised that I wouldl never visit them again and my father challenged me to keep my promise. He cursed me that I would suffer and my bad days have only begun. My wife couldn’t control herself from crying and pleaded the old man not to curse us and the baby.

· I feel whatever tiny bit of bond was left has been severed between us. I feel as if I have had no father, and the thought actually helps me feel better. I am through a strange situation in life when I feel it’s better to be an orphan than to cry over a disintegrated relationship. Its better to be fatherless than to have a father who has given me only hurt, all my life, including snatching my mother away from me.

· It was my daughter’s first flight and she was howling almost half of it. Half of the passengers and almost all the crew tried appeasing her, of course without avail. We were glad that 4.5 hours of flight was over, which felt like one lifetime of flying. But once out of the plane she was all jovial and grab-whatever-comes-near-her-hand mood, including her papa’s hair and next passengers handbag.

Should Hindi Be a National Language?

2010-01-26T11:58:00.003+03:00

This post is based on Neha’s reply to my comment on her Blog.Please read her blog post for further Gyan.

@ ZB, why not? why one language cannot be the official language of a country? English - looking at our literacy rate in India, English is not spoken or understood by vast majority..thanks to British people, none of our languages could prosper..they used English as the official language; thus it continued..but we do have our own identity..the major problem is that we are still looking at the smaller picture..tell me, will you ever be able to take the insult of not being spoken with or guided the directions in your own country because you do not know the local language? Don't you think if one language was made official at the time of formation of Constitution; we could all have at least communicated with one-another?

I feel Hindi is not our Identity. Hindi is a modern language which has derived from Khari Boli, Persian and Sanskrit languages. It evolved during the Mughal and British era. Bhojpuri, Gujrati, Rajesthani, Haryanavi etc are much older and purer than Hindi.Devanagari Script was adopted to Standardize the language. Earlier Sanskrit had no script. In south

India

Sanskrit was written in Tamil.

Forcing down a Language doesn’t make it popular. In Kerala, Hindi is taught from the school level, but people hardly speak the language. If Hindi would have been made our National Language in 1965, it would bring much shame to the language 50 years down the line. It would be shameful for a National Language when half of the population don’t understand a word of it.

Believe me, if I know just Hindi( and not English) and travel the country I would face bigger problems in communicating, Where as English is much more understood by majority. In places like South India or Eastern states, there would be atleast few people who would speak English, if not the majority, but I doubt if it’s the case with Hindi.

Hindi doesn’t mean anything to me in South India.In Kerala for example, all communications are in either Malayalam or English. Hindi plays absolutely no role and its not because its not been taught there in schools.Where as Malayalam is spoken because it’s the identity of the people. Or tamil is in Tamilnadu. So is the case in Eastern States.

Being a lawyer, do you still believe that just because its made a National language of the country as per the constitution, it would be widely spoken by all Indians? Its not Practical and the makers of the constitution understood it much more than anyone else. That’s why it was never adopted.

why only Hindi - then just read the facts mentioned below..

India

has two two linguistic families. The Indo-Aryan languages, 11 in number, derived from Sanskrit are spoken by nearly 75% of whom Hindi is spoken by 42% of people..The Dravidian languages spoken by 24% people prevail in Southern India of whom Telugu is spoken by largest group.

In a country with over a billion population, a mere percentage means a lot. 24 % is a lot of people, that’s over 250 million people. Learning Hindi doesn’t really help people securing a Job, does it? On the other hand, if one learns English, Spanish or French its considered an advantage.

Why is a Language which is neither an identity, or technical advantage, forced down upon people as national language?

by making Hindi an official language of the Union, who is saying that other languages will no longer be the official languages?

If you do not want to speak a language; it is alright..but does that mean you will pretend that you do not know the language at all and trouble the helpless?

we all love freedom; but declaring one language as the OFFICIAL LANGUAGE does not take away your freedom from you..the meaning of declaring this language as official does not mean you have to compulsorily converse in that language or learn strictly in that language in school…

Hindi is already an official language along with many regional languages of the country. The question is if it should be made a National Language, for which I oppose. I oppose because it doesn’t truly represent

India

. It represents only about 50 % of the country.

South India is drastically different from Hindi speaking part of the country. Tamil or local language is its identity. Same is the case in Bengal,

Assam

or Manipur.

Speaking in a language depends on the comfort level. In my case, I speak in Malayalam to majority of malayalees. I speak in Hindi with my Northee friends.

However, I speak in English with few of my malayalee friends, not because I want to show off or I feel Malayalam doesn’t have enough vocabulary. Its just that to a particular person I can only speak in a particular language. To my cousin sister Sandhya, I can only speak in English though both can speak Malayalam fluently. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?

However, I do feel Hindi should be taught in schools and Karunanidhi style opposition to any language shouldn’t be encouraged.

I feel we shouldn’t have a National language and Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali…ETC should be equally encouraged, as much as Hindi should be.

Jai Hind and Happy Rupublic day to all.

Please help, is something wrong with me?!

2010-01-08T15:57:00.004+03:00

Friends told me it’s a GREAT movie. And Raju Hirani is one of my favorite directors. And I went to watch the movie thinking Mr. Hirani can never go wrong. And I thought Lage raho munna bhai was one of the finest movies in bollywood. and I was wrong.

I hated the movie. And It was super bore. And Not a single scene caught my attention. And I felt I had seen it all. Except perhaps the child delivery scene. I almost had tears in my eyes thinking how my wife would have felt through and gone through the pain and torment. And not because of the movie.

Each and every scene reminded me of some other scene from some other movie. And Some English, some Malayalam, some recent hits like DIL CHAHTA HAIN etc.And The jokes were rather stale and tried and tested several times. And I had a strange sense of déjà vu watching the movie. But Aamir Khan looked good for his part and if not for Aamir the movie would have been much worse.

From the first scene where Madhavan diverts a flight and runs through the airport and finally manages to get into a stopped car meant for someone else, it hit my senses in a strange negative way.

Perhaps I expected a lot from Hirani. And I remember watching Lage raho and silently howling. What a plot. And What a screenplay. And What freshness. And I had never seen anything like it.And When the BGM played vande mataram I had my eyes flowing like flooded Brahmaputra, literally if not symbolically.

But may be I am wrong. And May be I am getting too old for silly gags, the box office proves otherwise. And I am the only one in my office and odd one amongst around 20 people I know who has not liked it. Whats wrong with me? Do i need to consult a psychologist and takeup counseling?Please help ! :(

2010-R

2009-12-31T19:02:00.001+03:00

2010 Resolutions…..

1. Will not use creditcard unless absolutely necessary. Pay back all dues in next 2 months.But will buy my dream watch in two months, an Omega seamaster , and first resolution- DUH!

2. Will listen to wife on matters of finance, health, fitness and food and keep her happy.Will reduce 10 kgs of excess weight.

3. Will do best to control anger and short temperedness. Even if someone calls me an A-hole I will smile at him/her.

4. Needs to recheck the lost bond with my father. Next vacation and I need to give him a tight bear hug….hope I manage enough courage to do so….. we have fallen so apart that I need to gather enough courage. Can someone manage Dutch courage without those golden brown volatile liquid. I will need it.

5. Stop cockiness in the name of sense of humour. Will not tease or pull someone the wrong way. Will be more diplomatic and not blunt. Be empathetic to colleagues, esp the boss.

6. Will be modest and refrain from showing off. Will not give another reason to my wife to call me a BIG-SHOWOFF.

That’s all. Cant think of any further. Wish everyone a great New Year. Ciao 2009.

My health

2009-12-22T11:39:00.002+03:00

Few days back one of our neighbors son died in Kerala. He was 36. The cause of death was alarming. Cardiac arrest or in popular terms heart attack. Just few years( 5 years) elder to me or as Arundhati Roy says :

Thrity- six.

Not old.
Not Young.

But a viable die-able age.

No doubt we are slipping into an unhealthy lifestyle. We now have the money to flaunt. We have no time to cook as in my case, being single until my wife returns in Feb next year. I eat oily, fried and unhealthy food and never exercise.

The other day I was checking the Death-clock to find out when I would die. The meter says I would live unto 2069, that is, I would be 91 when I die. I seriously doubt. If things go this way I wouldn’t be alive to see my 50^th birthday.

I wonder the state of my arteries. I hope no plagues are forming in them. I hope my blood pressure are normal. I hope my heart is not under tremendous pressure to cope with the needs of the body. I hope my valves are not damaged by the blood pressure.

Frightening isn’t it? No doubt. I have not even lived 1/3rs of my life and I seriously doubt my longevity. I want to live longer. I want to see my daughter grow up and have her family. I want to see the world by living longer. But are there ways that can make me live longer?

Perhaps Exercise and healthy diet is not all. Our attitude, genetics, ,mental health etc play a part in our health but as the case these are not in our hands. I feel our attitude plays a major role. Constantly worrying about problems could affect negatively.

Its not to induce any sort of paranoia. I feel Its a positive way of looking at a negetive thing.I feel I took health for granted and some amount of fear could make people like me conscious. Health is serious WEALTH. We can CREATE WEALTH only IF we have HEALTH. EVERYTHING else is SECONDARY……

Please suggest me some ways to be healthy. All suggestions are welcome.

delirium

2009-12-19T20:22:00.007+03:00

Buddhadev rubbed his chest. He stared at the alarm clock. He had woken ten minutes before the time. It was 6. 20. He vaguely remembered the events of the previous night. It was a sleeplike delirium. He had tried to getup from the bed. It was too difficult. For a brief moment he doubted if he was getting an attack. But the pain had vanished. His left hand had become somewhat numb. He slept on the right side. The pain had completely cured. Stomach acidity. A doctor’s visit was coming, again a deficit in the month’s budget.

He got up from the bed to impede the further assault of morbid thoughts. He went to the bathroom, noiselessly, to avoid his wife from awakening.

After brushing and washing face, he put his only track pants and headed to the main door. Habitually he searched for the morning newspaper, aware that he had stopped it last month. The sacrifice for the internet connection without which his daughter had refused to eat.

He latched the door soundlessly and started his daily morning walk. For few minutes it was hard, but later the walk was effortless. Few men waved as they passed him. Soon the world around shrunk; nothing else but subconscious, cataleptic thoughts.

“ 1^st of June is a Sunday. Pay would be delayed. Bindu’s Tuition fees Rs.250. would be getting overtime next month. Howmuch? Rs.600? Total Salary be 6000. Rent has to be paid. 2000. Left 4000. Milk Rs. 150. Can squeeze in Newspaper? Will see next month. Will repay Sudheers Loan. If he asks otherwise pay him later. Grocery bill. Will stop taking credit.How much? calculate today. May be Rs.1000. LIC premium. Bloody premium. Big mistake. Wouldn’t taken it. He cheated. In 20 years 4 lakhs. 5 years 20thousand. What is 20thousand. A new fridge and washing machine. Bindu’s marriage. 4 lakhs? Gold at 12thousand. May be provident fund. Chief engineer coming next month. One more shirt. Meter Rs.50. Diwali coming soon. Need Rs.5000. Promised a fridge.Retirement. just 10 more years. Bindus marriage. After retirement. Provident fund loan. How much balance. 1 lakh may be. How much land. May be some gold. Wife’s gold. If she pass exam? Stupid girl.not bothered. Sankar’s cycle. tyres. Gas. Rs.350. Minus left 3650. savings? Will try 2000. balance in bank 40thousand."

He was almost home. An hour had passed. Only possible if one doesn’t look at the watch often. He was not tired. He was fresher than he had started. There was a crowd before his house. "what happened?”. He hurried. Few men were standing in the veranda. He rushed inside with curiosity. His wife and daughter were howling, squatted on the floor beside a covered body. His daughter was calling for her father. His wife was beating her chest, wailing angrily, asking, why did he do this to them? Why didn’t he take them with him?

P.S: This is to clarify that there is no SUICIDE in the story, as mentioned in the comments. Perhaps the story wasnt read properly.

What the fuck is wrong?

2009-12-17T20:20:00.004+03:00

Noone is reading my blog. It hurts. I am almost crying. I cannot stop my eyes getting lakedup. It feels as if I am having a nightmare where a psychopath serial killer is trying to murder me and I am screaming but no sound is coming out of my throat. Its as if my vocal chords have gone on hartal.

Like a flop bollywood producer I am in desperate need of viewership. My ship is sinking like a cheap toy titanic( or like the overcrowded boat which capsized in tekadi). And like a bollywood producer I am forced to add an item number to my blog with some sex scenes.

Its so easy with sex. It sells. Its been selling since ages. Remember, its supposed to be the oldest profession, arguably, unless someone looks at politics as business. Even in times of recession, sex sells. Go have a look at the hot Russian or Lebanese prostitutes in Dubai and you would know. In Dubai it’s a billion dollar industry. Its supposed to be illegal and against Islam, but its something without which the economy would tumble. If the whole of Dubai is a cake, prostitution is the icing. Arguably Dubai is the prostitute capital of the world. I hope someone doesn’t comeup with my identity and deports me out.

I feel and from the knowledge I have from friends who work in hotels in Dubai, the distinction between prostitution and film industry blurs. Atleast to some extent. I have heard of struggling actresses staying in 5 star( dubai is supposed to have a 7 star hotel) hotels and entertaining rich customers. Its a reality. I have also heard of underworld extortionists who seek sexual favors from up-and-coming actresses for role in films. I don’t justify or denounce them, its each to their own. I feel the word chastity or preserve-your-virginity-for-your-spouse is an invention of the human. I feel only rape accounts for a crime. It’s a crime and the world needs to be free of such crimes. But consensual sex, I think it will stay as long as humans have the libido (or horny-ness), and no account of law or religious restrictions would stop it.

We have several restrictions as humans. We have invented several taboos and perhaps some are necessary for the cultural existence of the human race. We are supposed to hide our private parts, we can’t fart, men cant look at a woman’s breasts, a woman cant look at a mans crotch, We cant use words like cunt, dick, ass, …etc, which are rather unholy words. I remember our obsession with taboo words as children. Whenever we, my brother and me fought, we called each other Kundi, chandi(both means ass in Malayalam) and my dad would punish us( usually a Chinese handshake-pinch using nails while shaking hands). And we hide and wait for the right prospects to call each other such fine and pleasurable words.

I remember one of my ex-colleague who was asked “what the fuck do you think you are doing here” by his boss and he complaining against him with the HRD for abusive language.His boss(even mine) was asked to apologize. I felt bad for the boss. Common what the fuck is wrong with FUCK. We all are born out of fuck, aren’t we? Probably he is going to vegetative propagate his wife and have kids. I wish Him all the best. :D

BTW, the brand manager in my company, who goes by the name of Kunal Kapoor has been re-christened by us for his nasty attitude. He is nowadays called Kunt Kapoor( Cunt has been changed to Kunt to sound KOOL)..:D

The jeans and the fastness of my life and my new found admiration for Dalai Lama and more.......

2009-12-16T14:31:00.005+03:00

Hallo frends……hope you guys are doin good. Me too is not doing all that bhad. In fact I am doing good. Though Not as good as I like to be but still not that bad that I crib about. I have not been in the mood to write oflate for some unknown reason. Now that I have mentioned that I feel the reson is more due to laziness than lack of any other reason. Of course I can come up with any numbor of reasons for not writing a blog post but I want to be honest. After all honesty is the best policy. But oflate I have also wondewred if honesty is indeed the best policy. Yesterday I thought I would be honest, sorry, in fact I didn’t think I just blub-blubered during a conversation with my wife and I told her that I haven’t touched the threadmills for a whole month.There she goes. I told her that running is not the only thing you can do with a threadmill. I told her that it can be used very effectively to dry cloths, especially underwears and banyans, and she was very furious with me. After the conversation and ever since I have now second thots about being honest. In fact I can save half of my troubles from not being honest.

Weather( or is it wheather) here is very fine. Yesterday it rained and I felt I have reached Kerala all of a sudden. Then I vaited for some more time for more rains and then I realized that one should never expect too much in life and it was not Kerala. It stopped raining after just few puddles of water on the streets unlike Kerala. Now I am waiting for more such rains. Rains give me a feeling that I am back to the place I belong. It looks cloudy, but winters are mostly cloudy so I think its winter-clouds and not rain-rain-clouds.

Yesterday I shopped for cloths. Not that I have too much money or I have become rich. I realized that I have very little cloths which I like to wear and not I am forced to wear. I like to wear cloths that I like to wear. I don’t like to wear cloths just because I have to wear them since I bought them. You know what I mean?

I wanted a pair of jeans. SO I went to Marks & spencers and then I searched for some jeans. Suddenly I realized that the cloths there were rather boring and I decided to walk off and try somewhere else. Then I went to NEXT and searched. One over-enthusiastic-over-selling salesman came running to me and for a moment I thought he is going to kidnap me. He suggested me lots of options, which I realized were the most expensive of the lot. I smiled at him, my usual thanks-for-the-help-but-sorry smile and I saw the smile on his face vaporize. I almost heard his unspoken words which iam sure meant: bastard-you-come-to-waste-my-time-fuck-off….

Then I went to H&M and saw few nice cloths and finally ended buying few t-shirts and jeans. I am happy and now waiting for some occasion to wear them. I hope some occasion comes soon and I showoff my new cloths. Life is tuff, one has to find occasions to wear cloths and not just buy them.

The otherday I realized that I was leading a fast life. The fastness of my life had sweeped into everything. As arundhati roy says in The Dog of small things- it was sweeping into my life like tea from a tea bag. I even ate very fast. Perhaps that’s why I gain weight too fast. My wife eats very slowly, perhaps that’s why she is skinny. But my problem is that I have no patience. What I want I want it now. I cant wait. I rush everywhere. I rush in the bathroom, I rush when I brush my teeth. I even rush when I write this. I just want to finish this stupid post and post it in my blog so that someone comments on tham and my ego is inflated. I am an egoist. I need conformity. I constantly want people to coime to me and tell me how good I am. I hate everyone who is honest and tells me that I am as bad as most of the people in the world. I even think very fast. Thoughts pass by as if it had an engine and someone was knocking on the accelerator pads. So I am thinking of reducing the pace. Now I want to just write slowly, word by word…. Letter by letter, and think also slowly. But its dificlut. Its difficult coz like most humans, I am a device of habit. I do everything out of habit I have formed since my birth. I even think out of habit. Its not easy to come out of the bondage of habit. But I should try and be slow. The pace can make me sick. The pace can even sweep into time and make me age faster. By thinking slow, we live more. We age slowly. I don’t know if its true but I feel it should be given a try. By the way, my dad is several kilometers slower than me. Is it the age that had made him slow? Or is it my greed to be successful and rich before 45 that has made me fast.But whatever I don’t like the fastness. I like to be unhurried.

The other day I was watching the interview of Dalai lama and was really impressed with him. He is a great spiritual leader and I believe we all should give an ear to his teachings. Or perhaps just a bit more than few ears.

That’s all. Nothing more to write. Take care and thanks for dropping in. It feels great to write a non-sense post. Try it yourself sometime.Ciao.

Not yet named story- Please suggest a name...

2009-12-06T12:45:00.009+03:00

She walked towards her home, with a hungry stomach and a tired mind. Holding her fake leather hand bag, she walked in her own leisurely pace, in a red sari and matching black blouse, her mind several miles away. Walking past a halwai shop she looked pensively at the display of assorted sweets, ignoring it, she increased her pace.

Children played cricket, quite a few layers of brick formed their wicket, numerous beggars lined up, lifting their aluminium begging vessel, some of them without a full hand or legs mutilated and some blind. She dropped few coins on to few beggars; received god blesses in return, and then walked past them, crossing a junction and towards a slim lane. She felt a sea of humanity, as if parading with her, all in coherent motion but different worlds.

Sarita entered her neighbourhood and smiled deliberately at many old aunties and uncles she came across, some even staring at her from behind once she crossed them, looking at her well curved silhouette and lusting at her dancing butt. Many around her neighbourhood found her attractive, some even said, “She is a real good maal . Look at her when she moved. From the front and also from the back.Ha!..”

The oldest were the one she reviled the most. Some of them would stare at her plainly, without shame and that stare extended from her face to her breasts, she would impulsively move her sari pallu covering them. Most men made her feel self-conscious.

She walked through the slim lane and reached her house. The most copious in that slum and between several scruffy houses, her house stood out. Theirs was the only house painted recently, that was one year back during her sister’s marriage. Most houses saw paint during someone’s marriage or more often, once in its life time.

Several cows wandered in the street, often coming in the way of hurried cyclists and unconcerned, dumping their stomachs content onto the busy road. Gau maa: they were often called and most had a vermillion marking on their forehead. Sacred they were, but creating mayhem for the passengers. Cow dung also gave a distinctive local odour to the surroundings. Some villagers who migrated to cities often missed the smell of their villages and would say, “ my village has that aroma and fresh air which is never there in these cities and how I miss it”, not realizing what they smelled..

Opening the makeshift gate she entered her slum and found the bicycle of her father. She placed her sandals outside, washed her feet with the water placed outside for that purpose in a metallic bucket and entered her house, placing her right foot first.

Her old man sat on a plastic chair, sipping tea from a steel tumbler. Without giving a glance, she walked straight and entered the only other room in the house. Placing her handbag on the table, she removed her sari and wore her long nightie.

“ aah, you have come?” mother greeted her.

Without concern, she lifted the glass jug and poured several mouthful of water into her wide open mouth.

Sudhakar had his tea. The tea was not the same he used to have, he preferred a stronger brew. His wife had cut-short on the tea powder. “Tea have become very expensive, what to do?” he had had a conversation with his wife few weeks ago. These type of conversation happened quite frequently these days, he realized.

“Its increasingly difficult for a common man to survive.” He had said despondently.

The barber, Muraad, had told him about a potential groom for Sarita and ever since, he was seen with a perpetual thinking state of mind. The last he was in such state was before Kusum’s marriage. He didn’t want to think much about those times, he felt his muscles stiffen.

Clinching a steel tumbler of tea, Sarita came to the room where Sudhakar was sitting. She switched on the TV: a colour TV which the Govt had given to the poor people like them, just before the election and waited for the screen to come alive. Her favourite serial was about to start and nothing mattered to her during those hours. Her only worry was the power cut which frequented and more so during the serial time. Soon, the rest of the ladies joined her.

Sudhakar puts on his third shirt out of four, a cream colored he had stitched for his daughter Kusum’s marriage, sniffing first and frowning at the disgusting odour. He applies talcum powder over his armpits and sniffs again and then walks towards the crowded street.

He goes straight to Muraad’s shop, sits on the wooden bench and opens the leaf of the news paper. Muraad was occupied with a thick haired boy and in between, he glanced at Sudhakar.

“Muraad bhai, did they call you?” .

“Yes SudhakarBhai. They asked me if they can come this Sunday”

Sudhakar looked into the eyes of Muraad, the date didn’t matter to him much.

“No Problem Bhai, Did they inform their demand?”

“Boy looks forward thinking, I don’t know much details, but I feel it’s a good match” he looked at Sudhakar through the top of his glasses and continued with the boy, now not so thick haired.

Sudhakar looked engrossed in the news paper, but he was thinking ahead about coming Sunday. He would buy some biscuits and Pakode from Sundar’s Shop and Rasna. That would be enough, even for Kusum’s girl seeing he had offered the same. And it had worked. He had to arrange some money; he got up and walked towards his home.

He reached home and saw his wife waiting outside on the door steps. Sarita sat alongside and they gossiped. He knew they would be talking about their entire neighbourhood and the events of the entire day; who went where; who had guests. “These women have nothing else to do”, he mumbled to himself and entered the house. They stood up to greet him. Sudhakar went straight to his room, hanged his shirt and went to the bathroom for a shower.

After bath he walked to his room, sprinkled some talcum powder on to his armpits, looked into the mirror and combed his greying hair. He looked at his stubble and bulged his cheeks with his tongue. He noticed that he had not shaved for days.

He came back to the main room and saw that his wife had placed a plate on the table. He adjusted the chair and sat for the diner to be served. Aloo gobi, dal, and roties were served and Sudhakar had his diner, even though not hungry.

The family slept very late, like one big herd of cattle in a shed. Sudhakar slept on the cot, his daughters and wife slept adjacent on the floor. Few minutes of turning and all looked still, but Sudhakar looked up on the ceiling in the dark. He thought about his elder daughter Kusum’s wedding. Now again he has to go through the ordeal. Even after Sarita’s marriage he would have to start again for his youngest daughter Ekta.

“ Bhagvaan, these daughters’, he mumbled again to himself and his mind meandered through various thoughts. Being dark and wrinkled, no one noticed the dark circles around his eyes. When did he last sleep? He couldn’t remember.

Sudhakar was the first to take bath in the morning, followed by his wife Indira, then Sunitha and the last-Sarita. After Sarita’s bath, everyone joined at the prayer room and Sudhakar performed pooja before the framed photos of several gods and goddesses. Sarita closed her eyes and felt the image of her favourite god, the elephant headed Ganesh form before her closed eyes and smiling at her. That was an indication that things would work out. She thanked the god several times and while doing so, closed her eyelids forcefully, forming several horizontal wrangles across her closed eye lids. The fragrance of Agarbathi spread the house.

Muraad came with the boy at eleven in the morning. Sunitha and Indira spread the biscuits and pakodes in steel plates and while placing them on the table, took turns to gape at the boy. Sunitha managed a giggle and the boy smiled in return and then took out his kerchief to wipe his lips.

The boy hesitated and slowly sipped Rasna, the Rasna tasted overly sweet and he had an urge to guzzle down at once. He looked around at people and followed the pace with the snacks served. Sudhakar and his wife stared at the boy, his wife even walked few times around to have a complete picture of the boy. Every time the boy looked at Sudhakar’s wife he caught her gaping at him, but without any uneasiness she continued her gaze.

“Pakodes are very nice”, the boy commented this to Sudhakar and Sudhakar gave him his tired smile in return. Sudhakar’s wife, Indira, called him with a gesture, which only Sudhakar understood and he went inside for the titter-biter.

“Boy is good, ask him the matter fast. Doesn’t He wants to see the girl?”, Indira asked her husband insistently. These were few occasions when she demanded things from Sudhakar and he nodded his approval.

He came back to his seat and Asked Moorad, “boy wants to meet the girl?’ and looked at the boy. The boy gave Sudhakar a retiring smile and looked at Moorad for confirmation. The boy was guided towards the other room and he entered the room where Sarita stood waiting. The door was slightly slammed.

to be continued........ very long, so thought of writing in parts....

Spot me

2009-12-03T15:56:00.007+03:00

Hi, The above photo is of us when we went boating in the Kerala backwaters. Its taken in 2005....Spot me in the photograph (Please Click to enlarge).

Hint: I am the most drunk looking guy.
Hint 2: 4 guys at the back, standing are houseboat staff.
Hint 3: Iam posing after meager 3 beers, 6 Taquila shots, 4 large Vodkas, 3 rum & Cokes, and 2 cigars.....lost count......from 9am until around 7pm when the photo was taken.....

My Hero

2009-11-25T16:21:00.008+03:00

“He died, under circumstances when he could have easily saved himself. He died, mainly because he wanted to do something heroic for the country. He died, because he had no fear of death. He died, because he wanted to make his parents proud.He died, because he thought thats the most splendid fate of a soldier” These are the words of Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s maternal Aunt ( Mother’s sister), who is also my paternal aunt( My father’s elder brother’s wife). If you don’t remember Sandeep, he was one of the NSG Commandos killed during the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai: Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Ashok chakra(posthumously).

He was the only son to Unni uncle and Dhanalakshmi Aunty. Contrary to her strong willed son, I remember Dhanalakshmi aunty as an epitome of tender motherhood. It’s impossible to measure her loss and makes me wonder how she would be coping with the void left over by her son. Probably he was her sole reason to live, and what’s life when one has no reason to live. Perhaps that’s why they would have refused the financial assistance, including the allotment of a fuel station in Bangalore, assured by the Govt. And when the whole world remembers her son on the first anniversary, its lot more sorrowful for the family.Its like scabs of old wounds are torn open, all over again, and for many-many years to come.

He was a Hero even before his death. He was one of the idols in our family. He was the benchmark and whenever annoyed, my father would tell us to learn from this lad. I was a tad bit envious of him, for all the attention he received. He was a Lieutenant when I was barely in college and struggling with my uncertain future in the world, full of jobless engineers, architects and MBAs. He was a commissioned officer in the Indian army, earning what I could only dream of. When I passed out of college, that was my biggest motivation: I wanted to be richer and more successful than him. I was naïve to quantum success in terms of mere currency notes earned. He has become the hero of a nation, defending a permanent place in the history of modern India.

Last I had been to their apartment was in 2004, when I worked in India and had gone on a meeting to Bangalore. I was treated with some fine home cooked chicken and kerala food and she made Gulab Jamuns, specially for me. I had gone in the afternoon and since I had had my Lunch, she made me stay until the diner. She was alone at the apartment and she made me see all the photo albums of Sandeep, including his passing out parade at the NDA Pune, saluting in front of his proud parents (Coming to more than a thousand photographs). I remember when Sandeep came on vacations to his taravadu (Ancestral home), it was nothing short of a festivity. I remember his mother mention his fondness for seafood and kerala delicacies like Puttu/kadala and appam and how the entire family would join in the food preparations for his arrival. Kalumukaya ( Mussels) fry was his favorite.

He is a true hero and his death is a great loss for the country. But I wish a lot more that he was alive and Dhanalakshmi Aunty was her old, cheerful self. I have not been to their place since the tragedy happened, being away from the country and visiting once a year, but I would like to go to her on my next visit and assure her that she can look up to me as her son. I pray that almighty provide her enough strength to accept the fact and move forward with her life. Hope almighty provides her another reason to live.

Sigh of relief

2009-11-19T17:24:00.009+03:00

Arun kissed on her forehead. He could see her eyes roll upward. She was sweating. Tiny drops of sweat lined above her thin lips. She wiped it with her kerchief. He kissed her lips. She pushed him away.

‘w-h-a-t?’ he asked, frowning.

‘ No, you gone mad?’ She said, smiling.

‘W-H-Y?’ he asked, visibly upset.

‘No, Not today Arun. I am not prepared.’ She said.

‘Please, w-h-y?’ .
‘ Its dangerous today.Not today Arun.’ She said, smiling, trying to sound persuasive.

He caught her hair and pulled towards him. He kissed again on her lips. His hands circled her. There was no stopping him, passion had masked him. He was already aroused. She tried to push him away, but he was much stronger. She had to give in. He was kissing her neck. She felt his hands on her back, massaging her gently. She too felt passion sweep inside her. Her grasp on his shirt got weaker by the minute.

He was unbuttoning her shirt. She resisted, but there was no way he could be stopped. He slid his hands and caressed her breasts. He pulled her shirt. He kissed on her navel.

The rotating fan looked down at the two naked bodies; it could see passion disgorge into the air like steam from a cooker. It continued to look down at the two naked bodies with yearn. Skin rubbed against skin, curves took the place of starkness, and hands felt and stroked the curves.

He stopped abruptly. He lifted himself and walked towards the chair on which hung his blue Jeans. He pulled his wallet and searched. A blue sachet of Condom emerged. The neck of the sachet was slit, which revealed a pink, rubbery, moist and lubricated condom. It took a silhouette.

The fan continued to look down at the bed below with longing. The couple looked like one conjugated corpse, bunged in between by sudden jerks. Arun stopped in between, as if exhausted. After a while he continued. A sudden roar followed, muscles tightened, hand-clasps stiffened.

The bodies separated, the oneness stopped, separateness creaked. Two naked mortals lied close to each other; devoid of passion; ceased with lust.

Two weeks passed since the Fan last saw Shalini in his room. It disapproved the ways of the humanity; the adulterated relationships, the lust for flesh, the shortness of human remembrance. It remembered how Arun had vowed his fiancé few days back, and how Shalini had spoken about her boyfriend who lived in Bangalore. The fan had seen many couples, some in love, some were just couples, and some were married. Yet it was confused about Arun and Shalini. “What were they? None of it that I knew, Just that they worked in an office together. They were just colleagues. And yet they behaved for a short time, as if they were married, as if they were in love” It said to itself.

It remembered the short conversation in between the lovemaking.

“I love you Shalini.” Arun had whispered.

“What? What did you just say?” She had asked.

“ No, I just meant that in case you get pregnant, don’t worry, I will marry you. Only if your boyfriend rejects, that is.” He had said.

“Stop-It . In your dream will I marry you. Have you looked into a mirror?” She had screamed.

It was a Sunday morning and he was awakened by the ringing of his mobile phone. He sluggishly picked his phone. It was as if a bombshell had exploded that Arun mounted from his bed and shouted.

“w-h-a-t?”

‘”I think I am Pregnant. I missed my....”, She repeated, sounding more distressed and dramatic.

“No, I mean, It can’t be possible. I used condoms.” He was rubbing his eyes as an obscurity had enveloped his vision.

“ What do you mean? “ She sounded annoyed.
“ No. amm, I mean, check once again. It may be a delayed thing.” He said.

All hell froze when she told him that she had confirmed using a pregnancy detector. The two lines were very obvious and clear.

There was no mistake. She was pregnant.He couldn’t think of an answer. He remembered how he had pulled the condom out in between. It was his mistake.

“I am an Idiot, I am a bloody fool”, He cursed.

“What do we do now? Abortion?” he asked in his most composed voice.She was furious to hear about abortion. She sounded greatly upset. She cut the line.

He couldn’t think; his head was spinning. His eyes turned red and he could feel his heart palpitate.

He thought of several options. “What do I do now?” he asked himself, loud enough for the fan to hear.

He imagined breaking the news to his parents. He wasn’t sure how his father would react. He was engaged, he was to marry in few months time. It would be utter chaos.

He had no other way. He had no escape. He knew Shalini would never agree for an abortion.

He would have to marry her. He would have to break his engagement. Otherwise the news would spread like wild fire. He would never be able to walk into his office. He could never face his relatives. He could never face his colleagues.He felt blood rush into his head. He could feel his head spin. He felt tired and restless.

He looked upwards, towards the fan and fell onto the bed.He will have to speak to Shalini and solve the matter.

He tried calling her. Her phone was switched off. He was restless.

He walked aimlessly.

He sat on the bed. He dialed her number again. It was switched off.He messaged her. The message went undelivered. He resent the message and again it failed.

He walked restlessly in his room, the soft breeze from the fan gently brushing his hair.

He sat on the chair and switched-on the laptop. He tied his hands around his head and looked contemplatively at the fan.

He opened his Gmail account and started composing a mail.

My Dear Shalini,

I am very sorry for what has happened, more so for the reason that I am responsible for it. I know I have done a mistake and I take the responsibility. I would certainly be with you every minute, every moment, and would like to accept you. I would like to marry you, if you agree for it. Please call me as soon as you read this mail. We shouldn't delay it any further and risk the consequences of it, on our relationship, on our future child.

Thanks dear, I love you.

Yours,

Arun

He was about to click on the send option when he noticed the date. It was first of the month. There was something strange about the date. It was fourth month of the year. It took another few seconds for him to realize that he may have been terribly fooled.

He noticed his phone ring and jumped to collect it. He could hear her faint groans of laughter and he knew he could take a deep sigh of relief.

My Fundaas....

2009-11-14T15:00:00.002+03:00

There is one thing that I admire about Amitabh Bahchan: his diplomatic style of speech. I wish I could have his patience, cunningness, composure in handling difficult situations. I guess he has mastered it over years and he would have been like me: short tempered and straight-forward. Actually over years I have made one observation: It takes a lot to be diplomatic and tactful and its much-much easier to be -so called “brutally honest”. I feel people-handling is key to a man’s success, more than anything else, more than even his educational qualification.

I feel its also important in life to adopt a middle path, as Buddhism teaches. Its important to have ambitions or goal in life, but its also important to be content. I read a comment somewhere where the person says “the truth is that we can never be content with what we have. It is human nature and there is nothing wrong in desiring for more.” I feel its possible to be content. Contentment provides such bliss which is unexplainable. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have desires or ambitions. We can be content with what we have, yet have ambitions and desire.

I feel another thing that most humans lack is Empathy. When I was in 7th std, I could never figure-out algebra or equations. I used to curse and hate them. My father used to shout at me and sometimes pinch me to get things right and I used to feel hurt. Then, I passed-out of school and was waiting for my entrance exam results soon after the 12th exams, and I was asked to tutor my neighbor’s daughter who was in 7th std. I used to shout at her and never understood why she couldn’t do such simple equations by herself. It appeared I had altogether forgotten my 7th std experience and now was doing the same thing my Father did to me( minus the pinching).

I guess we swap positions in life. We were once the eve teasers, roadside Romeos, or the man who eloped with someone’s daughter. But now I am a father and fear about my daughter(though she is only 8 months old). I would like all eve teasers, Romeos to be miles away from her. I would kill, dare someone make a pass at her.

I feel it’s very important quality in humans to be empathetic. World would be a much better place to live if we are taught to be empathetic. By definition empathy is: “The ability to put oneself into the mental shoes of another person to understand her emotions and feelings.” Or “the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.”

Actually from my experience, whenever I am overly angry or hate a person, I have benefited by being empathetic to him/her. When I put myself in the person’s shoes, I have felt that what the person did at that moment was right and probably I would have done the same if I were in his position. Basically, every human is good; it’s how people define good or bad. And our anger, most often manifests from our own frustrations and disappointments. It ceases the moment we take our mind out of it and focus on something else around us. Or as Bhagwat Geetha says: “Its all Maya”.Its all a mind game...or a game our mind plays.

I have got some amazing blog dosts

2009-11-11T15:44:00.004+03:00

I have got some amazing blog dosts, who, though virtual, I am very proud to have. There are some who are lawyers, some are retired and contented, some are struggling to make a mark for themselves, some are students and yet some are mysterious and I have no clue what they do for a living. I haven’t been blogging for long, just 6 months to be precise, but still have managed to make some amount of followers and friends.I know some who are quite young and remind me when I was their age. When I was in college or in early 20s, I was this arrogant brat who thought he knew most of the things there is to know about life. I used to argue with my dad, I used to call myself an atheist without knowing the real psychology or meaning behind the word GOD, simply because I thought I was well educated from a premier professional college in India. Then life taught me some lessons and the fact that there is more to GOD than just religion, idol or pilgrimage; it has more to do with human psyche or the evolution of human psyche, since thousands of years. I have realized that humans who have strong belief in god are much happier and thus healthier than non believers. I guess life teaches us lessons and only when confronted with such lessons that most of us learn. It takes some difficult moments like waiting for a biopsy result to confirm ones worst fears or some catastrophic calamity like earthquakes or cyclones, as in the case of our ancestors, to realize that your life is indeed not in your hands. Perhaps that’s when one realize that life is profoundly unpredictable and anything is possible in the very next hour, which can make most humans extremely anxious , and such anxieties can make lives extremely agonizing. Perhaps that’s when our ancestors would have invented GOD and belief in GOD would have lead to ways to please him and thus religious rituals would have formed.

Now, when I turn back and look at my days when I called myself an atheist and argued with my father, I feel I was rather immature. I now feel religion and worship has contributed to human development much more than anything else in the world. I believe that to call religious practices and beliefs unscientific and dissolute is to spread the message to be anxious and fearful of the profoundly erratic world and in the process take away the pillar of support of the mankind. I feel every human needs a support factor, at least on a sub-conscious level and a healthy subconscious mind is mostly responsible for a healthy and happy human being. Recent surveys have found that as many as 18% of Americans may be affected by one or more forms of Anxiety disorders.

Ops, I started off thinking that I would write about some of my blog-dosts from my perspective but ended up being preachy.

Neha: The most enthusiastic blogger in my list, a genuinely down-to-earth and caring person; a nice human being. An avid blogger and reader of other blogs, in spite being a busy lawyer. One thing that I envy about her is that she works for herself and is self employed. I have this awe and respect for anyone who is self employed. I want to be my own boss and have to wait for few more years to cover all aspects of the risk factor involved. Once sufficiently funded and convinced that even if my business fails I could support my family, I would venture my own. Meanwhile I am sharpening my tools and training to be a chef. Watch-out you hungry people.

Aparna: Her posts are naturally witty and humour comes as naturally to her as laziness to me. It’s always a pleasure reading her and her anecdotes have caused many a laugh-riots. I wonder how she manages to write such lengthy posts in spite of being a mother to couple of naughty kids, Buts that’s where the right spirit and energy and multi tasking skills come to play its part. Keep writing.

The unsure ascetic: The most underrated blogger; A fine writer as well as painter; A very astute observer of life; a poetic and free spirited person at heart. It’s always a pleasure reading his blog.

Kaddu: She is mysterious as her name suggests, but I get a peep of her world through her blog. Though she writes on everyday topics, her sense of humour and writing style makes even a disclaimer attention-grabbing read. She is a quintessential blogger and represents the new age woman.

Global Madrasi: This is one blog I wait for everyday as much as my dad waits for his morning cuppa tea and the Malayala-manorama newspaper. From current affairs to anecdotes, one is almost always sure that it would end up making the reader LOL.

To be continued…..

myself, before i could render any cuss word...

2009-11-08T23:06:00.003+03:00

Thats me in the photo, with my hairy younger (but naughtier) brother, all of 4 and 2 respectively. My brother emailed me this photo yesterday, and i didn't even know such a photo existed. Obviously i don't remember it taken being too Chota.

India-2

2009-11-08T11:39:00.004+03:00

A comment on my post ‘India’ had me rather disturbed. How will we progress if such people think it’s “mean to Indians” when you say something that’s blatant truth. The comment went like this:

“My My...you are being so mean to all Indians here. Its a system that needs improvement, I totally agree. But who is going to take the first step. Do donation(or influence to enter)to good colleges and schools come under corruption? If you sit and say I will not do it, its not right,its your child's future you are playing with. We make tough choices everyday as it is. If everyone in India is striving to sustain themselves so be it. I think everyone everywhere does that. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I am going to do something for my country today.Just make sure that you don't do anything to harm it. And things will change and there is hope.

I also would like to know why u haven't given suggestions for these rats to improve!!!! The post is incomplete without them...”

I would like to tell her that it’s not the system that needs change. India has perfect SYSTEM. We are a population of over 1 billion and that’s huge population. India is also the 7 th largest country in the world. Such a big, diverse country needs time to change. But isn’t, “India needs time” a BIG EXCUSE?

We are huge, no doubt about it, but we are a federal state. That means we are divided into 28 states and 7 union territories based on linguistics and culture. And these states are further divided into districts which are further divided into taluks, tehsils, panchayats..etc, for the sole purpose of administration. A domain Panchayat is no more than few kilometers across and has a president who has representative powers. Isn’t that the greatest SYSTEM we have in place? Then what system are we cribbing about?

Then what’s wrong with India? I strongly believe it’s the People and the people alone. We complain about the leaders, corrupt politicians, bureaucrats etc…but who elects them?

And we are a population of over 1 billion, which is over a 1000 million in exponential terms, and we just have few like Arundhati roy , Medha patkar, Mahasweta Devi, Dr. Binayak Sen who cry about the state of affairs of India. Imagine if out of 1000 million, just 1 million were to blog about the negative state of affairs in India and bring awareness. I feel it would be revolutionary.

I believe India needs strong social (writer) critics like Charles Dickens, Judith Butler or more of writers like Aravind adiga.The first time I read “The white Tiger”, I was angry at the portrayal of poverty in India. Or even the movie SlumDog millionaire did the same thing to me. But over time I have realized that these are the facts and we should stop living in a utopian state of wellbeing.

Who will take the first step in changing India? I think we all should. Perhaps, this is my first step. The first step can be writing a blog about what you see negative in India: Or bringing a corrupt practice in our society into public light. I think that’s the first step. We don’t have to join politics or jump into some Bolshevik-like revolution. In fact, such revolution has even more degraded the society as the case with USSR was. I believe we just need to change ourselves. If out of 1000 million population, just 1 million change themselves and become more aware or communicative about the problems of the society, the society would change.

Do donation(or influence to enter)to good colleges and schools come under corruption? If you sit and say I will not do it, its not right,its your child's future you are playing with.- I think that’s the greatest mistake we do. We think that that’s the way things work. We think we don’t have options and we have to go on with what’s happening. Yes, such donations are corruptions and I will not be part of it. I will not let my daughter join such college, but I will not come in her way of her future. I will look for alternatives. If no such college exists in India I will send her Abroad, Even if I have to mortgage my house for it.

And people say things are changing. Definitely things are changing, India has more international standard stadiums, Shopping malls, Business schools or 5 star hospitals, but poor have become poorer and rich have become richer. There are more cars on the road and we can see many more airports, but still half of the population is under poverty.

I also would like to know why u haven't given suggestions for these rats to improve!!!! The post is incomplete without them...” First of all the person hasn’t read the post or understood it. I had mentioned India as a ‘metaphor’ of a timeless fortress. Rats and rodents are part of a fortress, like people are to a nation.

Suggestions to Improve: No one has to jump into active social activism, and we can’t afford to do that. We have families to look after and responsibilities. We as citizens has to lead by example.

But we can still do to improve the country. We can be responsible citizens and keep our premise clean. We can take part in elections and vote for the deserving candidate. We can help by educating our children and not show prejudice to sons over daughters. We can help by investing in our country and provide employment. We can help by being entrepreneurs. We can help by being broad minded and not be part of caste-ism or classism. We can help by being religiously tolerant. We can help by investing in Govt. agencies like LIC or SBI. We can help by helping our neighbors in time of need. We can help by not crowding hospitals or public places. We can help by being clean and health conscious. We can help by knowing our culture and help preserve it(like Japanese). We can help by welcoming foreign tourists and make India more tourist friendly. We can help by not carving “I LOVE PRIYANKA CHOPRA” on public places and historical monuments. We can help by conserving energy and resources. We can help by not supporting political parties who support BANDH and HARTALS. We can help by not encouraging beggars. We can help by questioning public authorities and wrong practices.

We make tough choices everyday as it is. If everyone in India is striving to sustain themselves so be it. : Who are “WE”, not definitely the person who commented this. OK, half of India is under poverty and have to make tough choices every day, but not the rest. I think we all fall under the rest. We aren’t fighting to sustain ourselves, are we? Come-on, we are much better offs. We can make better choices.

And most importantly, do not pay bribes or DONATIONS. I remember how my uncle was forcing me to pay Rs.500 to the corporation clerk to get my marriage certificate in time for my wife’s visa. I refused and I was looked as STUPID and unrealistic. I feel 90% of Indians are like my uncle. If we bring that 90 % to less that 20%, imagine the change in India. Imagine out of 1000 million, 10 million decide to be entrepreneurs; we will have industries to match the best in the world.

The last thing we need is a Revolution. I think we just need smart, intelligent people, which we basically are.

P.S: Please read this post of kaddu for further reading. She has summed up pretty correctly. Thanks kaddu.

hello friends, how are you doing? Hope alls fine at ur end.

2009-11-05T21:05:00.004+03:00

I just noticed that I haven’t written much on this blog for long….so thought of posting something real quick…..

My updates:

Pretty mundane life, like it was since I started having memory. Life seems like a long chase for wealth accumulation. And the only goal in life is to be rich before 45. I plan to buy my second apartment soon and again this time too without any kind of Loan. I am allergic to loans, or rather it’s a kindof phobia which I feel is good to have. But before that I need a car for me in India, and I am confused which one to buy? Or will have to listen to my wife: Why do we need to buy a Chai-Shop to have a glass-tumbler of Tea? Makes sense though, considering we come home for 30 days in a year for vacation.

And I think I am missing a vacation in this tussle of materialism. I have joined a mutual fund scheme for the sole purpose of vacation, that is, in 2012 when it matures. I would go to New-Zealand when I get the money without burrowing a hole in my as-such worn leather wallet.

My daughter is 8 months old but easily the naughtiest in a radius of several hundred kilometers. Her fav pass time is to see her mom sweat in the cold Kerala rainy weather. And of course chewing on the un-chewables like telephone cable when her mom is speaking to her dad. She has started on solid food and is on a special royal diet of mashed rice, drops of homemade ghee, papadams, boiled potatoes and carrots. She eats only if the entertainment- quotient is in the right proportions, like the crow her mama shows is dark enough or the white cat meows in support.

She has two shiny and pearly teeth on top and bottom gums , and plans to make good use of them on her mom and granny. The other day she bit her mother’s fingers and her mom almost cried.

Job-wise it’s the most dreaded season of appraisals and KRA’s. I hate Novembers for this reason. Next years emoluments depends on one signature of my boss, and how I hate to be reliant of him. I am waiting for that one day in my life when I would decide the fate of few men who work for me. Yes I want to be self employed and that’s what I meant by retirement at 45 and not the retirement my father took from government service at the age of 60.

Ciao, that’s all for now. Have more to write but laziness doesn’t consent me to go on. So maybe next time.

Indian History : Supposedly written by a schoolboy with all original spellings:

2009-10-28T16:45:00.001+03:00

I got this as an E-mail forward and had posted earlier..........nevertheless read it again...its really funny..and i choke every time i read this.....

The original inhabitants of ancient India were called Adidases, who lived in two cities called Hariappa and Mujhe-na-Daro. These cities had the best drain system in the world and so there was no brain drain from them Ancient India was full of myths which have been handed down from son to father. A myth is a female moth. A collection of myths is called mythology, which means stories with female caricatures. One myth says that people in olden times worshipped monkeys because they were our incestors.

In olden times there were two big families in India. One was called the Pandava and the other was called the Karova. They fought amongst themselves in a battle called Mahabharat, after which India came to be known as MeraBharat Mahan.

In midevil times India was ruled by the Slave Dienasty. So named because they all died a nasty death. Then came the Tughlaqs who shifted their capital from Delhi because of its pollution. They were followed by the Mowglis. The greatest Mowgli was Akbar because he extinguished himself on the battlefield of Panipat which is in Hurryana. But his son Jehangir was peace loving; he married one Hindu wife and kept 300 porcupines. Then came Shahajahan who had 14 sons. Family planning had not been invented at that time. He also built the Taj Mahal hotel for his wife who now sleeps there. The king sent all his sons away to distant parts of India because they started quarrelling. Dara Seiko was sent to UP, Shaikh Bhakhtiyar was sent to J & K, while Orangezip came to Bombay to fight Shivaji. However,after that they changed its name to Mumbai because Shivaji’s sena did not like it. They also do not like New Delhi, so they are calling it Door Darshan.

After the Mowglis came Vasco the Gama. He was an exploder who was circumcising India with a 100 foot clipper. Then came the British. They brought with them many inventions such as cricket, tramtarts and steamed railways. They were followed by the French who brought in French fries, pizzazz and laundry. But Robert Clive drove them out when he deafened Duplex who was out membered since the British had the queen on their side.

Eventually, the British came to overrule India because there was too much diversity in our unity. The British overruled India for a long period.They were great expotents and impotents. They started expoting salt from India and impoting cloth. This was not liked by Mahatma Gandhi who wanted to produce his own salt. This was called the Swedish moment. During this moment, many people burnt their lion cloths in the street and refused to wear anything else. The British became very angry at this and stopped the production of Indian testiles.

In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi was married to one wife. Soon after he became the father of the nation. In 1942 he started the Quiet India moment, so named because the British were quietly lootoing our country. In 1947, India became free and its people became freely loving. This increased our population. Its government became a limited mockery, which means people are allowed to take the law in their own hands with the help of the police. Our constipation is the best in the world because it says that no man can be hanged twice for the same crime. It also says you cannot be put in prison if you have not paid your taxis. Another important thing about our constipation is that it can be changed. This is not possible with the British constipation because it is not written on paper. The Indian parlemint consists of two houses which are called lower and higher. This is because one Mr Honest Abe said that two houses divided against itself cannot withstand. So Pandit Nehru asked the British for freedom at midnight since the British were afraid of the dark. At midnight, on August 15, there was a tryst in parlemint in which many participated by wearing khaki and hosting the flag. Recently in India, there have been a large number of scams and a plaque,it can be dangerous because many people died of this plaque in Surat. Scams are all over India. One of these was in Bihar where holy cows were not given anything to eat by their elected leader. The other scam was in Bofor which is a small town in Switzerland.In this, a lot of Indian money was given to buy a gun which can shoot a coot.

Presently India has a coalishun government made up of many parties, left,right and centre. It has started to library the economy. This means that there is now no need for a licence as the economy will be driven by itself.

India is also trying to become an Asian tiger because its own tigers are being poached. Another important event this year was the Shark meeting at Malas Dive. At this place, shark leaders agreed to share their poverty, pollution and population.

ZB

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Indian History : Supposedly written by a schoolboy with all original spellings:

Reflections on India by Sean Paul Kelley