Why?! Cuz I am turning 23 in another 3 days!!
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Saturday, September 24, 2005
An Over-dramatized Account of a Crush
Wretched protocols!
First, they create borders. Borders intentionally made as thin as a sheet of ice. As invisible to the naked eye as the elves on Earth. They challenge to walk along these borders. You fall over the edge. You learn it the hard away. You swear never to repeat it. Then it happens all over again.
Latest substianted evidence of this theory:
These architects of this cruel stage play called "Your Deplorable Life"....They take one of those dudes, straight out of the "Your kind of a guy" factory (Mass customized operations prevalent here, of course...At least, that's the one presumption that I hope does not get annihilated)..They predictably throw a plausible background to him...IT dude with an overdose of Bangalorean-ness (Y'know...carrying an overdose of contempt of crowded trains, places being miles apart et cetera)...Implementing yet another "We-cannot-do-without-it" application (which will gradually gather cobwebs in its internal algorithm and soon the only hints of its existence would pop up when potential shareholders or overtly inquisitive auditor digs deep down the "operating expenses" bit of the company's P&L)....And they strategically plant him a couple of cubicles away from you....You, as anticipated, would walk into the 'man-trap'...First with coy glances which climbs the forthrightness charts slowly, steadily and willfilly...Then, due to accusatory glances and sometimes angry retorts from (so-called) friends nearby, you try to pipe it down...Sometimes, even that the ugly reminder of you already being hooked pops up, only to be squashed like a bug...And so...soon, this small crush takes a larger than life form and these architects put on their impish smiles and bring one more cruel twist to the tale...They move the puppet (Otherwise known as the oomph guy) to a cubicle in some farthest corner, to where you cannot venture to, cuz you would have no excuse to contrive in order to go there! So, the sine curves that your high school teachers tried so much to get through to your head flashes before you with a bell pin on the biggest crest with an IDEO Locator saying "You are here"...And then, you pass many a days without the pleasures of a heavenly distraction..And then right when you think your life is moving along its straight line, which refuses to get out of the pits...They fling another boomerang right at you...This dude finds his way to your desk, makes conversation deliberately ( It's a saturday and no one else is around in the vicinity..so he couldn't have come for anyone else)....So the straight line called your life makes another straight-line trajectory to the peak and you are overwhelmed with this abrupt attack of that rare emotion named ecstacy...Oh no, just when the thought crosses my mind that "life is not that bad after all", I stumble upon that anticlimatic hurdle placed - He has come to tell me he's leaving...His implementation is done...
And so, I am left waiting for the next snare to come my way.
There are instances where the recall function in your memory could have been of some help, if you had ever planned on using it..You would then recognized the drill...The border is close by...You are gonna tip over...You could have shunned away, averting your eventual downfall...You could have either chosen to "Hell No!" and get back to base camp (Boyfriend is camped there!) or you could brave the onslaught and go out charging...But naay! You follow the protocol religiously..to perfection! One more time....
First, they create borders. Borders intentionally made as thin as a sheet of ice. As invisible to the naked eye as the elves on Earth. They challenge to walk along these borders. You fall over the edge. You learn it the hard away. You swear never to repeat it. Then it happens all over again.
Latest substianted evidence of this theory:
These architects of this cruel stage play called "Your Deplorable Life"....They take one of those dudes, straight out of the "Your kind of a guy" factory (Mass customized operations prevalent here, of course...At least, that's the one presumption that I hope does not get annihilated)..They predictably throw a plausible background to him...IT dude with an overdose of Bangalorean-ness (Y'know...carrying an overdose of contempt of crowded trains, places being miles apart et cetera)...Implementing yet another "We-cannot-do-without-it" application (which will gradually gather cobwebs in its internal algorithm and soon the only hints of its existence would pop up when potential shareholders or overtly inquisitive auditor digs deep down the "operating expenses" bit of the company's P&L)....And they strategically plant him a couple of cubicles away from you....You, as anticipated, would walk into the 'man-trap'...First with coy glances which climbs the forthrightness charts slowly, steadily and willfilly...Then, due to accusatory glances and sometimes angry retorts from (so-called) friends nearby, you try to pipe it down...Sometimes, even that the ugly reminder of you already being hooked pops up, only to be squashed like a bug...And so...soon, this small crush takes a larger than life form and these architects put on their impish smiles and bring one more cruel twist to the tale...They move the puppet (Otherwise known as the oomph guy) to a cubicle in some farthest corner, to where you cannot venture to, cuz you would have no excuse to contrive in order to go there! So, the sine curves that your high school teachers tried so much to get through to your head flashes before you with a bell pin on the biggest crest with an IDEO Locator saying "You are here"...And then, you pass many a days without the pleasures of a heavenly distraction..And then right when you think your life is moving along its straight line, which refuses to get out of the pits...They fling another boomerang right at you...This dude finds his way to your desk, makes conversation deliberately ( It's a saturday and no one else is around in the vicinity..so he couldn't have come for anyone else)....So the straight line called your life makes another straight-line trajectory to the peak and you are overwhelmed with this abrupt attack of that rare emotion named ecstacy...Oh no, just when the thought crosses my mind that "life is not that bad after all", I stumble upon that anticlimatic hurdle placed - He has come to tell me he's leaving...His implementation is done...
And so, I am left waiting for the next snare to come my way.
There are instances where the recall function in your memory could have been of some help, if you had ever planned on using it..You would then recognized the drill...The border is close by...You are gonna tip over...You could have shunned away, averting your eventual downfall...You could have either chosen to "Hell No!" and get back to base camp (Boyfriend is camped there!) or you could brave the onslaught and go out charging...But naay! You follow the protocol religiously..to perfection! One more time....
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Of Idiots, Idiot-boxes and Idiots-in-boxes
Eeeooow...What's with the flashing ticker on the home page of Blogger? Blogs updated at 8:57 AM ?! random blogs ?! Where/when did all that come from? Is it just me or have I fallen hook, line and sinker to those solitary blimps of respite that us nine-2-niners have in our otherwise mundane life called the "auto-login" option?! C'mon..you gotta admit...Gmail.com - whoosh! You are in, Orkut - Hell! You are already staring at your stuck-up scrap count before you can reach out and two-time 'alt' and 'tab', Naukri.com - *Blink* Your "32198321672 job openings which are of no use to you" stares back right at ya...Aaah, you gotta hand it to these Internet dudes for this force-majeure in our lives....Or else, it would have been your sheepish smiles that could have saved your ass from Mr. Bossman(If you are me, you would know that's NEVER an option!)...
Something worthwhile's on TV for a change...What with all the 'simple lives' of dumber-than-thou blondies (ALL puns intended...But of course) and the 'popcorn'y gossip items, I was beginning to wonder whether the term was the "idiot-box" or the "idiots-in-the-box"...And then, like he had done time and again before, Cosmo Kramer stormed in through the front door and onto our television sets...
Was reminded of one of those quotes of George ( a.k.a the short guy with glasses, looks like Humpty-Dumpty with a melon head - according to Jerry), which has done its turn of forwards and has had its more than fair share of exchanges/discussions...If you have seen it umpteen times before, I am sure you wouldn't choose to grimace when you see it one more time..so here you go...
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus?!?I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, go collect all your super, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm! Amen."
Something worthwhile's on TV for a change...What with all the 'simple lives' of dumber-than-thou blondies (ALL puns intended...But of course) and the 'popcorn'y gossip items, I was beginning to wonder whether the term was the "idiot-box" or the "idiots-in-the-box"...And then, like he had done time and again before, Cosmo Kramer stormed in through the front door and onto our television sets...
Was reminded of one of those quotes of George ( a.k.a the short guy with glasses, looks like Humpty-Dumpty with a melon head - according to Jerry), which has done its turn of forwards and has had its more than fair share of exchanges/discussions...If you have seen it umpteen times before, I am sure you wouldn't choose to grimace when you see it one more time..so here you go...
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus?!?I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, go collect all your super, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm! Amen."
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
A Midnight Rhetoric
Excruciating, Gut-wrenching loneliness...
It's hard to ignore when it strikes...especially when you least expect it to....especially when you are in conversation with the one you are closest to..
Is it the suppressed desire for occassional and unanticipated gratification? Is it the mutinous tactic deployed to combat the discontentment caused by unwelcome responses? Is it the instanteneous reaction to a fiery arguement that you are fast losing? Is it the unrestrainable annoyance to long enduring monologues?
Even worse....
Is it a sign of things to come? Or is it an inhibited but often experienced feeling which has just not been emoted?
Is it true that you feel closest to this person? or Is it time to scrutinize everything ?
......Or Is it just another bad day?
It's hard to ignore when it strikes...especially when you least expect it to....especially when you are in conversation with the one you are closest to..
Is it the suppressed desire for occassional and unanticipated gratification? Is it the mutinous tactic deployed to combat the discontentment caused by unwelcome responses? Is it the instanteneous reaction to a fiery arguement that you are fast losing? Is it the unrestrainable annoyance to long enduring monologues?
Even worse....
Is it a sign of things to come? Or is it an inhibited but often experienced feeling which has just not been emoted?
Is it true that you feel closest to this person? or Is it time to scrutinize everything ?
......Or Is it just another bad day?
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Far from maddening crowd....
Sunday being the archetypal "lone-wolf" day of the week for me, I had been planning out for an exploratory journey through the streets of South Bombay, for picking up forsaken books from the literature departments and libraries of colleges, which are amassed by street vendors and sold out at ridiculously nominal prices...But then, the rains continued to play spoilsport and I postponed Plan A for the third week in continuation...
But apparently, the early September showers refused to dampen the spirit of a truck(s)-full of Bombayites especially since they have been treating the "sitting-at-home-sipping-hot-coffee" us to live entertainment with the pulsating strikes on the drumskins, boisterous ganpati chants and unrestrained foot works..Meanwhile, my head was treating me to even more frenzy, thanks to the demise of Plan A, especially when the last few pages of my last hard cover book (What good are e-books anyway?!) were fast scrambling for closure..
So I decided to brave the latest attempt of Mr. Rain God and more importantly the unforgiving monsters of the traffic striken highways and ventured into the crammy jungle of book reward points, mauve leather coaches, "cracking the code" enthusiasts and the not-so-helpful can-I-help-yous..In other words, the big bad retail book store...(The last trip didn't turn to be too useful - Reference my earlier post)
A new book by Hornby was in the offing, leading me to half-believe my trip to the store was not that big a waste of time..But then this was before I beheld the dreaded barcoded strip which quoted an astronomical two digit number (Before you take the jugdement calls, you should know this was not in rupee count, but in euros!)...So I continued to wander around aimlessly before stumbling onto the books of a Portugese author called Jose Saramago...I would like to think that the tag of "from the nobel prize laureate" had nothing to do with the fact that I was lured into his books, but then again I got to admit, it was a sight for the sore eyes amidst the Sanders' and the Sheldons..The more powerful reason for eventually picking the book was my quirky interest in trying out authors from distant lands, whose works are hard to unearth in this part of the world, unless they cross the threshold of popularity and their books get translated...
A credit card swipe, a messy subway sandwich and a long walk later, I arrived at the one place the tourists always have on their itinery - the Juhu beach...While I fully knew this was probably the wrongest time to be there (In fact I am actually unsure whether there is a right time), I had been curious to see what the thronging followers of Bombay's favourite God do there...The party was on in full force and so I meandered around to a relatively empty part of the beach ...Now this is definitely not one of the prettiest beaches, but no matter what, the sea never fails to engulf me within its calming arms..Unlike most other beaches, the Juhu beach does not have mounds of sand, from where you can overlook the waves....From where you stand, you are at perfect sea level...Inspite of the reverberating rhythms emanating from the maddening crowd on one side and the relentless bellowing of the horns behind you, it's quite a remarkable feeling to gaze into the dieing tides...And just like that, you manage to block out all that cacophony around you and feel total harmony...Funny, Isn't that the ultimate purpose of life? Heaven knows Juhu is the last place you would expect to find it...
But apparently, the early September showers refused to dampen the spirit of a truck(s)-full of Bombayites especially since they have been treating the "sitting-at-home-sipping-hot-coffee" us to live entertainment with the pulsating strikes on the drumskins, boisterous ganpati chants and unrestrained foot works..Meanwhile, my head was treating me to even more frenzy, thanks to the demise of Plan A, especially when the last few pages of my last hard cover book (What good are e-books anyway?!) were fast scrambling for closure..
So I decided to brave the latest attempt of Mr. Rain God and more importantly the unforgiving monsters of the traffic striken highways and ventured into the crammy jungle of book reward points, mauve leather coaches, "cracking the code" enthusiasts and the not-so-helpful can-I-help-yous..In other words, the big bad retail book store...(The last trip didn't turn to be too useful - Reference my earlier post)
A new book by Hornby was in the offing, leading me to half-believe my trip to the store was not that big a waste of time..But then this was before I beheld the dreaded barcoded strip which quoted an astronomical two digit number (Before you take the jugdement calls, you should know this was not in rupee count, but in euros!)...So I continued to wander around aimlessly before stumbling onto the books of a Portugese author called Jose Saramago...I would like to think that the tag of "from the nobel prize laureate" had nothing to do with the fact that I was lured into his books, but then again I got to admit, it was a sight for the sore eyes amidst the Sanders' and the Sheldons..The more powerful reason for eventually picking the book was my quirky interest in trying out authors from distant lands, whose works are hard to unearth in this part of the world, unless they cross the threshold of popularity and their books get translated...
A credit card swipe, a messy subway sandwich and a long walk later, I arrived at the one place the tourists always have on their itinery - the Juhu beach...While I fully knew this was probably the wrongest time to be there (In fact I am actually unsure whether there is a right time), I had been curious to see what the thronging followers of Bombay's favourite God do there...The party was on in full force and so I meandered around to a relatively empty part of the beach ...Now this is definitely not one of the prettiest beaches, but no matter what, the sea never fails to engulf me within its calming arms..Unlike most other beaches, the Juhu beach does not have mounds of sand, from where you can overlook the waves....From where you stand, you are at perfect sea level...Inspite of the reverberating rhythms emanating from the maddening crowd on one side and the relentless bellowing of the horns behind you, it's quite a remarkable feeling to gaze into the dieing tides...And just like that, you manage to block out all that cacophony around you and feel total harmony...Funny, Isn't that the ultimate purpose of life? Heaven knows Juhu is the last place you would expect to find it...
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Bracketing my world....
The first trip to a new bookstore brings with it the need to spend the first few minutes in the store trying to cross the length and breadth of it to understand and digest the system of classification there. There is normally the universal classification of academic books from non-academic ones, which are further categorized to fiction, non-fiction, magazines, comics etc. After this, it gets difficult to draw everything into a tree structure ( Sorry, the evil Visio-enabled work side of me takes over..) So, there's children's literature, there's classics, there's literature (what the heck is the line of demarcation between the latter two? Or the methodology for classification is the sophisticated "eeny-meeny-miny-mo"??), there's science fiction, there's fantasy, there's theater, there's biography/auto-biography, there's music, there's arts, there's romance novels. And then it becomes a bigger maze...There's the system of classification based on the first name or it could be on the second name within each section. If it's on the second name basis, it's of course easier ( except if you are a fellow Southie with an intital and the presumption that the second name basis rule can be bent so that for such cases, it could be your first name...)But then this particular book store that I visited had the classification on the basis of the first name. So, where's the trouble now? I wanted to pick the great gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald! So is it a classic or a literature or is it fiction or is it under " recommends" ??And if I manage to solve that mystery, where do I look under? F or S?! Now don't even get me started on the non-fiction genre/sub genre classifications!! I would expected a Calvin and Hobbes to be cozily sitting on a rack in the comic book section, but somehow these torch bearers of this maze called a bookstore guided me to the management section for it!!
Also this entire compulsive need to bracket everything and put it under a header got me thinking...If I were to put the story of my life under a genre, what would it be? As much as I am a fan of thematic stories and concept albums, I think I would rather that my stories resembled that of a comic strip of jughead lieing on a hammock, with the highs being all those tasty munchies that are perched up and balanced on his belly and the lows being all those efforts to shoo away or swat those flies aiming from a crumb of those precious potato chips...No seriously, I don't want no damn Dan Brown thriller (?!) or a rib-tickling Hornby comedy for a life..There are absolutely no frikking way that it can be like racy adventure like " The Beach" or whatever...And it ain't like I have a confused upbringing in a foreign soil ala one of those Jhumpa Lahiri protaganists...There are some streaks of a sci-fi/fantasy novel whenever the boss' ugly head pops into the cubicle and I substitute that sorta plain ugliness with a sorta ugliness which gets some cookie points on the coolness quotient (So out goes the creature formerly called The Boss, and in comes a Jabba the Hut-tish creature - only thing he has bigger warts on his face and he also comes with what looks like heavy labyrinth of horns, but it's actually his hair and oh yeah, he also has very VERY floppy ears :D)...Of late, there has been a continuous occurences of tragedies, what with my daily trips to the ATM and the subsequent discoveries of ever dwindling cash in the account...And of course, there are escapades to Romance-shire on rare occasions, limited to Gael Garcia Bernal movies....But then notwithstanding all those uncharacteristic lapses, I would like to continue my typical "bum-on-chair" routine, thankyew...So,maybe that can be the name of a new genre be the "unclassifieds"...Hell, so much for the modern day contraptions! I think I would rather order my books online from now on..
Also this entire compulsive need to bracket everything and put it under a header got me thinking...If I were to put the story of my life under a genre, what would it be? As much as I am a fan of thematic stories and concept albums, I think I would rather that my stories resembled that of a comic strip of jughead lieing on a hammock, with the highs being all those tasty munchies that are perched up and balanced on his belly and the lows being all those efforts to shoo away or swat those flies aiming from a crumb of those precious potato chips...No seriously, I don't want no damn Dan Brown thriller (?!) or a rib-tickling Hornby comedy for a life..There are absolutely no frikking way that it can be like racy adventure like " The Beach" or whatever...And it ain't like I have a confused upbringing in a foreign soil ala one of those Jhumpa Lahiri protaganists...There are some streaks of a sci-fi/fantasy novel whenever the boss' ugly head pops into the cubicle and I substitute that sorta plain ugliness with a sorta ugliness which gets some cookie points on the coolness quotient (So out goes the creature formerly called The Boss, and in comes a Jabba the Hut-tish creature - only thing he has bigger warts on his face and he also comes with what looks like heavy labyrinth of horns, but it's actually his hair and oh yeah, he also has very VERY floppy ears :D)...Of late, there has been a continuous occurences of tragedies, what with my daily trips to the ATM and the subsequent discoveries of ever dwindling cash in the account...And of course, there are escapades to Romance-shire on rare occasions, limited to Gael Garcia Bernal movies....But then notwithstanding all those uncharacteristic lapses, I would like to continue my typical "bum-on-chair" routine, thankyew...So,maybe that can be the name of a new genre be the "unclassifieds"...Hell, so much for the modern day contraptions! I think I would rather order my books online from now on..
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Invisible Monster
" Brandy Alexander, the long stemmed latte queen supreme of the top drawer party girls, Brandy is gushing her insides out through a bullet hole in her amazing suit jacket.You wouldn't believe how much this suit cost.The markup is about zillion percent.The suit jacket has a little peplum skirt and wide lapels and shoulders. The single breasted cut is symmetrical except for the hole pumping out blood.
Then Evie starts to sob, standing there halfway up the staircase. Evie, that deadly virus of the moment. This is one cue to look at poor Evie, poor, sad Evie, hairless and wearing nothing but ashes and circled by the wire cage of her burned-up hooked skirt. Then Evie drops the rifle. With her dirty face in her dirty hands, Evie sits down and starts to boo-hoo, as if crying will solve anything. This rifle, this is a loaded thirty-aught rifle, it clatters down the stairs and skids out into the middle of the foyer floor, spinning on its side, pointing at me, pointing at Brandy, pointing at Evie, crying.
It's not that I'm some detached lab animal just conditioned to ignore violence, but my first instinct is maybe it's not too late to dab club soda on the bloodstain.
Most of my adult life so far has been me standing on seamless paper for a raft of bucks per hour, wearing clothes and shoes, my hair done and some fashion photographer telling me how to feel.
Him yelling, give me lust, baby.
Flash.
Give me malice.
Flash.
Give me detached existentialist ennui.
Flash.
Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.
Flash.
Probably it's the shock of seeing my own worst enemy shoot my other worst enemy is what it is. Boom, it's a win-win situation. This and being around Brandy, I've developed pretty big jones for drama."
Guess what Mr. Palahniuk...we have developed pretty big jones for drama too...and for the morbid and the macabre...for the exceptional originality and the equally terrifying inventions...for the no-holds-barred imagination and the intellectually ferocious fiction...for the eerily precise factual overtures...Not to mention the killing effect of his famed one-liners...Esoteric maybe, but No siree, it doesn't get better than this..
Note - the quoted passage is an excerpt from Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters - my favorite fictional piece of all time. For more snippets/reviews/fanlore on this work and more, watch this space...
Then Evie starts to sob, standing there halfway up the staircase. Evie, that deadly virus of the moment. This is one cue to look at poor Evie, poor, sad Evie, hairless and wearing nothing but ashes and circled by the wire cage of her burned-up hooked skirt. Then Evie drops the rifle. With her dirty face in her dirty hands, Evie sits down and starts to boo-hoo, as if crying will solve anything. This rifle, this is a loaded thirty-aught rifle, it clatters down the stairs and skids out into the middle of the foyer floor, spinning on its side, pointing at me, pointing at Brandy, pointing at Evie, crying.
It's not that I'm some detached lab animal just conditioned to ignore violence, but my first instinct is maybe it's not too late to dab club soda on the bloodstain.
Most of my adult life so far has been me standing on seamless paper for a raft of bucks per hour, wearing clothes and shoes, my hair done and some fashion photographer telling me how to feel.
Him yelling, give me lust, baby.
Flash.
Give me malice.
Flash.
Give me detached existentialist ennui.
Flash.
Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.
Flash.
Probably it's the shock of seeing my own worst enemy shoot my other worst enemy is what it is. Boom, it's a win-win situation. This and being around Brandy, I've developed pretty big jones for drama."
Guess what Mr. Palahniuk...we have developed pretty big jones for drama too...and for the morbid and the macabre...for the exceptional originality and the equally terrifying inventions...for the no-holds-barred imagination and the intellectually ferocious fiction...for the eerily precise factual overtures...Not to mention the killing effect of his famed one-liners...Esoteric maybe, but No siree, it doesn't get better than this..
Note - the quoted passage is an excerpt from Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters - my favorite fictional piece of all time. For more snippets/reviews/fanlore on this work and more, watch this space...
Friday, September 02, 2005
Version 1.1
A new lease of life...Incessant boredom...method to handle post lunch drudgery...Rebellion for liberation from mundane work...Message of nonchalance to the big bossman...Ploy to invite envy from neighbours...Urge to ramble/muse/criticize/rant/rave/scream/snicker/sob more vehemently and frequently...
Am not sure what caused this redefintion the blog and the plegde to make blogging a daily routine...Whatever it is, I do hope I don't give it up..What with my efforts through an entire afternoon to customize the page...Damn! wish I could delegate that too :D
Am not sure what caused this redefintion the blog and the plegde to make blogging a daily routine...Whatever it is, I do hope I don't give it up..What with my efforts through an entire afternoon to customize the page...Damn! wish I could delegate that too :D
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