I'm going to leave work late today

that's what my boss had to say

and I smile

My son is in bed with fever high

I try hard to hide a sigh

and I smile

My man ran away

and left me with bills to pay

and I smile

It seems I don't get tears anymore

the ends of my cheeks are sore

and I smile

I cut my hand doing the dishes today

and I come up to you and say

"Can I take your order now?"

and I smile

Dedicated to all the ever smiling waitresses of the world, and to the one who wants to be one.

Jaane Bi Do Yaaron?

Saw Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron again last night. Curiously, even though I was in splits watching Satish Shah as a dead body, Om Puri's drunk antics, and last but not the least that genius of a Draupadi scene, what hit me the most was the angst. I was surprised that this aspect had completely escaped me on previous viewings. The feeling of desperation that the youth feel when up against the powers that be was epitomized by one of the scenes in which Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani are at the railway station, their cash being snatched off by a hawaldar, are left without any money to go home. The look that Naseeruddin Shah gives as he asks, " Without ticket?", captures it all.

That got me thinking. We are currently one of the youngest countries in the world. Similar demographic points in the history of nations have coincided with major civil unrests. France had May '68, USA had its whole 1960s counterculture thing going, China had Tianamen. These civil unrests have more often than not led to laws being formed in favour of civil liberty, women and youth empowerment, and not to mention have been times of unparalleled artistic achievements.

For a nation which has more than 600 million citizens under the age of 30 and an equal number under the poverty line, we sure are a quiet lot.

On Endings

Lets say you are reading a book, or watching a movie or maybe a racy TV series, and the story has come to its climax. It has been okay this far, a few cheap thrills, maybe a couple of classier ones, but now everything hinges on that last move of the story writer. How good can he make that final brush stroke, on that would depend whether you recommend it to your friends or not. That's because anyone can get you to the edge of your seat, doesn't take all that much, a likable protagonist playing the high stakes for an honest cause maybe, or a point of decision that needs to be taken quick or else all hell would break lose. Its not the edge-of-the- seat sensationalism that matters, its the feeling you walk out with. Its whether the movie can make you sit and smile while the end credits roll, or a book, you flip back through the pages of, after you've done reading. It's all about the ending.

There is always an end that you have thought of, that's because you have seen too much TV already or read similar stuff. You know a million dramatic scenarios the story could end with. You could be one of two types depending on whether you want to be surprised, or you want it to end with a self assured smirk from you on your successfully second-guessing the story. I belong to the former.

I always feel cheated if my fare ends like I expected it to.

Which type are you?

Tall: /tol/ adj, long from bottom to top

The little byline of my blog title is borrowed from Frank Herbert's Dune. Absolutely love it. So succinctly describes life and our constant struggle with finding some logic to all that happens around us.

Had a similar moment of realization, last night. Had gone with a friend to the nearby Starbucks. We usually order our coffees grande, and I ever bothered to find out what the other sizes were. Until, we saw one guy order mocha, tall. I couldn't quite see what was the glass he walked off with. My friend, said that 'tall' was in fact the shortest  glass available at Starbucks. I refused to believe this, I mean, there must be someone pretty educated and sensible guy up there in the Starbucks chain of command who would have come with these names, how could tall possibly be the shortest. It would be an insult to the word. Well, I was so cocksure that the world is logical, that I placed a bet, it's not possible, the tallest glass has to be 'tall' while the shortest glass could be called something else.

Alas, i walked out of the coffee shop with a lost bet, a bruised ego and  in a very confused state of mind about the affairs of the world.

Trust Dreams, Trust Your Heart and Trust Your Story

In midst of all this confusion called Life, often also given the very onerous sounding sobriquet, "The Real World", we forget the things that used to make us smile. Then one day you run across something that brings it all back.

The following I found on YouTube, on looking up Neil Gaiman, while reading the Sandman series.

Listening to this was like sitting in a room, drinking coffee with Alice, Baba Yaga, Ivan the youngest, Jack with his handful of beans, Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling and their whole gang, discussing on what to do and what not to do. The complex yet so simple rules they live their life by, and the cliched yet so profound lessons you learn from them.

Then you realize that all the answers you've been looking for, have already been told to you, hidden in these long forgotten stories and all your trials and tribulations are but simple manifestations of what these characters went through while you were tucked away in your bed sucking your thumb.

Hope you enjoy the following video, nice little funny introduction in the beginning.

Neil Gaiman's "Instructions", text is here.

If It's Raining, It Must Be Mumbai

On several occasions I have missed by a hair's breadth a life and career in Mumbai. This did not prevent me from having these short tempestuous visits to the city. A day, at best two, a whirlwind of visiting friends and family while managing somehow to squeeze in my actual purpose of visit. In these short associations I have developed a love-hate relationship with the city. I wouldn't ever be able to give you a consistent reply on whether I would prefer living in the city or not. The Love-Mumbai alter ego of mine, is completely enchanted among other things, by the romantic names of the areas. You call a friend and each one mouths one such name after another, "Come to Worli, party tonight!", "I live in Bandra", "Mulund dude, its f***ing far, but you have to come!". These names, of mysterious origins, hang in your mind, free of any literary, historical or political significance, just associating themselves with your memories of people, parties and conversations.

And then on the other hand there is the rain, every time I step out of CST, it is either raining, is about to rain, or has just finished, making the streets reflect the sodium-lamp street lights and filling the air with that typical Mumbai smell, which I guess, is that of a sewer overflowing.  As I make casual conversation with the taxi-wala, I look out of the half open Premier Padmini window to see the late night traffic comprising of the ultra rich tipping out of discs and pubs and the ultra poor trying to find a place to shelter themselves from mother nature's next lashing. 

I remember sometime ago, I, though unsuccessfully,  was trying my hand at writing lyrics for a tune that my ,then ,flatmate had (He meanwhile has gone ahead and started his own band, Shor Bazaar!). After some soul searching on our part for a protagonist of the song, we came upon the idea of a middle aged lady-of-the-night, wearing lots of makeup and treating her clientele in a world weary way. Halfway through writing the piece both of us came to an unanimous conclusion that the lady is none other than Mumbai. Beautiful, seductive, wise, old and ragged but still can look a knocker when she wants to.

On Singers, Poets and Painters

How can they do it?

They haven't lived my life,

Yet they they speak of things that only I can know or feel.

My darkest thoughts, my most cherished memories,

my moments of depression, my dreams,

they pass it off in the tersest of phrases.

Is my life so ordinary, that

the broadest brush strokes describe it

Or is it so extraordinary that

they make a living out of it.

पलकों की दीवारों में न जाने क्या छिपाए बैठी हो
दर्द ऐसा कौनसा है जो लबों तक नही लाती हो
हम भी आशिक पुराने हैं कहे देते हैं
सीधे दिल का रास्ता निकाल लेते हैं

Towards Gumudipundi...

Don't blame me guys, I am seeing everything through sepia tinted glasses.



Things I miss about my stay in Chennai:

The local train rides.
The walk back from work, feeling all angsty.
The weekends in Thiruvanmyur, with home cooked food, TV, movies and general masti.
"Sandeep, where are you?"
Post dinner discussions at Bachu da, munching on "Bournvita".
The Cookouts.
The Philosophical discussions.
The Cribroom.
Truth or Dare.
Tomato Soup in Marketing Office.
Samosas at South Gate.
The Ping Pong Consultants.
The Third Man who was never interested in the match.
The Parties.
The People.
Landmark.
The Grand AUT Lunches.
The Masala Peanuts.
TVT Times
Snooker & Pool Matches
Sitting in my porch, sipping on Apple Juice, solving The Hindu crossword, listening to my flatmate strumming on his guitar.
Zara's.
Sathyam.

The Amul hoarding near Spencer's that changed every week.
Never Trust a Skinny Chef

There's possibly loads more. Please feel free to refresh my memory.
It wasn't all pleasant, but when you look back, it was kind of fun too.
I'll borrow lines from Greenday and say,
For what it's worth, it was worth all the while.

Sunset

Town Square

Nuit De La Musee

Call to Arms

Spotlight

Life and Art

Streetlight

Victory

Joyride

Bliss

Divine Shadow

Frozen in Time

Face in the Crowd

Desert

Bird's Eye View

Before Sunset

Train of Thoughts

A lot of my most cherished memories are associated with train journeys. Probably because every train ride, for the entire duration of my student life, marked the beginning or the end of vacation season. Every journey was undertaken in states of extreme bouts of joy, if vacations were starting, or glum sadness, if it was the journey back. This, compounded with the fact that train rides in India are a complete assault on the human nervous system make for a heady mix of emotions and sensory activity that give one a high which is not easy to forget.


#1: New Delhi to Bhubaneswar, Utkal Express sometime in 1990
2nd class compartment, peak of holiday season. The bogey looks like a vertical sardine tin. The train stops at Gaya. Another loud horde of people get in to occupy space that never existed before. I and Mom are perched up on the upper side berth. As usually happens with me in such situations, I suddenly realize that I'm feeling thirsty. I look up to mom and tell her I want water. Our 2 liter 'water camper' is under the lower seat. She throws me an expression somewhere between anger and desperation. She looks down at the crowd, looks at me, and whispers, "Play along". She turns around, puts on a worried face and shouts out to the crowd. "Bacha ulti karne walaa hai!". I roll up my eyes, throw my head over the berth, stick my tongue out and make gross, pukey, guttural sounds. The mass of people below dissolves in seconds, amongst shouts of "jooti sunghao", "neembu chatao". Mom steps down cooly, pulls out the water camper, fills a glass and hands it to me with a wink. During subsequent theatrical performances of my life I owed my confidence to that one moment.



#2: Jammu to New Delhi 1989. Jammu Taavi Express
We had a dog. A white, Lhasa Apso pup, and we called him Snowy. Our family was going to Delhi for summer vacations and we had to drop off Snowy at my uncle's place there. None of us wanted to put poor little Snowy into the pet carriage. So, we cooked up a little contraption to carry snowy in with us in the passenger cabin. It was one of those old time plastic vegetable shopping baskets. We lined the inside with a few towels and rags. Drilled holes so that Snowy could breathe and left a couple of bones for him to munch on. The train ride started and Snowy was well and fine for sometime. Then he sarted whining. We would open the windows to let the sound in, to drown out his whimpering. Or if it got too much, Dad or Mom would undertake the extremely silly looking activity of walking a vegetable basket up and down the corridor of the train. I also remember that when the TTE came for checking the tickets, all three of us gave the basket one mighty kick to tell Snowy, shut up!



I end here, doesn't mean I have run out of such incidents, there are numerous more. Like I said, a significant proportion of my life's memories are associated with train journeys. Not just incidents like these which are complete in themselves, but also momentary snatches of associations and recollections like the kulladh ki chai, jhaal mudhi, the train ride skirting Chilika Lake, waking up in the middle of the night and asking someone, bhai sahab kaunsa station hai? And that ultimate plea of desperation which somehow doesn't ever have the impact you expect it to have, Mere paas reservation hai!

Mobile Epiphany

After having lived in Europe without a mobile phone for a couple of weeks now and trying to get a low cost connection, I realized how easy we have it in India when it comes to mobile networks. Believe me, we are living in a dream world. Cheap call rates, the best of models, free choice of networks.

It wasn't long back in my 3rd year year of engineering that I remember I was standing in a kilometer long queue trying to get my BSNL sim. By the time I was passing out it wasn't rare to see the high end models in the hands of the freshers, and by the time I started working, mobiles were like fashion, if you didn't have the latest model in your hand you were so passe. A year at most would be the time before a mobile phone model went from being the latest in thing to i-would-rather-be-caught-dead-than-be-seen-with-one.

My opinion here was precipitated by Lekhni's realization, she says,

"...We cannot switch providers if we don’t like the service, or unlock our phones without the provider’s “approval”. We cannot buy just any phone - because phone models are “customized” by the providers, so all phones will not work with all providers. So if you want an iPhone, for instance, you are stuck with AT&T. You also won’t see all the features of the phone, just those that your provider shows you. For more ringtones, or wallpapers, you have to pay up."

Read more on her blog here.

My guess would be that this is the kind of advantage that comes with late initiation but instant adoption of technology that India experienced with mobile phones.

A big thank you to the regulators and more power to those who champion the cause of the consumer.

Of Goodbyes...

Met a fellow geek on a work related visit recently. We struck off immediately, with such eclectic topics of conversation as our crush on Dana Scully, Orion, music, relationships, camera specifications, Dilbert, careers, curvature of light, rainfall on Neptune and hydrocarbons on Titan.

Friendship is easy to forge when you are bunked in with a guy in a 4m x 3m steel container for 4 days bang in the middle of nowhere.

When I was leaving the place yesterday, our cars crossed and we met up on the road, had a shake of hands, and as we got back into our cars we promised that we’ll find each other on orkut.

As my car drove on serpentine roads amongst rice fields, in a semi-somnolent state, I thought. I thought that, had this day been in the pre-internet era, we would have made a slightly grander ceremony of the farewell and surely the word ‘goodbye’ would have figured somewhere in our conversation.

In these times, where every person you ever met, can become a little green blinking light on your computer screen, what happens to goodbyes? As we go on life like this, are we turning worse at saying goodbyes simply because we don’t need to any more? Or maybe we are bringing Elton John’s words to life, friends no longer say goodbye, they just say “add me”.

Salaa!!

Remembered this story from my childhood.

I have a cousin, lets call her N. I wouldn't give here any more information about her for fear of revenge if she finds out that I have been making fun of her. In all probability she doesn't remember the story as it happened when she was in class 1.

One evening N was sitting on her father's lap. Here's how the conversation went:

N: "Daddy, how is sonu bhayiya (thats me :) ) related to you?"
D: "He's my bhatija."

N: "hmm....how is aie(maternal grandmother) related to you?"
D: "She's my saas."

N: "hmmm....how is Biranchi Mama related to you??"
D: "He's my salaa." ....

N: "salaa!!!!??????"
D: "yes"

N: "salaaaaaaaa!!!!!?????"
D: "yes sweetie."

N: "aur kutta bhi????"