The year that was - 2011.

Ok it's that time of the year when nondescript political commentators, film-critics, sports columnists - at times all rolled into one like indian news channels who have the same panel of 'experts' discussing defence deals and cricketing debacles - have a party writing about their top 10, bottom 10 and middleton. The end result is some megabytes of cyber waste.

Me being the not-so considerate cyber user has decided to contribute to that ... here goes my list of top i-dunno-wat

a) A wonderful 3 months trip to Copenhagen....had some lovely as well as not-so lovely time

Lovely bcoz of the following reasons

• Blond girls
• Blond girls in clear heels
• Blond girls playing volleyball in the beach

   Err...that's the top 3 reasons..incredible isn't it. The other ones

• A place where indian english and accent is not the funniest
• Ppl stopping and watching us with confused looks...when we are playing cricket that is.
• Was back to my bachelor days..and realized my booze resistance is not the same as it was 5years ago..ah age is catching up
• Ofcoz was paid in a currency which was more than INR
• Blond ...ok I stop it here.

No-so lovely bcoz

• Missed the chaos
• Had a visit to germany- which made me feel why didn't the americans nuke germany...argh..hated the place and no i aint buying a BMW or Audi or Merc ever ever in my life... well not that there were too many affordable..either way.
• And yeah..i was single..come on there was no one to blame when things go wrong.

b) Moved into my new apartment. There is a saying in tamil "Get a wedding done and get a house built".. means both are financially exhaustive. One can never estimate the costs and none ever knows all the nuances.

If building the house part is smoother,trust me the moving in and settling down will make sure it sucks out  everything left. Guess I can write a whole series of blogs on this.

c) Managed to stage 2 shows with my theatre group. Was a miracle indeed,what with 80% of the team members being offshored.

d) Hearing quite a few voices speaking inside me..and asking me to write a book. I hope it would be a bigger best seller than some of the holy scriptures going around.

e) There was some point in the year where I was completely lost with gadgets, bikes n cars..was using lot of smileys in mails and worst started loving justin beiber's music(i know that's a oxymoron)..phew..it was like some teenage girl's spirit taking over me. Thanks to non-stop rambo movies, absolut, JD and their ilk, the spirits are gone now tho.

New-year wishes..
- Wish SRK stops acting...Anna stops fasting...and obama starts working
- To enter politics
- Stop drinking
- Reduce social networking
- Write more on this blog :-).

Last but not the least..I wish the calendar app used by mayans had crashed,hence there was no 2013 for them ;-).. the world is still so beautiful...

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Some more enlightenment...

It was yet another day where I was enjoying my morning snooze and was cursing my idea of joining the gym...Under the pretext of reading the newspaper I decided to steal some more sleep... to my horror one news article woke me up with a rude shock. A political party in tamilnadu had demanded full fledged ban on alcohol..

I mean ok lets not look into the credentials of this party which is pretty much a political whore, changing partners for every election..let's not consider the party's leaders had openly & unapologetically stated is ready for coalition with anyone who is ready to give his son a ministerial berth. Still what makes him so insane, I mean there are lakhs if not crores of drunkards in the state and he is going to lose the few votes which he manages to get !!.

After reading this shocker, I went to a state of trance...yup that state where the sleepy part of your brain plays,fights and finally convinces the other part, the one which is urging you to wake up,brush and get on.

At this magical moment I received an enlightenment...about how bars/pubs/toddy shops are so similiar to places of worship. Following are some of the similarities I could get hold of...

1) Both give peace from current state of misery

2) Both give a high [devotional high and the drunken high]

3) When this high reaches a crescendo we can hear voices speaking to us

4) Until the time the order is given and it is delivered to the table, the bartender is given the same respect as that of a priest/mullah

5) We fight for our beliefs. My friends believe vodka is a sissy drink and i believe whisky is for low-lives. Yeah at times this may lead to battles.

6) Brotherhoods grow.

7) When we leave, we are at peace with the world

8) Women are not given equal rights.

9) Both have created world's greatest philosophers

10) And yeah....We pay tips

Lets hope that very soon the religious drunkards start their own political party,to overcome exploitation...infact demand drinking habits based census next...jai vodka!

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Harry Potter and the misery with ISPs....

Yeah very true,that would be the title of the next HP book had JKR been in Chennai[or any part of india for that matter]. I feel I am back to the neolithic, chalcolithic ages thanks to the atrocious indian ISPs. One fine day in my facebook-gtalk filled heaven horror stuck, the net was not working,i call up my ISP[hathway] and this is how the conversation went

Harassed Me[HM]: Hathway? My number is 17xxxx
Customer care[CC]: Yes sir. How can I help you.
HM : No internet here
CC: Are you from chennai?
HM: Yes.
CC: We have stopped service in chennai from today
HM: Whaaat? I never got an intimation
CC: Oh right now i intimated you sir
HM: What the...this is information,not intimation.
CC: Not much of difference
HM: Just last week I paid for the renewal,why did get renewals.
CC: You can collect it from our office by giving back the modem [bangs the phone]

Immediately I dial the other ISP-Airtel,he sends his agent in less than an hour and all formalities are done and connection promised in 3days,happy that order in heaven is restored I go to blore for a fun time[later about this].After 15days, 10mails, 20 calls and 30 abusive sms-es Airtel doesnt seem to relent.They are pretty focussed on their goal you see "harass the customer",finally I decide to go for BSNL..aah the babu there took the application form kept it aside and said the connection may or may not come in 15days, inspired by the meteorology department I say.

So there goes my life without internet,blogging,facebook,gtalk..ahemm ahemm sites..things which I thought I will never live without.Wish I can do a avada kedavra and wipe off all these customer unfriendly organizations.

Phew..what a sense of relief,sorry for all those who were forced to read the above cribbing, afterall life is not a bed of roses all time. Especially if you are a customer in india.

Coming back to the blore trip,it was amazing..in the sense there are two cities which are say 5hours apart and everything changes. Especially the social circuit.In one finding a restaurant which provides good food with booze is a herculean task,while in the other we can find one in every street.While one has shady govt controlled wine shops prividing IMFL the other had spanky pubs with a great variety to offer.Err..I am on to another crib loop, anyway we had a blast of a time in HRC,it is a wonderful place with great ambience,lovely stuff and [most importanlty]service,would keep going back again and again. The visit was for a wedding of blog pals[both the guy n gal met thru blogs] and yeah we also met a kiddo blogger and it was time well spent.

Then comes the question which I face very often nowadays-changes post engagement. Well the courting period is pretty courteous[so far] and not too many changes in life,though I do spend some extra minutes over the phone..say 100 minutes,sorry am bad in converting minutes to hours :D. And for all those single folks out there who are taunting me with their freedome of movement [and other things] I have found some reasons to get married,listing some here

• I have someone to share my EMIs
• No more stag entries
• All those old uncles/aunties will stop asking when I am getting married[maaan this was a real pain in you-know-where]
• No friend/colleague will embarass me by introducing me to his/her awkward looking pal with the hope that we will get hitched
• I can stop blaming everything on the government
• I get an entire branch to my family tree [which also means few more tickets sold for the rebelz shows :P]
• And yeah you don't need to have a blog to crib

I know there are a 1000 more reasons not to get married but then since I am on this side of the shore I get dyslexic when I try reading them :P

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