A

Dear A,

Come tomorrow, it will be a year since I got booted out. So, I thought I should thank someone who has played a big part in my ressurection in this period. I know you would say that you did nothing.

But, let me just tell you, though it might not be such a big deal for you, it meant a lot to me. A hell lot more than you can ever imagine!

A drowning man will clutch on to whatever little twig that can possibly keep him alive. I was almost sucked into the cesspool of desperation, and I would like to thank the rope which helped me climb out of the quicksand, even though the rope itself thinks that it is a small twig.

I have heard that greatness is in not making a big deal of one's positive contribution to other's lives.

And you are great!

Regards,
K

Just another rant

All it took us to forget this was a four day weekend. We got out of our homes, and shouted slogans against the ineptness of the leaders in handling our security. Everyone from Barkha 'senti' Dutt to Rajdeep 'hyper' Sardesai claimed this as the emergence of the youth power. People like me, who were doing their work in office without indulging in the brouhaha, were jibed at for being insensitive! Come elections, we have now seen how 'youngsters' are active in participation. No amount of Tata tea will keep us awake, hum kabhi nahi jaagenge!

'We have lost faith in the system' is the common refrain. If you have lost faith in the system and don't want to get your fucking ass to the polling booth, then its your job to change the system for the better! Stop rocking in that armchair, wearing those Che Guevara t-shirts and get the hell out of your houses and vote, else just shut up and drink Tata tea! :P

I know this post is not very coherent and structured and all, but I don't give a damn. I am just bloody pissed off with a turnout of less than 40% in my city.

Jai ho!

Weekend Whine

After sending off my family friend at the Pune Airport after his interview, I planned to surprise my friend who works in Pune. So, I sent some so called cryptic messages, in the form of prediction for the day and other crappy stuff. But they were easily decoded, with my overeagerness giving it away, a bit too easily.

So, I called to confirm the so called surprise visit. But, quoting Palahniuk, the weather was partially cloudy and was getting hazier. So, we decided to check mutual availability at around 5:30, so that we could catch the Indrayani.

However, call it fate or will, the expected non-availability was confirmed. The energy levels went for a toss and the eager quick walk was transformed to a slow heavy trudge.

It seems, this depressive virus shifted from me to my rickshaw driver as well. As a result, he took exactly thirteen years and four months to reach Pune Station. Drawing full energy from my frail frame, I dashed off to the tickets counter and found myself in Tirupati-sized queues. After being fined 250 bucks for loitering in the station without a ticket just the previous day, I did not want to take another shot at my nervous-face-in-front-of-ticket-checker. So had to bite my teeth and stand in the queue for a gruelling seventeen minutes and buy the tickets.


Indrayani was on platform 2. So, I ran, and ran, and ran. But, she slowly, but surely, was getting away from me.

As I was getting down from the last steps, I could see the huge 'X' mark on the last bogie. A million hands bade me good bye.

Since, there were no trains for about a couple of hours, there was no choice but to go by bus.

In between, my mind was split between whether to call my friend and inform about the train miss and suggest going in bus together or otherwise. Going by the apparent discomfort in the previous conversation, I chose the latter, not knowing what my twisted fate had in store for me.

After waiting for about half an hour, I caught a volvo bus towards Dadar, deciding to get down at Panvel. The fast moving images at the window, brought back some old memories of my previous visit to Pune. As I was getting lost in my own world, I was brought back to the real world by my neighbor, who puked on me. The idiot forgot to use the packet provided for the same and conveniently decided to use my t-shirt as a toilet sink. I was almost getting a vomit bath. Eww!

Now stop making faces, and understand the situation, you idiots!

The only good thing was that the bus had almost reached Kalamboli where I was to get down and catch a town bus to my place. There was just a small problem. I was already Mr. Stinksalot, and the stop was in the middle of the highway and it was getting very late, thus reducing the already low probability of finding the town.

After a 15 minute wait, at the godforsaken bus stop, I caught a town bus to my place. As soon as I entered the bus, everyone gave me nasty look, with their cringed noses. I am sure they thought I was drunk and had puked on myself! Haha!

My stink had a benefit. No one was ready to sit beside me and I got to use an entire two-seat and sit comfortably. But then, a comfortable life puts forward uncomfortable existential questions. I replayed the entire day in my mind and could not stop smiling. Probably, now the co-passengers were quite sure about me being drunk!

Somebody was singing somewhere,

I hope you had the time of your life.

Conversion...

...from humans to cattle, is complete!

Ctrl C + Ctrl V

Saw this as a status message of an acquaintance in G-talk:

Never make someone a priority in your life, when you are just an option in their life.


WOW!

Note to an atheist..

GOD exists! Period.

Rubbing it in

I was a bit angry with a couple of people over the weekend. So, yesterday I took it out on the hapless cricket ball, by hurling it as fast as I could, and whacking it as hard as I could. In the process, I forgot that I am neither Brett Lee nor Kevin Pietersen.
Result: I had to miss office today since I pulled a back muscle.

This is what I hate about cricket. You don't feel anything while playing, with the adrenalin flowing all around. But the next day morning, you feel terrible, like a bad hangover after a great party.

So, I called sick and stayed at home. The doctor was surprised with 'cricket' as a reason for my bad back. She gave me an injection on my lower back. Trust me, it is the worst place to get an injection. It feels like the needle is piercing your brain!

After the injection, she gave me her prescription and asked me to come back if the pain persists. Just as when I was about to leave, she said, with a snigger,

'And yeah, NO sex for a week!'

Yeah, right!

Spirit?!

Of late, after the terrorist attacks, there has been lot of talk about how the (in)famous 'Mumbai Spirit' has been lost this time and all that jazz. Frankly, it doesn't make any sense. I went to office just like normal.

Yes, I was intrigued by the bullet holes in the glass pane of the announcer's cabin in VT, the bullet marks on the pavement, the broken windowpanes of the Oberoi, the presence of gun wielding, bullet proof (?) jackets wearing policemen in the station, resignation of bar-girl chasing and safari suit wearing home ministers. But it didn't bother me that much, since I had a job to do. I think the same goes with every other Mumbaikar. This is because we simply cannot afford to stop working and stay put at homes, since we are afraid, now that we might be killed in a terrorist attack. Compulsion is called 'spirit' here!

I don't think this terrorist attack is a problem to the 'spirit'. People might be a little scared and scarred, but they know they cannot escape the randomness of terrorist attacks. If you are unlucky that the terrorist chooses your location as a target, then its time to say goodbye to this world!

What probably can, and does hurt the spirit, is the divisive rampages that occur every now and then. In that case, there is no randomness.

You know you will be attacked.

Time

Monday, 24th November, 9:33 pm
Venue: VT Station

I catch the 9:33 Dombivli Semi-Fast and settle down with a packet of samosas in a window seat and start watching 'Two and Half men' on my ipod.

Tuesday, 25th November, 9:33 pm
Venue: VT Station
I catch the 9:33 Dombivli Semi-Fast. This time I don't get a window seat. I settle down and start reading about a Trading System.

Wednesday, 26th November, 9:33 pm
Venue: VT Station
I wasn't there. I left early, just a tad.


I don't know whether to rejoice about my lucky survival or feel sorry for the people, who were feasted upon, by blood hungry, heartless, non-living things.

Sevittu machine

Navratri got over last week. We generally have golu at our place during Navratri. I really looked forward to the golu since it meant, I would get sundal and in addition, cute girls come home wearing silk dresses and sing carnatic songs.

It's been three years since I had been at home for golu. But, as some distant relative had passed away, we couldn't have it this year. Still, some pattis had come home for some pooja.

I was home at that time, sitting quietly in a corner and listening to my ipod. A patti came close to me and was curious about the ipod.

'Yenna da ithu, kaathu kekathava machine maathri?'

!!!!!!!

'Illa paatti, ithu per Ipod. Ithula paattu kekalaam'

'Oh, transistor-aa?'

!!!!

'Aama athu maathri thaan'

'Seri kaami, naanum kekren.'

'Inthaango.'

I swear to god, I am not making this up. But this is what happened next.

I was listening to Pehli nazar mein. It was almost over and I gave it to her when the song was about to change.

Note: She doesn't know too much hindi.

She put the earphones and was looking at the small screen.

'Saawariya Saawariyaa.....'

'Yennada ithu, yenna saawariya nu kekkarthu!'

!!!!!

I immediately forwarded it to the next song. This is where I hate my playlist.

Next song blared on her earphones.

'Saawariya saawariya..' This was from Swades.

'Che, yennada ithu, yenna thitindey irukku. Poda neeyum un sevittu machinum'

Oranje Originale

Today we had a soccer fest in my company. After my name was forcibly put by my well intentioned colleagues, I had no option but play. I was put in Orange Originals team and was given a cute orange coloured kit too.
Aha! Chance to be a Nistelrooy, a Persie, a Sneijder or if lucky, a frigging Van Basten!

As usual is with amateur football, everyone, I mean everyone, wanted to play forward. We had a mail list of my team mates where we were discussing about at which positions people would play.
There were 9 in the team, of which 6 wanted to be forwards and claimed to be good strikers and bad tacklers. Rest three, including me, didn't even bother sending a read receipt to those mails. What enthusiasm!

So the day arrived. I should say, the event was brilliantly planned. 100 people playing football, running 10 miles each, on a nice, soothing 40 degree celsius, 95% humid day. There was a shamiana, where tasty breakfast was provided. Cheese sandwiches, masala dosa and the works.
Were we going to play football?

After some passing and shooting practice, we decided our spots. Since I could run fast and had a non existent left leg, I was made a right winger.
Yay!!! Beckham!!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The goal kick from rival keeper reached me. I somehow kept it in control with my, now bulging, paunch and started running with the ball.

Huff. Puff.

I looked around to see if I could pass to anyone. My captain was shouting at me to pass the ball to him. The only problem was, he was standing even behind the goalkeeper of the other team, since there was no offside, and there were exactly 5 players of the opposition between us

So, I did something which was vaguely close to dribbling and neared one of their midfielders.
I tried to pass the ball to my team mate, but my footballing talent betrayed me, as I flung my leg above the ball and the ball stayed there itself. But this fooled the other guy and he went off balance. So I could go straight on. Wow! A fake pass!

I started running again.

Huff. Puff.

This time, a small defender, roughly the size of Inzamam ul Haq and with a very close resemblance to Evander Holyfield, marched towards me, like an animal that is no longer existent in financial markets.

To say that I was afraid would be an understatement. I didn't know what to do.

Out of instinct, or pure luck, or whatever, I pushed the ball between his legs and before he could turn, I ran around him, and took the ball and somehow with a huge amount of divine intervention planted it into the net.

GOOAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!!

I just went fucking crazy. Didn't know what to do. Put the jersey over my head and ran around the ground, showing my paunch and my poonal in the process to the crowd around. Drama King!

God, I still can't believe this. I really can't.

But the sad part is, this historic event was neither photographed nor captured in a video.

Just like Kapil Dev's 175, yet another episode of sporting excellence went away uncaptured, but will always be in public memory, atleast my memory. :-)

Trigger my passion

This weekend I watched Rock on for the fourth time. Yes, I downloaded the music one month before the movie instead of buying the CD as advised at the end of the movie. However, I now think that I have more than compensated for that by watching it four times in expensive multiplexes and gorging on unbelievably overpriced coffees, pop corn and soft drinks.

Every time I watch the movie, it sends me into a downward spiral. As you know this movie is about an investment banker who is really passionate about music and stuff. I know that's not the core story, but that's what is relevant to me. :-)

I keep thinking, 'What is my passion?'

In terms of extra curricular abilities, my mom used to quote Dilbert -
'Don't worry that you do not have any talent. 95% of the people in this world do not have any talent.'

I don't know whether it was actually said by Dilbert, but I sincerely hope it's true. I like the comfort in being in an overwhelming majority. But again, its the minuscule minority that gains maximum attention, like girls in a mechanical engineering course.

The problem that kills me is that I do not seem to have any passion. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Then, I tried to define passion as something you really love to do, to see if that way I can decode something.

After some hard thinking, I realized, I was very passionate about sleeping. I loved to sleep for 10 hours. But that is something like an unaffordable luxury nowadays. Still, a passion for sleeping doesn't lead you anywhere.

Hmm..what else?

I am passionate about potato chips, watching cricket at home sitting in my sofa and eating vadams, listening to music, watching cheap tamil movies and the likes.

Did you observe something? Nothing is productive.

I mean, I do not play cricket, I watch cricket.
I do not play an musical instrument, I just play my Ipod.
I do not cook. I just eat.

What a waste of life!

Rock on rant

Dear Abhishek Kapoor,

Congratulations for making a very good movie with some amazing music. I understand that you took great pains in developing the characters. However, as a part of the now maligned investment banking community, I would like to raise our disapproval of the far too real portrayal of an investment banker in the movie.
I mean, come on, yes, we live absofuckinglutely sad lives. But that doesn't give you any right to show our not-so-happening life to the truest colour and dilute away our already diminishing value proposition to the womankind! We had been living in denial and were perfectly comfortable living that way. But you changed all that.

My friends are now asking me, when I will get married, so that they can shift next to my house and give my wife company while I spend time with my first wife, my job!
You tell me, how should I handle queries about my friends' taunts about me finding paying guest accomodation inside my office!

We were so happy, with people looking at us with newspaper reports flaunting our over hyped, wrongly calculated and ridiculously misquoted, high salaries. Now, they look at the same newspapers and call us to find out the latest score, the number of people fired in our firms. And your film has added fuel to the fire. Anyways, I hope you understand our feelings and make sure you do not show any investment banker in poor light again. For all you know, you might need help from one of us while listing your production company or managing your wealth. :P

Yours faithfully,
Karthik

PS: Forgot to mention, thanks for letting the investment banker have the cutest wife in the movie. If only that was true in real life......sigh!

Paalitiksh

Of late, we have been seeing some violent protests in a couple of places in the country by some political leaders, who do not, as of now, have that much a standing in their respective electoral regions. I began to ponder whether, these so called populist leaders, were really there for the concerns of the people or something else. My logic was, if they were really concerned about the people, they wouldn't be harassing others in the process, right?

Then my friend told me a story and things fell in place.

Some years back, a Korean auto major opened a plant in a port city in South India. It was provided vast swathes of land, near a highway, almost free of charge. Nobody opposed it then. The reason was, both mouths, ruling and opposition, were stuffed. The ruling CM got a percentage on each car sold from there and the opposition got a flat rate so that there would no voice raise against the deal.

This did not happen with the Indian auto major, who setup a plant recently. The CM did not request for anything 'on the side'. So, they industrialists completely forgot about something called 'opposition'. Their beaks had to be wetted. Their silence had to be bought. But it wasn't and you can see the results now.

Another interesting situation is happening in the financial capital, where a certain leader is trying to whip up linguistic fervor in anything and everything. We shouldn't be be surprised if we see requests for a regional anthem in the local language instead of the sanskrit one we have now.

This is being done for primarily for two reasons. One, to corner the vote bank of the hardcore linguistic fanatics. And two, to position himself, as a nuisance generator. Greater the nuisance value, greater will be the 'water' provided to quench the 'thirst' in case of any new projects in future. There is no need to be a ruling party to ask for 'water', it depends on how much nuisance you can create.

-

We had just reached Neyveli at around 3:45 am after a torrid 6 hour bus journey on a road which resembled the moon's surface with craters bigger than Wankhede Stadium. Probably, Armstrong took a photograph on these roads instead of the moon.
We had just settled down that my uncle got a call.
'Who's this so early in the morning?'
When he picked up the phone and started talking, his facial expression changed instantly. The news was of my Athimber thatha's (My mom's uncle) death.
I wouldn't say this was totally unexpected, but didn't expect it so soon, since he had been very sick and was under constant treatment.
He had died in a hospital in Chennai and they were bringing his corpse to Neyveli,a journey of about 200kms. My uncle asked me to help him in making the arrangements for the ceremony.

That's when it hit me. This was going to be my first encounter with a dead body. I have never been to a death ceremony in my life, have never seen a dead body so close, infact, I have lived inside a cocoon so far.

I was amazed by the speed of arrangements by my uncle.
How could he be so unemotional and do everything so efficiently?
How could he bargain with people at this moment?
How could he tie up the stretcher on which the corpse was supposed to be carried?
How could he?

Then, it arrived. There was crying, wailing, chest beating, hair pulling, and silence.
I caught a glimpse of my dear athimber with whom I had played night long carrom games, watched and dissected every cricket match, discussed about principles of metallurgy, discussed about maniratnam and balachander, discussed about BJP and Congress, discussed everything.

All those moments came swirling back into my mind and gushed out of eyes as tears. I couldn't avoid myself seeing him so cold, so blue, so pale, so lifeless. I couldn't believe he has become an it.

The last rites were performed and they started pouring rice on him. I went out, brought a pack of carrom coins and placed it on his leg and took his blessing and left the room, crying for my friend, my carrom rival, my cricket co-supporter and my cousin grand dad.

His son, later, came over and hugged me and said,
'We burned him along with those coins. I think he will be happy.'
I had no doubt that he would be.

He She

He didn’t understand the complicated admissions process. Hence, he met her to understand the process better and arrive at a better strategy for his brother’s admission. She explained to him in a very lucid way. He was impressed by her way of keeping things simple.

They discussed about admissions for about fifteen minutes and then talked about everything else for god-knows-how-many hours. She made him some nice filter coffee and he, in turn, gave her the address of a famous trust which gives out prestigious scholarships. They exchanged numbers and he left, telling that he will keep her updated about his brother’s admission.

Days passed. They exchanged messages ranging from enquiries about the admission to silly forwards. His brother didn’t get through in Round 1 and he was disappointed. She told him everything would be fine and suggested he should watch MMKR, which he promptly did.

After a week involving a couple of unintentional bump-ins and longish phone conversations, his brother got through into a great college and he was ecstatic. He immediately called her up and excitedly told her about it. They again started talking. Talking about things they had in common and did not.

She was cute, intelligent, smart, funny and bold.

Bold, because she asked him out, without any apprehension, much to his surprise. Probably it was her age or her hormones or both. He didn’t know how to react.

He still doesn’t. Because, she’s seventeen. And he’s twenty four!

Epiphany

Just found out today, I am Mr. Subramaniam.

-

The Olympic Creed reads: The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part.

We have been taking it a bit too seriously I guess.

Phrandship Day – The truth?

For whatever it is worth, Happy Phrandship day everyone!

When I went out with my friends for a Sunday evening cutting-chai, I was startled to see loads and loads of guys and girls, bursting with hormones, their arms covered almost completely by scribbles, signatures (all with marker pens), satin bands, stickers and what not, waiting outside restaurants, cafes, gardens and in some cases temples! After some uncontrollable ogling and in the process getting reprimanded by our female friends, we came back home.

I feel that FD is becoming a proxy for Valentine’s day.

It’s simple.

If you are a guy, and you like someone a lot, but are afraid to ask her out for the fear of rejection since you are a loser like me, then friendship becomes a nice carpet under which you can brush in the stuff, a la Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai. You can atleast hangout with her and you always feel you have a chance. So, on FD you can show how much you really feel for her, how you are a ‘good friend’ and blah blah blah.

If you are a girl, you know this guy is hitting at you, you are not really thinking about getting into a relationship and hence want to keep him at an arm’s length and so what do you do?

In BC, you tied a rakhi to him.

In AD, you make him your ‘good friend’ :-)

Because now you are smarter, you do not want to close the option by tying a rakhi but don’t want to exercise it as well. Just keep it in the bag for possible future use.

Cheers to friendship!

Haemorrhage!

I got hit in the knee yesterday.
I got hit on my right hand today.
I am perenially bleeding through my skull.
The seven fingers of my left hand are always trying to rip off from me.
My right hip has always been attacked.
My left waist is always injured.
Please allow me to live!
Please don't bleed me to death!