Virus

New year and old thoughts

2012-01-21T17:15:00.003+05:30

Years are passing by quicker than ever. Twenty Eleven just flew away. Here are some memories of it.

I quit my first job, didn't feel a thing. I didn't feel sad about it. I didn't feel I was putting an end to the first start. I don't miss my colleagues. I don't miss anything about my previous company. I am more happy than I ever was in past four years.

Discovered many new and old bands. Re-visited many old albums. Appreciated music I thought I never liked. Attended gigs where I didn't fit in. Attended gig where I really fit in. Missed many gigs. Listened to more local music-- more than all the previous years combined.

Started buying original music. The first artist-- Muddy Waters. Right now, the collection has more than 20 records which includes local artists.

However, downloaded more music than previous years (I promise to buy all the albums that I would still listen to, three years form the date of download).

The number of films watched hit an all-time low. Many distractions.

I put an end to facebook film reviews. Mainly because I am lazy. And also because there are better reviewers around. Especially this guy.

Suk, is married. HE'S FUCKIN' MARRIED. I'm happy for him.

Most of the bloggers I knew, don't blog anymore. I want them to.

I realized I was (and probably am) a terrible writer. I had no sense of grammar, no respect for structure and no talent to tell a story. I started this blog in 2005. I wish I hadn't. Reading my terrible old posts makes me cringe and shudder and throw up and stab my eyes all at the same time.

I got tattooed with my best friend. Four tattoos. Led Zeppelin.

Shit hit the fan more than once. Alcohol didn't help. It doesn't.

More herbs were burnt and inhaled. It does help. But it's not the answer.

Didn't smoke a single cigarette the entire year. And never will in the coming years.

My dad opened up to me for the first time. We'd never spoken about relationships, money, marital future, selfishness, selflessness, insanity, greed, hatred and love. Until this year.

My mom remains the same. And she will. I like her the way she is.

My nephew displays all the characteristics I once displayed at his age. My sister is concerned.

My niece finally allowed herself to recognize and accept me.

Made friends. For life.

Accepted the hypocrite and selfish side of me. Ignorance would have created a fake identity. Although acceptance doesn't make a person a better man. It does leads to self discovery. But, I know I am nowhere near it.

Made mistakes. What do you call mistakes that you know are mistakes and are actually well thought over before you commit them?

Ignored people in my hate list rather than hating them to conserve the energy that I needed to ride my bicycle.

Yes I bought a Rockrider 5.1 (and found a new passion) and commute to work on it. I plan to ride the entire state of Goa for 4 days next month and later ride to Mysore from Bangalore in the month of March. I will write all about it here.

I watched Buddy Guy, Johnny Lang, Metallica, Meshuggah (also had the chance to interview them), Enslaved and few other bands live.

The feeling that 70s is the musical era for me, grew stronger.

My iPod stats for the year revealed my love for British bands. The top five most played bands were English-- Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Motorhead, Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree. Followed by Black Sabbath, Queen, Deep Purple and Judas Priest. The most played American band or rather the artist was Bob Dylan.

I fell in love with Android, reddit, Goan fish curry, Drive, cycling, Boardwalk Empire, Katatonia and bournvita.

Looking forward to discovering, learning, accepting, loving, riding, watching and reading this year.

I leave you with Solitude.

I Am the Eggman

2011-12-10T18:40:00.001+05:30

Oh boy! There's so much to say. So many things happened since my last post. My life's full of interesting trivial incidents that I presume interests the ones that read this blog. If blogging generated money every time some fine gentleman/lady (including those of you there that think I need to enlarge my penis and also the ones that think I might also need a boob job) visited this little blog of mine I'd be bankrupt by now. Yes, that's the exaggerated number of visitors that wander around the cobwebbed corners of this blog that's been in existence since 2005. But that's alright. I don't visit any of your blog either; blogs of the bloggers that don't visit my blog. Ha! In your face.
What's up with the new blogger, anyway? What's up with Google, in fact? The new design stinks, alright. I know these statemenets will never see the light of Google's day but I need to get this out of my system- the new desgin and the whole idea of Google+ stinks. I might have rambled about it before. I sense the need to ramble about it again. It bloody stinks like an army of skunks. I love Android and everything that you are doing to hard fist Apple's anus but this entire restructuring of Gmail and Reader and Blogger and what not under the influence of false hope that Google+ might one day take off and fly like Flight 666. But that's not what I and the world thinks will happen. So you might as well please your existing customers by giving them what you are good at giving- search fuckin' results. Alright. Having said that, I still love you Google. Just for Android. And Google Finance. And Gmail. And not disabling the 'safe search off' button.
The Office is not the same now that Michael Scott's gone. I always had a feeling that Holly would come back and they'd hit it off and go get married and make babies. I cannot imagine Michael being with anyone else. Look at it- Holly is equally dorky (in a pretty way), equally crazy, equally leading a bizarre life (getting attracted to Michael is bizarre enough). That's the female version of Michael and another one like her cannot be found anywhere else on this planet. Hence, it was bye bye Dunder Mifflin and hello sweetheart. I'll accept that. But The Office without Michael is like Pulp Fiction with Mr Wolf.
I finally quit my job and moved on. I finally did it. I remember going on and on about how I hated engineering and how I hated my first job and how I hated not being able to do anything about it and how I loved walking around in Spain, but I finally quit my first ever job. It feels good to let go of something you've always wanted to let go of. Something that been a pain. A fuckin' genital tumor. You know what I mean? It's a bloody nice feeling. You feel like you lost those extra 20kgs you gained duing all those years of cursing and hating your work and your workplace and your colleagues and the policies. Yes, those policies. Damn them policies. Fuck them in the ass. The only good thing that comes out of company policies is a new job.
How do I love to start my mornings? I would love to wake up to alternative rock on Mondays, blues on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, progressive rock on Fridays, blow jobs on Saturdays and British heavy metal on Sundays. Yes that's how I like to begin my mornings.That should lead to a good old fashioned 10 minute long dump fiddling with my smartphone (yes I have one now, thanks to my new employer). Then raging at the general life related fuck ups, deciding to make a rage comics about them but never quit doing it. A hot bath. Slipping into fresh, neatly pressed, formal wear on weekdays, nude on weekends. This is how it should be. This is my idea of sipping King's beer on the quiet and solitary beaches of Northern Goa.
Films- I watch Tintin. It's what Steven Speliberg would do with any good idea he's presented with. And it's what he's done with all the projects he's ever undertaken. It's entertaining. And skillful. I'm waiting for Hugo. People have been raving about how it's the finest 3D film that's ever been made and me being quit the 3D-phobic person I'd still love to watch it. It's Martin Scorsese. And it's a nice story. I can't remember-- at this point where my mom's shouting from the kitchen perstering me to eat the gajar ka halva-- the other films that I've watched since I last blogged. I might add an edit later. If I feel like it. Okay.
Vidya Balan, sweet! Those jugs on her, sweet Lord! Those eyes and those jugs, sweet sweet Lord! And those jugs, sweet sweet sweet Lord!
That's it.
I leave you with this Beatles' number.
Have safe sex. And care.

I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob.

The Starry Night

2011-09-17T22:00:00.000+05:30

Now that Entourage's over I feel... empty. And they had to end it with a beautiful shot of Mrs. Gold in red swimwear bending over to kiss Ari. They had to do that, didn't they? Bastards.
I still have Cheers. I'll restart watching it now that Sam and Diane are a serious couple. Romance is interesting. And Norm. He's a funny fat guy. We always need a funny fat guy.
Seinfeld. I can never get enough of it. You seen my twitter DP? It's a tribute. I'll have it framed and hang it in my living room beside a Van Gogh. Yes I plan to buy a Van Gogh one of these days. I love French Impressionism. I love everything French. The women, the wine, the films, the music, the language, the fuckin' Eiffel Tower. Wonderful country. Yeah, so, a Van Gogh when I have a living room. And a fat salary. And a thin wife who doesn't give shit about stuff hanging on our living room wall.
I happened to watch The Game. Intense, thrilling, very well acted. I wish Van Orton had never survived that fall. I wanted him to go his father's way which would have been intensely depressing. That would have cost the studio the profits, but oh, what an ending that would be.
I do not feel like drinking. Have you ever felt that way? You know a month ago all you wanted to be in your life was successful and drunk like a fuck but a finger snap later all you want is for Entourage not to end and a fat pay check. No more beer. No more cheap rum and coke. No more VAT 69. Ever feel that way? God that sucks. The day beer comes second on your list, The Game of your life starts.
I still love beer, but it's the craving, I've lost it. Or probably it's hidden beneath my bed. I'm looking for it.
You say good things about Jeff Bridges, Freddie Mercury, Batman and Clint Eastwood I'll love you. I'll really really love you. You don't have to agree with me that beer is better than sex. I don't really care about things like that. But if you agree that Jeff Bridges can act the fuck of out anything, Freddie Mercury can sing the fuck out of anything, Batman can beat the fuck out of anyone and Clint Eastwood can direct himself the fuck out of anything, you'll forever be loved and respected. I mean it. Okay?
I shall be moving on. I got a new job and I shall be putting down my papers at my present company. I loved the first two years here, you know, your first job and pubs and beer and zero responsibilities, but now it's started to get on my nerves. Also I need that Van Gogh. I need a better pay check, alright. I'll shall move on.
I popped open a bottle of Corona by beating it against my wardrobe. I wish someone was here to notice it given the attention whore that I am.
My tummy is growing like Saphira (Eragon's dragon, been reading that book since ages, got to finish it). It just is not retreating. I've never had a tummy my entire life. But now my mom's worried about it. I would have shown you folks a pic, but I know my internet etiquette, alright. And also I don't want you to call me a fat funny guy.
Life's good. There's freedom. There are friends. There are people I want to care about, for a change. There are people that care about me. And there's enough money to buy me fancy beers. But still not enough to buy me that goddamn Van Gogh.

Here's a French atmospheric band called Alcest. I love them. You will too.

Waterheater Blues

2011-09-02T09:09:00.000+05:30

I hate iTunes. Before I start with this post, I got to tell you good folks reading my blog; I hate iTunes more than I hate anything. Probably I hate working on weekends more than iTunes, but you get the point.

Apple designs the sexiest gadgets. Yes, I like Apple. iPhone. I get a hard on whenever I get a chance to lay my hands upon this fine piece of morethantelephone (I haven't been able to afford one with my pay package and the current market condition that behaves more unpredictably than a-- yes I shall make a clichéd sexist joke-- woman on her periods).

I also hate waking up on a cold morning to turn on the water heater especially when the switch is all the way across the room, close to the window which is letting in that god-awful early morning, anti-sleep chilly wind.

I also hate it when some son of a bitch/bitch talks over a phone while I'm sleeping. Especially in the morning. Before I've to wake up to turn that goddamn heater on.

You always have to get up to turn that goddamn heater on, don't you?

Fuck you water heater.

I digress, pardon me. Also, I curse, pardon me.

iTunes. Why do you have to be so inflexible? What's it with you, huh? You don't let me do things I'd like to do with a piece of software. You tell me what I should do. You don't do things I want you to do. You are the beginning of AI vs. Man. Not that I love human beings, but you are a pain. You are a goddamn mosquito on a goddamn warm night, on a night without power supply. You are a bad doggy that pees on the sofa. You are a bad bad doggy that eats poop. Bad.

Imagine getting up in the morning to turn on the water heater after such a night.

Now that I've got that out of my system, let's talk. What's it with India and corruption these days? Why can't I see shemales looking for bridegrooms on prime time TV? Where are all the good television shows, huh? Indian T20 cricket, an attempt to rip off English football, where's that? Dance shows. I need more dance shows. And India's Got Talent. Yessir I want to see talented Indian singers, dancers and musicians. Because that’s what talent means in my country. Corruption? A stubborn old man and his struggle to fight the world's oldest profession, older than prostitution itself. Thank you. I'll pass. And someone stuff a boiled sweet potato in Ramdev’s mouth after you finish watching one of those dance shows, please. It’ll offend my dad and a thousand others but he deserves it.

I'd love to hate fewer people. I want to hate fewer people. I love Buddha, I love peace, I love that Beatles dude and I love The Dude. But damn you television. Up yours. Fuck your mom, that fat ugly black and white wooden box. You bring out the monster in me. You and iTunes.

Sigur Ros is a great band. They are from Iceland and play ambient post-rock. I've been listening to their last album the name of which I can neither pronounce nor type. It's melodious and ambient and all that you want to listen to when you've had had enough of your boss in the office. It's also a great listen when you wake early on a cold morning to turn on that goddamn water heater and can't go back to sleep.

I listen to 40s and 50s blues at work. I listen to old school heavy metal while driving to and from work. I listen to ambient and progressive music at home. I listen to rock 'n' roll while shitting and taking a shower. And I do not change this schedule. It has to be the way I've set it. I cannot work if I'm listening to Eddie Cochran. I'll run to take a nasty dump if I switch from Robert Johnson to Little Richard. And if John Lee Hooker starts singing the blues while I'm taking a dump then I'll fix my ass on the shitpot, grab a magazine and continue reading it until my playlist switches to The Beatles. I need the good old rock 'n' roll if I have to wipe my ass. I shit you not. I'm very particular (read an asshole) about it.

If you have read my previous posts, you know I don't 'like' this city much. I don't like so many things about it. Save for the beer joints and the weekend gigs there's nothing that helps me say, 'alright I can live here.' I cannot live in this godforsaken city. I know you love this city and you were born here and raised here and met your best friend and studied here, but for me, an outsider, a simple guy from a small town, this city is uninhabitable. They shut down at 11 for fuck's sake, the house rent is insane for houses the size of a matchbox, rude folks, the auto guys think they have afro dicks and people don't mind their own business.

Alright. You may say, 'then get the hell out of here, outsider.' That's not easy you see. Complaining is. Working on complains is not. So that won't be happening anytime soon.

I've changed my handle on twitter. I tweet with the moniker @bluesmaug. Come say hi if you ever get bored of imbeciles updating their status messages on facebook. I am not funny, nor am I philosophical. I tweet about blues, films (please note the comma), comics, beer and sex. What more would a man in his mid 20s want, eh?

Oh, I got my ass inked. I have four tattoos, two on the back on my arms and two on my back below my shoulder. These tattoos belong to Led Zeppelin IV; the four symbols, each representing each of the band member. This album and their music in particular have had a profound impact on my life, and I'm sure will continue to have in the days to come. Blues. My life wouldn't have been as tolerable without blues and complains.

I live alone these days. I moved out of a nice 3 bedroom house and into a nice little single room. Life's treating me okay. I have good enough things to complain about which help me go through an otherwise boring day. And there's beer and rum. Blues and loneliness.

But life would be perfect without that goddamn heater to turn on every morning.

Here's Seasick Steve. He's amazing.

Red pill or the blue pill?

2011-04-11T00:46:00.001+05:30

Hatred is an art form. It is the kind of thing your parents will never teach you unless they are neo-nazi serial killers eager to preserve their ideologies. Hating is like painting your masterpiece or writing your best story or directing your finest play. Hatred is beyond the trivialities of your life. And essential.
Revenge is red. Unforgiving red. The kind of red that sticks onto your cloths and resists all your attemps to rid yourself of it. The red that blinds your eyes. Revenge is the evolutionary result of hatred. Hatred is the uncivilized ape. Revenge is man. You. Me. Your horny parents. Your lying spouse. Your decieving brother. Your incompassionate sister. Your uncaring partner. Your sadist boss. Your cunning friend. All, revenge. The day you first cry, you avenge your forceful exit out of your comfortable first home. You hurt the woman forcing you out. Nature teaches you vengence. And it is essential.
Imagine yourself without the two most essential emotions required to survive, to lead a life which otherwise is so full of sadness and unbearable pain. Imagine yourself being a person who has only love to give. Imagine yourself being a person who is selflessly forgiving. A person free from all the humanly needs. Passionate about living a life of sacrifices. Of guilt free, clean hearted, clear minded blissful existance.
Who would you be? A master of hatred who has conquered earthly pain and avenged the causes of sadness or a non-complicated happy man without the knowledge of superior, although depressing, ways of existance?
We all know who we are, don't we?

Unlucky

2011-02-16T20:52:00.005+05:30

I attended the UB City gig last evening after JYG posted the gig details on their facebook page. My observations after walking out of the concert halfway through it were:

1. My long held strong belief that Power Metal gigs are the worst gigs was disproved- an acoustic open air gig in any genre is the worst gig idea ever. I mean, there is no bonfire. There is no wine. We are not 10 friends, a guitarist and a vocalist. This is a 1000 people strong open-air gig for eff’s sake. Fire up them speakers up and take out those damn electric guitars. No Karaoke, please. This is not Japan.

2. If you still want to do an Unplugged gig, get a room.

3. I mean, seriously. The birds chirp louder than the sound of acoustic guitar in open air. You cannot conduct an acoustic gig in an open air theater in UB City amidst the noise of MG Road traffic. It’s as impossible as making Leonard Cohen cover Sex Pistols.

4. If you are planning to conduct one despite it all- warn us in advance. Tweet. Facebook. Text. You have your options. I got duped by the organizers into believing that it was a gonna be a great gig. It was great until JYG were playing. They were almost booed off stage by Luck Ali fans (999 of them). Ameeth sensing the boredom and hostility in the gathered crowd jokingly declared he’d be torturing them with two more songs and they’d folk off the stage. 999 of them heard him say ‘f**k off the stage.’

5. Bollywood doesn’t go well with Indie music. JYG are Rock ‘n’ Roll. They are the most amazing band to come out of India in the past decade. The crowd showed no respect to this amazing band that makes great music and provides it for free. The day when people understand the ‘if I don’t get it I should STFU’ concept will be the day I’ll stop downloading music off of the internet.

6. Lucky Ali is a good singer. Respect. But he’s a terribly boring person when it comes to after-a-song on-stage banter. I don’t want someone telling me Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be celebrated just on 14th Feb but the entire year. I mean, dude! He also went on how he saw an UFO while he was having a smoke and how his bandmate was amused by the flickering light in the night sky. He sounded so much like my grandpa…

7. If you don’t appreciate something get the eff out. And that’s what I did. Acoustic gig on a windy evening, amidst douchebags of the highest order, listening to Bangalore traffic and amazingly idiotic stage lights that were aimed directly at the audience is not my idea of a Sunday evening gig.

8. The Italian restaurant at the end of the Amphitheater is terrific, you guys.

Originally posted here.

Imagine

2011-02-14T23:46:00.004+05:30

Lucy in the sky
with diamonds, is there heaven?
Maybe; imagine...

[vid1] [vid2]

Wrong Turn

2011-01-29T08:21:00.000+05:30

wrong turn
take a right she cried
he left

Pulp Fiction

2011-01-27T21:26:00.003+05:30

pulp fiction
reads Jules over breakfast
the bible

I mean, why?

2011-01-01T14:28:00.008+05:30

When you send those 'Happy New Year', 'Merry Christmas' and 'Happy #insert a damn occasion#' messages, is it really important to sign the damn messages/mails/statuses with your insignificant signatures? I mean, why?

Happy and Prosperous New Year To Your Entire Family And You.
-The Douchebag You Met At The Party The Other Day

Mr. Douche, questions.
-You barely know me. I mean, you know my fuckin' name, you have my fuckin' number, you've seen my fuckin' face and you probably know which beer I drink. My dad is a 56-year-old extreme right-wing nationalist. He hates Georgian Calender and he hates technology. If he reads your message, he'll strip you naked and ram your ass with a R.S.S lathi. I'd love that. So, why?
-What's the significance of capitalizing every fuckin' word in your absolutely unnecessary mass-message? I'd rather read a penis enlargement spam mail. They probably show more respect towards grammar than you. WHY?
-If you are sending me a text, I have you fuckin' number stored against the fuckin' handle your parents gave you. If you are writing on my wall, which is not a good idea in the first place, I know it is you because I debated for an hour before adding you to my friends list after reading your damn name. If you are sending me a mail, it already has a sender column and you probably even have your damn signature automatically added. So, why do you have to press the return key, type a dash and add your not-so-charming name at the end of your not-so-important greeting? I mean, really? You think I care reading your name twice? You think I store numbers against phone numbers? I mean, why?

If you are one of those sinners, go jump into the icy waters of North Atlantic and swim your way to Greenland.

Happy Swimming.
-Virus The Cold Fuck

Lab Rats

2010-12-29T10:58:00.001+05:30

I wonder about it. The ultimate question. And the ultimate answer to it. Right now I'm going through an existential phase in my life. I'm not much interested in the presence of other living forms in other parts of the universe. Although I'd be delighted to learn of any such living creature. Are they like the ones we have been seeing in Speilbergian movies? Are they good? Are they evil? Well, those questions do not bother me much. As far I understand the whole situation, there's no situation in the first place, and I'm not anticipating a visit from a bunch of funny looking creatures in this lifetime.
My concern is that thin sheet of scary confusion between reality and illusion. My very existance that oscilates between daylight and darkness, between percieved reality and illusiory dreams, between my faith in Him and His actual existance, between the comfort I feel in the morning brightness and the depressing loneliness I suffer after sundown.
Is there a parallel universe? If yes, then my society-conditioned mind questions the identitiy of the controller of such a universe. The existance of parallel universe proves the experimental nature of our existance a la Dark City. I have come to few conclusions. I stubbornly need answers, so these conclusions to pacify me.
1. This is a network of dreams. What you are reading here is an extension of what you dreamed last. You dreamed you were reading another blog, or searching the internet which led you to this blog. It's all a fuckin' dream. There is either a 'real' you in a lab under His supervision or this network of dreams is a single entity's projection. And that single entity could be Him. His dreams.
2. There is no way to define nothingness. When you say 'the void space,' there is darkness and there is absence of material objects. And that is something. Unless we define 'nothing' there is no way we'll ever approach The Answer. So assuming we are lab rats, we have been denied solution to that key riddle. If there is nothing, there's still going to be something. And we are part of an experiment.
3. We could be unknown tiny particles on a revolving electron/proton which could be part of a furniture in the house of another creature which is right now have its own existential issues. Which could further be tiny part of another revolving electron/photon. This proves the existance of parallel universe and the connectivity between them. But leaves unanswered the mighty question about the almighty.
I have a couple more complicated (shitty) theories based on and influenced by the sci-fi books I've read and the movies I've watched. Maybe, next time.
I got to go have my lab lunch. I KNOW YOU ARE WATCHING.

2010

2010-12-26T10:31:00.003+05:30

I spent the first half of 2010 in Ipswich. I traveled to Spain, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, France and Holland. The first half of 2010 has been amazing. I watched all the movies I wanted to. I dined on English hilltops and Spanish roadsides. Looking back, it's been a wonderful year. The highlight of the year- travel.
There have been a few days of emotional discomfort towards the end of the year, but the brighter side of the year has been exceptionally bright which actually makes all the darker discomforts look bleak and trivial. Life is a puppy bitch.
I came across some brilliant music this year. I immersed myself entirely into indie music. More recently I have been listening to Beach House, Blitzen Trapper, The Hold Steady, The Black Keys, Deer Tick, Delta Spirit, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club et al. I have played Blitzen Trapper's Furr and The Brian Jonestown Massacre's Bravery, Repetition and Noise albums a hundred times already. But, my love for Metal still remains. And my love and respect for indie and folk has been growing every hour.
I have watched some great movies this year. Some at the theaters, most at home. And I have managed to write reviews of all the films I've watched. The reviews have been posted on facebook. It's a pain to dig through the older posts and copy them here. If you are interested you may read them on facebook.
Ah! The pleasure in boasting.
Books. This has been a pathetic year for books. I read just one over the course of 4 months- Steig Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I've started reading Stephan King's Under the Dome and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife, both of which I haven't been able to complete due to absolute laziness, which has been plauging me my entire life by the way, and has been on a rise ever since I started dozing off while sucking on the nipple. There have been innumerable distractions this year- television (Entourage, Seinfeld, The Simpsons), women (sigh), internet (social networking, webcomics, unmentionables) and bad movies (I watched most of the commercial bullcrap of the year). I hope I'll get back to my good ol' days when I enjoyed reading as much as I enjoy Sasha Grey perform now.
Speaking of Sasha Grey, the lady's got brains. It's not just boobs and butt, she's got brains as good as her body. Respect.
I want to get back to blogging. I am working on avoiding the distractions and this post proves I've been improving. I'll write more. I guess.
All in all, 2010 has been very satisfying if not for The Expendables and my previous manager. And oh, if I haven't mentioned it already, I'm Bangalore these days. Finally moved out of Mysore for good. I miss the calmness and non-metro aspect of that city and maybe a few other things. It's been 3 years there. Good days those.
I'm hoping for lots of beer, good movies, great music, love and happiness in the coming year.
For the first in my life, I'm not being a emo fuckturd.

And then I heard my mother shouting through the trees
You should have seen that girl go shaky at the knees
So I took her by the arm
We settled down upon a farm
And raised our children up as gently as you please.[vid]

Primal

2010-12-23T22:57:00.001+05:30

Snowflakes
No, snowstorm
Maybe a blizzard

A warm place
Your house
There was a fire
In your room
Within me
Inside you
Around us

Snowflakes
Yes, snowstorm
Definitely a blizzard.

The Massacre at the Pub in Mysore

2010-02-16T20:11:00.007+05:30

Once upon a time in a town called Mysore there lived a DJ. He played rock music in a small pub to drunk audience. He arrived at work at 4 o'clock in the evening and stayed back playing popular crowd pleasing rock numbers until the pub closed.
One late evening a group of people requested him to play 'In The End.' He had already played it once for the night. He had played it every night since the day he took this job.
DJ Pangre, emotionless and blank, drew his Uzi submachine gun and sprayed 45 rounds of bullets until everyone except Shetty was dead.
Shetty terrified by this horrible act of violence trembled with fear on the floor. He finally stood up, eyes pearly, and raised his hands over his head.
He muttered, 'Why?'
Pangre emptied the cartridge and refilled it with villainous proclivity.
He said, 'I was tired. I had to do it. They deserved it. They all deserved it.'
He pulled the trigger again.
Until he stopped breathing. Until his head was blown to pieces and the blood and small chunks of his skull and bits of his dead brain were all splattered on the wall.
Shetty sank to the ground.
And stayed there motionless.
Nothing mattered.

Falling Snow

2010-02-11T04:33:00.004+05:30

As I type this, the roofs and the sidewalks and the roads and the narrow alleyways and the cobblestone paths are all covered in heavy snow. The desk where I’m seated has a view. I’ve never had a desk that had a view. All that I had back in India were blue walls surrounding me by all four sides towering over my uninviting monitor. But here, I have a view. Outside the large window, across the security gate there’s a small stream. Partially frozen. Green with algae. The trees along the stream look like trees on the greeting cards you bought in your school for the girl you liked who sat in the row next to you and wrote the best essays and danced in the annual school gatherings. Tall, frozen, hibernating trees. Blanketed in white. With no leaves. As dark as a chocolate beneath that temporary blanket. It’s beautiful. I listen to Agalloch—unaware of the people around me barking in their phones, fuming at their notebooks, dissatisfied with their paycheck—and stare into the falling snow. It’s beautiful.

Last night was wonderful. I packed my stuff, wore my overcoat, ignored my colleagues and walked my way to Cineworld. It was 20:00 and they were playing Up In The Air. I produced my pass, entered the hall and was mesmerized. By the script. By the direction. By the supporting lady’s performance. By the simplicity of its camera work. By the Indie-ness of it all. Jason Reitman’s movie is one of the best movies of the year alongside Tarantino’s Basterds and Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker. Avatar? That’s just VIBGYOR piss.

The point here is not the movie. The point here is I shut down my workshop earlier than usual and sat there in the movie hall alone waiting to be impressed. To feel that feeling you feel when you see a fine movie or finish reading a good book or listen to a great guitar solo. And when the end credits rolled over the quiet shot of clouds from the airplane I felt those were the best 2 hours I spent in this town since my arrival.

I could now go to the office tomorrow. I could tolerate the calls and I could reply to the mails. I could do whatever was being paid to do. It was an exhilarating experience—defying your manager, ignoring your uninteresting peers, walking the cold streets alone and watching a wonderful movie. Fabulous.

I came out of the movies and treated myself to a great meal at KFC. I then decided to walk the city in the cold of winter. At midnight. And walk I did. After sunset the city looks like it’s mourning the demise of its Queen. Imagine it at midnight. Simply beautiful. There were hardly any people out on the streets. There were a few vehicles. Mostly police vans in hurry. All the Victorian buildings lit up. Biting cold rendering your feet, fingers and nose numb. Agalloch playing in your ears. Simply beautiful.

The snow has fallen
And raised this white mountain
On which you will die
And fade away in silence
Agalloch, Falling Snow

London-Bangalore-Mysore-Goa-Ipswich

2010-01-31T21:05:00.001+05:30

I never wanted to go back in the first place. London was treating me good. The chicks were good. The work was good [I was completely jobless]. The money was good. The beer was good.
Well, they had no other option. There was no work and I was getting paid for doing it.
I went back to India and established my jobless ass in my company's guesthouse for a few days. They kicked me out and I moved in with Av. Av is a nutcase. Av is also a very close friend. Av is a Pulp Fiction fan. Av is a very good singer. Av is a dangerous nutcase. Oh, very dangerous. He can sing, fart, laugh, eat, smoke and talk all at the same time. Talented motherfucker.
I spent my office hours sleeping and after-office hours in Purple Haze [A local pub. Also home]. Av and I frequented it so often that we got a lifetime discount coupon of 20%. They love us there. Why wouldn't they? We are half their business.
My manager calls me up on Monday evening and tells me I HAVE to get on the next flight to London. I laugh and ask him if he's serious. He is. I tell him it's humanly impossible to pack my things, complete the paperwork and land there in a day. He gives me one more day. I give up and do as I'm told.
But now that I'm here again I think I'm missing a lot of things. I miss Av. I miss Ni. I miss a few new friends. I miss PS's meals. I miss strolling in boxers and tee shirts. I miss Purple Haze. I miss the idiot DJ Pangre. I miss Shavarma. I miss Ni's Yamaha RX 100. I miss the morning roadside tea. I miss Goa. I miss freedom. I miss not doing any work.
Ipswich is nice English village. I'm loving it here. Except for the bed bugs in the house, everything else is just great.
I sound so bloody sane and normal in this post. Billions of fans across the world will hate me for selling out.

Fish and Chips

2009-12-16T02:43:00.004+05:30

The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river

It doesn’t feel like a month. It was only yesterday I was sitting at the airport waiting for the flight that was 7 hours later in the morning. I still remember the pretty Hong-Kong airhostesses. The tall, elegant Lufthansa flying girls. And the unsavvy yet good looking Kingfisher ladies.

I wonder what was the point in creating thousands of beautiful women and restricting access to them.

And entirely irrelevant wonderment: why do people like cats? I mean aren’t they unfaithful, uncourteous and smelly—everything you don’t want a pet to be?

Cats aside, having nothing better to do, I twittered(?) my often misunderstood observations all night long. Long legs—yes sir, give me some. Small, firm breasts—thank you sir, I’ll have a couple of those. Curvy hips—much appreciated, I’ll ride there all night long.

I think I’m a gentleman.

My flight touched English ground after couple of pegs of scotch, couple of vodka shots and a good number of visits to the loo. The thing about loos on airplanes is they are bloody pint-sized. I’m not asking for a playground up there, but you know a little more leg space. It feels like you are trying to fit yourself into a Kitty litter.

I still have no clue what went on during the immigration check. It was only when I reached the hotel with my cabin luggage run over by my cab driver spilling the cough syrup all over my cloths and documents that I realized I was somewhere far from my country. And it took me a couple of pints of beer and a night’s sleep to realize I was here.

You ask jetlag? Let me tell you about the hangover. Yeah. That was a good movie.

It’s been over a month and a half. How time passes.

Moving on, I prefer beer over any other drink the Good Lord has ever created. I believe the whole point of creating water was to make beer. I mean who would prefer drinking a colorless, odorless, tasteless mixture of two elements? The Good Lord has never seen raised hands and heard voices saying, ‘Me, my Good Lord’.

Beer. Man, how I love that shit.

Beer is good. Dogs are good. Elegance is good. Non-top-pulling chicks are good. Chicks that don’t hate the word chick are good. But cats? Why on God’s...

Know what? I want to see Tweety peck Sylvester to death and poop on his face. I want to see Jerry knife Tom for one final time. I want to see Swat Kats crash their fuckin’ plane in the Bermuda triangle. I want to read about a Billi go to Prayag and drown in the damn river.

Sanity. Come in Sanity. Earth to Sanity. We’ve got an ailurophobic freak on lose here. Sanity?

Until we hear from Sanity allow me to present a few observations I’ve made about this city, my lovely audience. The two of you.

1] Sun hasn’t yet been discovered here. The big hot ball that appears and disappears in our country is part of the Viking mythology.

2] We have nothing and then a sentence and then nothing again. Here they have Please before the sentence and Sorry after it.

3] If there was no beer there would be no rail roads in India [citation needed].

4] Every chick born here should be hot. If you are migrating you are not allowed entry without passing the Hotness Filtering Examination conducted by the Hotness Filtering Agency—the only agency that is reportedly in-corrupt.

5] Shitty music is prevalent everywhere. Even in the birthplace of punk and metal [I say Sex Pistols and not the Ramones]. Timbaland is the new Jimmy Page and Lady Gaga is the new Janis Joplin.

6] People prefer minding their own fuckin’ businesses. Except for thugs. No. Not the Bajarang Dal.

7] The Police… well they were a good band.

8] Plenty of opportunities for young, male, virgin Indians. Plenty. Just £20.

9] You run a convenience store or you run another convenience store or you pay for sex. Three things we are really good at here.

10] About businesses and minding them only if you are the owner. That’s true.

Getting back to beer, I love beer. This famous guy once famously said, ‘You give me beer and I’ll give you money.’ This famous guy was a famous nationalist who died in a plane crash that was supposedly being flown by a couple of kats over Bermuda Triangle while he was on the loo complaining about Englishmen.

But then again, seriously, why cats?

Now get this:

London calling, yes, I was there, too
An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
And after all this, won't you give me a smile?
London calling

I never felt so much alike, alike, alike, alike.

Cheers mate

2009-10-29T20:34:00.003+05:30

I'm exhausted, frustrated, nervous, confused and thirsty.

Exhaustion:
My job sucks. As much as I try to enjoy it I end up hating it. I've been slogging my ass off since the past couple of weeks and I haven't achieved anything more than a sore ass and a miserable paycheck. I got to do something about it. Pronto.

Frustration:
I'm supposed to travel on Saturday morning to Lund-un but I haven't yet received neither the flight ticket nor the traveler's cheque. I'm yet to pack my bags, say goodbye to my babies [Madhur Bhandarkar and Sterile] one last time before the guy I'm selling off my fishpond to arrives, pack up things that my sis has ordered me to send back home, put my bike in the train to my dad's place and take a long, long, relieving dump.

Nervousness:
This is my first travel out of the country. I've so far spent my entire life in my hometown and the last two years here in Mysore. I hate flights. You are in an enclosed cylindrical container for 10 hours which is being heralded by a guy who you don't know anything about. Whether he likes drinking at work or prefers smoking strong herbal medicine. It's like an Indian arranged marriage. Some work well. Most don't. You don't know when it's gonna crash. You are on the pot at 20,000 feet taking the crap of your life and boom. You are Kalpana Chawla.

You: *fart* *fart* *crap* *craaaaaap*
Pilot: Ladies and gentlemen, we're experiencing a slight turbulence, but I assure you we will make it safe to...
Plane: Yeah right, smartass. *crash*

Confusion:
I was recruited and I said, "Nah! I got plans. I ain't gonna be a fuckin' slave, man."
I became a slave and said, "Nah! Not more than a year, man. Mark my fuckin' words."
I spent spent a year and said, "Nah! This is it, man. I got better plans this time around."
I completed two years today. 29th October.
"Nah! Just let me get back from London, man. I'm gonna push off from here first thing. You losers are gonna get it in the face. Wait and watch, man" said the loser.

Thirst:
Beer.

The Fascinating World of Graphic Novels

2009-09-07T00:39:00.005+05:30

Bill: As you know, I’m quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favourite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book. Not particularly well-drawn. But the mythology... the mythology is not only great, it's unique.
The Bride: How long does this shit take to go into effect?
Bill: About two minutes, just long enough for me to finish my point. Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

Converation between Bill and The Bride, Kill Bill Vol. 2

My love for superheros began after I first saw a masked red-blue costumed athletic young man spinning web hanging onto tall buildings fighting crime. He will always remain one of my favorite superhero. He was a superhero with whom I could relate to until my late teens.

My dad had long ceased being my superhero since he’d refused to buy me a video game I was asking for months. I hated him for it and told him he was my arch nemesis. I told him he’d repent his misery ways in his dotage when he’d be living on a petty pension. I can still hear the echo of that thunderous sound after his rough hand came in sudden contact with my left cheek. However, on my mother’s motherly interference in the matter and her feminine rage towards all of husbandkind, he finally bought me a handheld video game. I made him my sidekick for his unwilling generosity. He wasn’t happy. But he wasn’t mad either.

Coming to the point, Superman happened just after Spiderman. It was the time when the name stickers on the notebook covers were more important than fresh air. I believed in Superman. He was a real man with amazing powers who beat up bad guys and saved people from burning houses. He was a way of life. His unique way of dressing and his taste in colours didn’t really matter. It was the man, his principles and his unbelievable will to wipe out the evildoers that I cared about. For me, at that time, Superman represented unimaginable power and ungetatable strength. He was the highest point somewhere unreachable, an unknown threshold that a normal man could never touch. He made me believe man could fly. I believed and still do, if God were to look like a man he’d look like Superman.

It was all until I realized the intricacies and subtleties of the greatest superhero mankind has ever known, Batman.

Frankly speaking I was never a Batfan in my teens. He was, for me, at that point of time a ‘good villain.’ He was dark, he was troubled, he had a lot of issues, he wasn’t gentle and he wore black. Although he was fighting crime and would beat up bad guys as good as any other superhero, I never really understood the reason for his gloomy, brooding personality. Batman was the poem I never liked as a child.

There were many superheros to love and to watch and to read. There was the lovable Man of Steel, there was the messed up neighborhood boy Spidey, there was the mythological He-Man, there were the geeky Fantastic Four and there was also the green peace activist Captain Planet. There were many more. Batman was something indigestible. But then, one fine day and bless that day, I grew up.

It was sometime during my engineering days when I was hooked to graphic novels like a junkie to pot. I had read most of the Spiderman, Superman and other popular comic books at that time. But I was left unsatisfied. The cheap children’s pass time fairy tales had left me unsatisfied with their ‘comic’ take on the characters and the depiction of two pence ‘comic’ nemeses. It all made me look for something more absorbing and mature. It was then I stumbled upon Alan Moore’s works. This was the point of my transition from comic books to graphic novels which I consider one of the most crucial evolutionary points in my life [Just slightly above discovering the first Playboy magazine]. His novels were so well written and complexly structured that the engineer in me searching for complexities and the nerd looking for an escape had finally got the thing he was looking for all along. It was my holy grail.

In my opinion the best Batman novel has to be Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke which served as an inspiration to Tim Burton’s 1989 classic Batman. Moore and Brian Bolland created a chillingly new psychopathic arch nemesis which was originally created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger based on the 1928 movie character The Man Who Laughs starring Conrad Veidt. The Joker that appeared in The Killing Joke set a benchmark to all the future villains in terms of artwork and complexity of the character. This Joker created by Alan Moore also served as the primary inspiration for The Joker in Christopher Nolan’s greatest comic book adapted movi e of all time, The Dark Knight.

I greatly admire three extraordinarily consummate antagonists that have ever been created over the past few decades. In no particular order Hannibal Lector for his calm and genius bloodthirstiness in the novels by Thomas Harris; the bizarre weapon wielding Anton Chigurh for his ruthless and cunning dexterity in the novel No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy; The Joker for his psychopathic theory of chaos in the Batman novels. These are the three men who are worse than your worst nightmare. No character can get so intensely complicated and wickedly alluring at the same time.

After I read some more of Alan Moore’s work I came across film noir styled Mr Miller’s graphic novels. Sin City yarns were the first set of graphic novels that made me realize that storytelling through graphic depiction of character was not just a form of entertainment. It was an entangled, twisted and extremely detailed form of art—detailed only when you could get into the core of the books and decipher the emotions and feelings the artist had coloured in every stroke of brush, outlined in every line of the sketch and revealed in every word of the sentence. And the day I reread The Killing Joke the above notion was firmly itched in my heart.

Through the time, I’ve piled up a wonderful collection of amazing drawn and written graphic novels by some of the best artists in the industry. I’m more of a DC and Dark Horse person than Marvel. Sandman by Neil Gaimen which is a brilliantly drawn mythological tale of the character Sandman, John Constantine featuring Hellblazer which is an amazing English horror tale about which Alan Moore says, “Riveting, spine-chilling stuff”, Brian Azzerello’s captivating crime series 100 Bullets, Alex Ross’s 5 series Kingdom Come which is a satirical look at the superhero 'contaminated' world with lovely water colour artwork resembling century-old paintings, Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon and Will Eisner’s benchmark setting A Contract With God are a few novels that have captivated and enthralled me since Sin City and Batman: The Killing Joke and, of course, Watchmen.

A couple of independently released underground works like Maus—a deeply emotional Holocaust story and Ghost World—an alluring story of the confusions in the life of two teenage girls as they gown up in a cynical world [which has been adapted into a movie starring Scarlett Johansson and Thora Birch] are the best examples of the artistically unbound indie movement in graphic novels.

I believe everything said and mentioned above is just a microscopic part of the beautiful world of graphic novels. There’s still so much to be discovered and read and learnt.

I'm only laughing on the outside

My smile is just skin deep

If you could see inside I'm really crying

You might join me for a weep.

The Joker [Jack Nicholson] singing, Batman [1989]

Quotes courtesy: IMDb

Restricted Flight

2009-08-26T23:19:00.004+05:30

I see my demons
Hidden not 'neath my bed
But within me.

Somewhere in the distance
In the woods
Unseen
A feathered creature sings.
Its melody wrapped in fear
I can smell
But I cannot hear.

The pinioned creature sings
While I can only desire
And hope
It flies unfolding its wings.

Jeffery “The Dude” Lebowski talks about films

2009-08-16T19:03:00.014+05:30

Well, you know, in no particular order here are the movies The Dude abides by. He loves some, he admires a few and sometimes compares them to The White Russian.

Natural Born Killers [1994]: Television kills, man.

12 Angry Men [1957]: Eleven men: End this bloody discussion we’ve got important things to do. Twelfth man: Listen to me you eleven assholes.

2001: A Space Odyssey [1968]: Monkeys evolve into fuckin' men. Men land on the fuckin’ moon. Men make some fuckin’ robots. A one eyed robot screws up the fuckin’ space mission. A new life is born. The fuckin' cycle repeats, man.

Gandhi [1982]: Man had balls, man.

Die Hard [1988]: One fuckin' gun and no fuckin' shoes. Kills all the bad guys. Comes out with a couple of bruises and shit, you know. He’s got some balls too, man.

Raging Bull [1980]: You treat your women nice. Or else they’ll end up treating you bad, man.

The Bridge on the River Kwai [1957]: Pride and war. Two greatest fuck ups, man.

A Clockwork Orange [1971]: Once a fuckin’ psycho, always a fuckin’ psycho, man.

Casablanca [1942]: Look. The lady’s got some serious issues, man.

Once Upon a Time in the West [1968]: Bang, bang, bang. You know what I mean.

The Shawshank Redemption [1994]: You got to crawl through fuckin’ shit to find that shit you are looking for, man.

One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest [1975]: If you ain’t insane, don’t act like one ‘cos they’re gonna bust your fuckin’ ass, man. Nobody understands nothing nowhere. Know what I mean.

Pulp Fiction [1994]: That’s what you end up doing, all messed up and upside down, you know, if you flunk in the, uh, editing class, man.

Annie Hall [1977]: He talks a lot, you now. Maybe that’s what’s fuckin’ up all his relationships.

The Night of the Hunter: [1955]: Greed will land even the god’s man in hell, man.

Amadeus [1983]: He sucks, man, that arrogant little fuck. But makes some kick ass music, man. Not as good as AC DC though.

Batman [1989]: He ain’t just a fuckin’ superhero kickin’ around bad guys. He’s got his problems, man. You know. Real life issues and all that shit.

Trainspotting [1996]: Don’t do chemicals and stuff. Pick up White Russian. It’s cheaper, healthier, and legal, and it won’t fuck you up that bad, man.

Casino [1995]: Chicks, man. Chicks. The root cause of all evil.

King Kong [1933]: Chicks, man. Chicks.

The Shining [1980]: You don’t mess around with ghost occupied mansions, that’s what my friend says. There are rules everywhere, man.

Psycho [1960]: Never steal your boss’s money and wander around dining with strangers. You’ll end up being the person in the scariest shower-death, man.

The Godfather [1972]: He make you an offer, the other guys reject the offer, nothing fuckin' works, they all begin killing each other, one smart ass goes into hiding and marries a beautiful lady. They kill her too. Sad, man.

Star Wars [1977]: One fuckin' word. Epic, man.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture [1979]: Ah, fuck it.

Reality?

2009-08-05T21:42:00.003+05:30

Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion. ~Democritus

Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him? ~Calvin and Hobbes

You are a surviving sperm that’s gotten bigger and dumber that didn’t end up in the bathroom. You are the justification for 15 minutes of exercise and 3 seconds of fun. You are the tiniest possible nobody in the universe. You are a surreal dream of something unknown that runs the show. A show that has no script and meaning. You are an improvisation. An improvisation that makes no sense.

Birth.

*sproing*

Death.

That’s all there is to it.

You were falling and falling and falling. From a cliff. In an elevator. From a building. You are falling. This time you won’t get up drenched in sweat, panting, reaching for a glass of water. The dream is real. Just like before you woke up. The dream is terrifyingly real. And you are dreaming reality.

Bilbo Baggins of Bag End

2009-07-30T00:02:00.005+05:30

The peaceful village of Hobbiton

Was witnessing strange events.

For which the funny and shy Hobbits

Blamed the burglar and his friends.

Bilbo Baggins the clever burglar

Stole neither from rich nor poor.

Believed the treasure his

If it belonged to him, however.

He loved good food and warm bed

Friends and adventure.

The other Hobbits found him strange

For he was queer and showed no fear.

Wizards of far country and Elves of Mirkwood

Would often come by to his little Hole.

They’d drink and laugh and sing songs

For which events Bilbo’s dwelling in Bag End was never small.

Arrived one fine morning

A company of Dwarves;

Along came Gandalf the great Wizard

Carrying the news of a treasure stolen by Smaug.

Smaug the Magnificent was the dragon;

Over the Lonely Mountain he reigned.

The path to which was perilous

Gorged with vile Goblins and Spiders wicked.

Consented the adventurer in the Hobbit

After a sumptuous meal and much thought.

Unaware of the imminent perils

The venturesome company set out.

An insignificant homage to The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins and imagination.

Decide

2009-07-27T22:46:00.004+05:30

The momentary pleasure you seek

Although it is sweet

It’ll kill you.

Sooner than you think

Quicker than the years you’ve spent

Without mercy

Or repentance

It’ll kill you.

All the friends you’ve made

Will remember you as long

As long as the forgotten tragedy

As long as the taste of yesterday’s coffee

A faded memory

And that’s long enough.

Everybody has problems

Misfortunes larger than everybody else’s

Heartaches stronger than hurricanes

Pain painful than pain itself

Unknown jobs and known stories

Your friends they’ll indulge you

Only to forget their worries.

You talk about you

The person you love the most

It’s just a dull party

Where you play the host.

They’re all eating your supper and drinking your wine

Praising your picture

All the while painting masterpieces in their mind.

Tell him you quit.

Tell her she’s her.

Tell them no more.

Madhur Bhandarkar in love

2009-06-28T19:15:00.006+05:30

I'm stinking like an uncovered manhole. I haven't bathed in two days. Day one: laziness. Day two: more of it. I plan to introduce my body to some water after this post if I don't feel lazy all over again. I'm usually in high spirits when I'm typing something completely irrelevant and senseless. The less sense I make the happier I seem to be. The happier I am the less lazy I seem to be. My plan is to shed laziness after this post.

I find the implicit relation between Harry Potter and The Hobbits and everything related to the hobbit-lore unnerving. Everything about Harry Potter reminds me about something from the Middle Earth. The Invisible Cloak, The Ring. The House Elves, Smeagol. Forbidden Forest, Mirkwood. Harry and his firends, Bilbo Baggins and his entourage. The Whomping Willow, Ents. ~~Voldemort~~ He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Smaug the Magnificent/Sauron. Proffessor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Gandalf. Good vs Evil, Good vs Evil. Haa, but what the heck. I love them both.

My bloody battery broke. It was on the verge of exploding into tiny bits of lead and shrapnel so I had to shell out 550 bucks on it. Five bloody fifty bucks to keep my cell phone from switching off every couple of hours, which I actually prefer, because the only calls that I get are from my office at unearthly hours from people whose voices I don’t really admire. Twelve pints of beer poured down the gutter.

My guitar is as fucked up as my musical talent. The strings all look like barbed wire from a war movie. I play He’s A Pirate and it sounds like a grunge version of Suraiya’s Ye Mausam Aur Ye Tanhai. I got to do something about them.

My roomie is down with Jaundice. One recovered and the other went down like a bullet hit bird. Talking about birds, I’ve had more than a dozen *complete* chickens in period of 4 weeks. I’ve suddenly found a ferocious fascination for well cooked grilled and tandori chicken. My monthly chicken consumption is as much as that of a small nation. I don’t know if it’s addiction, temporary obsession or an activity emerging out of sheer boredom. All I know is I love birds. Well cooked and served with beer or lime juice.

I haven’t been able to buy myself a nice pair of canvas shoes. Neither in Bangalore nor here. I went to the same bloody showroom where I bought my previous ill fated pair of *black* canvas shoes. I couldn’t find them there. I asked for them here. Out of stock. This is bad business. Things that are out of stock are the things that the people are asking for, you morons. Instead of all the garbage you sell in your bad smelling, heavily lit, nosy salesmen filled showrooms you should have more stuff that is not out of stock. Things are out of stock because people like them. Sell more of them you idiots.

I’ve recently realized that I’m growing an ugly tummy. As scary as it sounds, it really is making its way out into the big wide world. Imagine a long, thin toothbrush. Imagine it pierced through a boondi ladoo. Imagine an inverted V shaped toothbrush stand on which this toothbrush is mounted. Now if this arrangement had life it’d be me. No. Wait. Engineers are lifeless gits. Imagine that arrangement and it'd be me.

My fishes are doing fine. Madhur Bhandarkar is having an affair with Sterile. I’ve seen them snogging and doing stuff with each other after I turn off the lights. Anyway, the next pair of fishes I get will be named Severus Snape and Fred Weasley. Yes. Severus and Fred.

I grew up watching his videos. My mom loved him. My dad would praise him, awestruck, every time he did those gravity defying moves. I loved those bold crotch grabs, those dog howls, that insane amount of money he made, those extravagant videos he produced and his tip toed stand like a ballet dancer. Sad way to die.

And before my fishes die, I better take a bath. Read, listen, watch and love. And hate those fundamentalist motherfuckers.

Peace.

Illusion Delusion

2009-05-28T22:44:00.000+05:30

I died there
Reborn on Earth
I'm not an alien
But I am one
There is a place
After death
Where we all suffer
Every breath
It is here
This is it
You think you live
If only,
If only you knew.

Another cog in the murder machine

2009-05-23T16:35:00.004+05:30

In a violent place we can call our country,
Is a mixed up man and I guess that's me.
The sun's in the sky but the storm never seems to end;
It's a place of sorrow but we call it a home.
And the darkest thoughts, yeah I guess they're my own;
There's wealth in the bank but there's nothing to show inside.

I have denounced BJP and declared my support for Congress. I tell people I believe in Congress. But it doesn’t mean Congress reign is the ultimate solution to all our problems. We have a truck load of problems and innumerable such trucks. We, as a country, are completely, irreparably fucked. We live in a twisted, jigsaw puzzle of a country that nobody knows how to solve. We are fucked beyond recognition. We have been so since the beginning of the time: since before we carved those naked chicks on temple walls; since before we censored our movies; since before Asoka was a warrior; since before he laid down his sword to meditate. To cleanse his life. To find salvation. To forget his sins. He said balls to the country, his politics, his lust and his state and hugged the great Buddha.

We all want a better India. We want good jobs. We want Japanese gadgets that we can show off in India. We want Russian websites to gratify our Indian lust. We want American TV shows to forget the reality. We want iPhones to bitch about the Bush administration even though we don’t know fuck about his policies and politics. We like to blame Americans for everything bad that’s happening in this world and our personal lives. “Damn! my girlfriend ditched me. Fuck Bush”. We’ve come down to this. Obama won. It was like baby boys were born in our homes. Ok baby girls. Don’t call me sexist.

We are a country where homosexuality, consensual sodomy, fellatio and fingering are considered crime. By the law. What one does with ones chosen partner in the comforts of ones home is supposed to be nobody’s business but theirs. This is sexual fascism. This is British Raj. This is Auschwitz gassing our freedom.

My point here is, we are stuck somewhere deep in a pile of shit we call culture. We are ignorant about the global progress. We are aping our forefathers. They burnt the widows alive. We are burning each other. Don’t get me wrong. I love sari clad women. I appreciate spicy dal tadka. I love Shah Rukh Khan when he cries. But when you drag out a woman having a merry time in a pub and beat her black and blue in a mindless cultural frenzy, you have no right to be classified under the family homo-sapiens. You are an extinct Jurassic ear Tyrannosaurus making an unexpected and undesired comeback. And if you look closely, right now, India is a palaeontologist’s heaven.

John Lennon’s words are nothing but nice sounding lines put together to create a nice sounding song. It’s an abstract painting that we’ll never understand. And when we do, we’ll get it all wrong. Like a misunderstood satire. Like a rebuked daily strip. Like us.

I like to believe that there’s no hope. Wait. I think there is. The only hope rests with extraterrestrials. Aliens. We can only hope that some highly advanced freaky looking guys from Alfa Century land in India, taste our dal tadka and take us all to their planet, brainwash us and make us one of them. It’s impossible until we change. And, well, we will not change. Look at the sky at night and pray my friends. Pray for a saucer. E.T is our only hope.

We are a fucked up generation.

A fucked up generation.

We gotta get out of here.

It’s cloudy now.*

* It’s Cloudy Now, composed and performed by Blackfield.

Imagine, composed and performed by John Lennon.

Patriot, performed by Pearl Jam

Obituary

2009-04-29T12:17:00.002+05:30

It is with deep regret that I inform the sad and early demise of Sangya, my guppy fish, who under the careless and irresponsible charge of my lazy roommates suffered an extremely painful death. A home funeral was conducted in the loo by the same lazy roommates in the wee hours of Tuesday. The fish was finally flushed to rest.
He will always be remembered for his great blue fins.

Queen

2009-04-18T23:17:00.003+05:30

Morose

Perched by the window sill

You feel the cold wind

Emptiness within

You were once his Queen

The clouds howl and cry

You sip your wine

Yearning to fill the vacancy

Where he had once been

He had called you his Queen

Light fades, night falls

Intimidating to last forever

He’s singing your love songs

To another

He’s calling his new Queen

Let me breath you once more

2009-04-09T14:28:00.000+05:30

I hold her firm and close
In my grip, like firefly, she glows.
On a dull evening she inbreathes the air
I smell, savoring her fragrance on a wooden chair.
She entices my fingers, my hand, my body
Like cool breeze, like someone to nobody.
Close to my face, she stares me in the eye
She holds my hand and I can only sigh.
Crackling, she inches towards my lips
I disappear and reappear; oh, she's a magical eclipse.
Travelling the emptiness of the void space
Her moist lips take me to a scenic place,
A place where troubles are like cold nights
And pain, the wait for the morning light.
A place where those are never forever
A place where eternal love blossoms, however.
My fair lady, kiss me once more,
Oh, hold me, let me breath you once more.

New Shoes

2009-03-21T17:26:00.000+05:30

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! ~William Shakespeare, Othello

Never drink and drive. And more importantly never go shopping after a pitcher of beer. I’m embarrassed, I feel like a complete ass, I’m angry and I’m thirsty for a pint of beer. I’ll soon come to that.
Divs tagged me the other day. She wants me to list my favorite quotes. Um, I love way too many quotes to mention just a few. But I’ll mention some anyway. These quotes are not exactly what I’d call my most favorite quotes or the only ones that I love but these are the ones I can remember now in my cubicle. Yeah, today’s an official working day. Fuck my life.

“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her”
Oscar Wilde.
One witty bastard this guy. And gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. If I were alive then and this time was that time, I’d have loved to be friends with this guy. Talk about women, politics and sexuality and women.

“Everything popular is wrong.”
Oscar Wilde.
Right.

“Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, it is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.”
Jack Handey
He’s a mind reader.

“Beer is the cause and solution to all of life's problems.”
Homer Simpson
This is just one example of Lord Papa Simpson’s observation on life. I worship that man.

“The Dilbert Principle: People are idiots.”
Scott Adams.
If you are a cubicle dwelling, quarter life crises facing, frustrated engineer, grab a copy of that book today. Now.

“Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”
Tyler Durden, Fight Club (film)
I know the entire film by-heart. I know all the quotes from the novel that inspired the film. In Tyler Durden I trust.

"If you are reading this, then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity, you will become a statistic. You have been warned.”
Tyler, Fight Club (film). Pre-movie warning.

“I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.”
Agent Smith, The Matrix
I remember watching it in the late 90s when I was high school kid. I didn’t understand no shit save for the action sequences. My sister has to explain me for an hour who, what, where and why. Even today this movie sends a shiver down my spine. Just that “Mister Anderson” by Agent Smith is enough to give me goose bumps. He features way up in my top-ten list of fictional villains.

“Let’s fuck.”
Adam to Eve after she offered him the apple. This is merely my assumption.

That’s that.

I bought myself a pair of canvas shoes from Levi’s, Brigade Road. Rewind 1 hour. I was guzzling mugs of beer at The Pub World. Little did I know that a pitcher of beer had the potential to meddle with my decision making abilities. I and my able friend Abhi enter the showroom and point at these nice looking ankle length shoes to the salesman. He happily asks my shoe number. I utter a number I think makes sense. I say 9. And I’m 10. He brings them over from the stockroom and I test them. They feel perfectly fine. And today as I type this here my toes and ankles hurt as if a thousand red ants are making merry chewing on my feet and bellowing, “Chutiya hai re tu,” with their mouths full. Seriously it hurts like hell.
I can’t replace the shoes now. I’ve lost the receipt and it’s already been a week. More than my feet my heart is in pain. It hurts like I’ve lost my teenage love.
Life’s a bitch. Divya pings and reminds me of this song about shoes. Sukrit, as usual can’t keep his lady-mouth shut. By the way, dude, do you remember the other story about my jogging/tennis shoes which are now part of my Friday casual wear? I still can’t figure out why on Earth I bought them. I’ve got to go back home and change my shoes and wear those uglyass, yellow-soled tennis shoes.
I think I’m going to auction my shoes online. I can’t just keep them packed in the boxes feeling all helpless and angry. Anybody who’s interested in black, canvas, unused, ankle length, UK number 9, Levi’s shoes, please mail me. Anybody who has novel ways on how I could make the best out of useless shoes, mail me. Anybody who wants to scream, “Chutiya hai re tu,” with the ants, please mail me.
It’s a gloomy Saturday, I’m in office wearing shoes that don’t fit me of which I’ve lost the receipt and the showroom won’t replace them not only because I’ve lost the receipt but because they are a week old and they think I’m an old, pain-in-the-ass customer that buy goods just to return them. To add to my woes people ping and tell me listen to songs about shoes.
Yes, Divya. I’m submitting it to Fuck My Life.

Pranav Patil and The Cafeteria

2009-02-28T13:35:00.003+05:30

[Earlier]
[Later]

Rings build up pressure. With each unskilful ring floating in the air I move one step closer towards the end. There’s a dead cockroach in a corner that apparently crossed the white line of death the night before. I watch it. Another ring. And another. I feel I’m almost done. There’s a pale, hairless spider hunched calmly in its web waiting for a mosquito, a fly or whatever that it loves for lunch. I direct a rings towards it. It moves away feeling uncomfortable. Shaking. Shivering. Wriggling like a dead leaf, it moves away. I’m almost done here.

I love animals. Especially well cooked chicken. I’m not a sadist. Just the little kid in me, that’s all. I flush the toilet and stub my cigarette on the spider and it makes a hissing noise.

“I don’t smoke,” I tell her after she tells me that she hates smokers.

Girls generally claim that they hate smokers. Your girl might have told you too. They do. They really do. The trick is to lie. Lie until she catches you red handed. Now the trick is saying you’ll quit. But you know you never will until you burn your lungs like grilled chicken and read the doctor’s report that’ll give you your approximate life expectancy.

She smiles and believes me.

The coffee here is as bad as the food in my college canteen. 80 bucks for a cup of machine made mixture of hot water, a spoon of brown powder and some goddamn packed milk. You got to do it. Make your quarry happy.

“So we meet. Finally,” I try to continue the conversation.

She smiles.

There’s nothing more depressing than a quite girl. Girls were made with two purposes in mind: To talk and to talk more.

When a girl speaks as less as your handkerchief she’s up to something. She’s judging you. She’s building up an opinion about you. She’s wondering whether you are like all the other billion male pigs in the world. She’s looking at your lips trying to not to believe that you do not smoke. Between her smiles she smells you for a hint of that nicotine. If she’s letting herself too close to you, it’s not intimacy. It’s suspicion.

I tell her that the coffee here is good.

She nods approvingly.

“Do you like metal?” I ask her as a matter of fact.

She looks at me like a clueless student looking at her professor during viva voce.

Never delve into the realms of metal with girls who prefer coffee over beer and ask you whether you smoke on your first date.

Ask her about Blue and Backstreet Boys. Tell her Notting Hill is your favourite movie. Ask her about the latest Abhishek Bacchan movie. Tell her you’ve read all the Sidney Sheldon books.

“You know, now that we meet each other after all these days chatting online, it feels like when Hugh Grant met Julia Roberts for the fist time in his bookstore in that movie.. uh.. what’s its name” I say trying to recollect the name of the movie.

“Notting Hill,” she helps me, “Oh! how I love that movie.”

I smile.

Girls who love Trainspotting and The Clockwork Orange are as rare as those wonderful movies. If you are looking for one, the chances that you might find one are as good as Pantera reuniting.

“I’ve watched it like what, a thousand times and still I feel like I’m watching it for the very first time every time I watch it,” she says.

"They don't make such movies these days,” I frown, "People want masked bats and spiders saving dumb people, fighting alien creatures and wicked scientists and stuff. That's so unreal and so... uninteresting"

“I loved Jab We Met,” she says suddenly getting excited about the conversation, “Especially “Tum Se Hi”. Kareena Kapoor has improved a lot as an actor. Look at her earlier films. Oh, that stupid film Chameli. I wished she’d retire and do something she’s good at. Like not acting in movies. But then out of the blue we have Jab We Met. And that Shahid Kapoor, he looks cute no? Who would have thought that little kid from Taal and that Aryan’s video would one day grow up to become a film star. I love his dance also.”

Sense of humor is not their piece of cake. They expect their partners to make them laugh and “have a good sense of humor”. They expect us to make up for their loss. They are funny sometimes though. Like when they appreciate movies like Jab We Met.

“Damn good movie that one, I tell you,” I agree.

That guy hits the 1^st string of his guitar and tunes the 6^th string. Content with his tuning he goes on to sing the song “Tum Se Hi” strumming on God know what chords.

Perfection is not a requirement in our film industry. And the reason? No one really cares as long as you have muscular men wearing colourful outfits and skinny girls wearing, well…

Couple of coffees and more talks about things I hate and she loves we shake hands like we reached a business agreement and leave the café.

I watch her until she covers her face with a colourful napkin; kick starts her bike and drives it like female drivers drive.

I get back into the cafeteria, plug my iPod into my ears, and order another Latte and light up a cigarette.

I blow rings. I think about my final exam for a moment. I think about Anu. I wonder how she could like such a ghastly movie. I wonder why I hate them so much yet end up kissing their asses. I blow more rings as Judas Priest screams “Painkiller”.

The Awards

2009-02-25T14:09:00.002+05:30

Journalism these days is like whoring oneself—ones soul, beliefs and morality. Our electronic and print media launched their expected “India for Oscars” campaign recently. Not a single person had heard the name Danny Boyle or Vikas Swarup before this movie came out and started making loud noises in the awards circuit. Incidentally, an Indian gets nominated for the Golden “who cares” Globes and the trumpet begins to blow [Tom Cruise for Best Supporting Role for the film Tropic Thunder? Mockery. Pure mockery]. Like flies swarming around a pile of shit they devour it and spread tales about its greatness, its brilliance, its ascetics, its supposed reality and its everything-goes-well-in-the-end hopefulness. Oh! Aajtaks all of them.
There were other stupid people who criticized the movie for its depiction of India as a poor, underdeveloped, slum-filled nation where people crawl through shit to meet their favorite movie stars. To this lot I have a suggestion: Face it you biased, dumb nationalists, that’s the truth. We fvck more than we think. We are overpopulated. We are making babies at the speed of light. And that’s the reason we are poor, underdeveloped [what you purists call “developing”] and a slum-filled nation.
We are a bunch of stupid people. Let’s accept it. We really are stupid. Evaluating and judging ourselves by this meter built by a bunch of hypocrites or rather a bunch of self-centered frogs in the pound makes us something more than stupid. It makes us pathetically stupid. I do respect the Oscars. But praising our film industry and publishing false tales about its alleged greatness is like awarding Sania Mirza the Bharat Ratna for reaching second round in the grand slam.
Slumdog Millionaire is by no means the best film of the year. You want best films? Watch The Wrestler. Watch In Bruges. Watch all the movies that were screened at Sundance Film Festival. Watch the Italian mafia saga: Gomorrah. Watch all the South Korean movies of the year. Watch Milk.
The Academy has this tendency to favor movies that end on a happy, everythings-well-in-this-world note. That’s the reason Martin Scorsese never won an Oscar until he made the brilliant cop/mafia thriller The Departed. The host announces his name and Scorsese says, on the podium holding the golden statuette to the announcer, “Could you double-check the envelope?”
This brilliant director has made movies that depict reality. I can think of no other director who can capture the essence of life [fvcked up life] as beautifully as this man does. He’s God. But this God was recognized only couple of years ago by the Academy. So there is always this bias. There is this tendency to bend towards the goodness and the righteousness and the virtue shown in a movie by the Academy.
Please don’t get me wrong. Slumdog Millionaire is by no means a bad film. The day I saw it, I rated it 8/10 on IMDB. That doesn’t mean it’s the best motion picture of the year. I’ve rated 28 Days Later[Danny Boyle’s earlier post-apocalyptic thriller] 9/10. That doesn’t make it the best film of that year or a better film than Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog Millionaire is simply a dark fairy-tale[as oxymoronic as it sounds] told by a clever director who relies on cinematography and editing to make it a good movie. Not the story. And not the performances. That’s that.
Sean Penn was a surprise. I expected Mickey Rourke to take home the gold. It’s a fine performance. In fact the best of the year. The performance is as brilliant as the movie.
Take some time out of your heavy schedule and watch the above mentioned movies. Speaking of which, this is what I had to say a few days ago about my[the] best motion picture of the year: In Bruges.
Finally, I’d like to add that The Dark Knight deserved more. It really, really deserved more respect. Very rare are such movies to come by. It is a mixture of cleverness and brilliance by the Nolan brothers and of course the cast and crew of the movie. I, for one, am going to watch it again, tonight.

The Lamb

2009-02-06T23:51:00.000+05:30

In the gold field stood the dark towers
Full of clueless people with dark powers
They knew not what to do,
Knew as much what not to.

The mothers they fed their pretty lambs
Sheltered them from the wolves in the night.
The fathers they bowed down to the dragons
And the pretty lambs flew high like detached kites.

Seduced by the bright gold in the field of riches
The pretty lambs jumped and grazed.
Yellow was the gold and nothing more
If anything more, it was bright yellow
Spread all around the town like a legend-- a lore.

One lamb sensed the danger
The lamb was so familiar, it became a stranger.
The crazy shepherd shaved it nude
O! It was just the interlude.

Troubadours from the land of the Queen,
Circus men from places unseen,
Clowns from dark towers high,
Thus began the ritual,
The epilogue seemed nigh.

The lamb now grazed on the gold,
Yellow was the wool that appeared
Yellow, the blood
Yellow, the heart
Yellow, the lamb
That was no longer smart.

Ten reasons you should watch In Bruges

2009-01-28T20:36:00.001+05:30

1] It is not Slumdog Hypenaire.

2] The clueless media is still clueless about it and will remain so [a real good thing].

3] You’ll be treated to some of the best visual shots in recent cinema [Brokeback Mountain comes to me mind when I think about visual grandeur in films].

4] The two lead characters, no matter how bad and evil they are, you’ll love them.

5] Belgium is a beautiful country and Bruges is a splendid architectural landscape. The movement of camera is a treat to the eyes.

6] The humor is not idiotic slapstick but a more sophisticated form that arises from the situations, emotions and pure brilliant acting.

7] There are things to learn from this film. First: Evil doesn’t pay. Second: Enjoy while you can. Third: We all die.

8] This film proves some basic yet often forgotten points: modesty in filmmaking pays; KISS—Keep It Simple Stupid is true; actors and screenplay are the most important tools in filmmaking; world is beautiful and people are trying hard to be like the world ignoring the consequence of their actions.

9] Not many people make such films. Not often do you get to watch cinematic richness of such proportions achieved through simplicity and modesty.

10] This is the year’s[2008] best film [Alongside the mighty The Dark Knight]—as good as last year’s[2007] best: Into The Wild.

Goa

2009-01-11T10:27:00.003+05:30

So far it has been the most fruitful vacation since the day I joined this company I work for. I set off to Belgaum on the night of 24^th with Fatso. The next morning we reached Belgaum, had our breakfast and were on our way to the land of low cost alcohol and great legs—Goa, via the land of best chicken curry—Amboli. Goa vacation was, to say the least, amazing.

Fatso screwed up the first night’s stay. We were supposed to spend the night in Goa University paying no money. But the caretaker charged us 1500 bucks and we paid it seeing no better option available. Beer 20 bucks. Getting drunk and sleeping 1500 bucks.

We spent the next day on the beach. Langada Tyagi upon hearing that I was in Goa and infuriated by the fact that I hadn’t invited him, booked a cab for 3000 bucks and rode to Goa the very next day with two of his friends.

In the evening we played Pimp Holmes in the beach shacks—a thrilling and educational game where we determine who’s a hooker and who’s not.

Two things are aplenty in Goa: beer and hookers. These young, shabby looking pimps come over to you and ask, “boss maal chahiye kya?” while you are blissfully strolling in the market, marketing.

You cannot think of a response when someone asks you such a question. Young or old, beautiful or ugly, all kinds of women come over to you and fall all over you for you to take them home. You even get shemales there. No joke. And no, I haven’t taken one home or seen one peeing-- you'll know when you look at one. You pull you friend by his collar that’s into shemale porn and tell him excitedly about your discovery, “look there’s your type, man.”

Net stocking, manly Asian face, panty revealing micro skirt. Boss, stay away from these, unless you want to take a penis and a pair of tits home.

The rest of night was spent brooding over the money we wrongly invested into this horrible, third-rate, pathetic club we’ve ever been to—Tito’s. Firstly, Guruvinder Mann fan club from the north and fakeass hip-pop-hop loving crowd from the metros crowded the dance floor like it was some kind of Ganpati Visarjhan rivalry between two gallis. Secondly, the confused DJ was trying to mix Smack That and Chakde Phatte to please the entire crowd. And the icing on the cake—hookers all over the club; falling over you, rubbing their ass against you, grabing you there.

Men never refuse sexual advances by women. But it’s simply not acceptable when it’s a hooker. They see green bills hanging between our legs where we want them to see our proud possession.

Langda Tyagi wanted to spend the night on the beach, sipping beer and getting wasted, but I knew better. It gets mighty cold between 1am and 7am in Goa. I respectfully [had to kick him in his balls to let go of me] rejected his offer and made my way back to the room around 2am when people had started gathering in the clubs and streets. Fully wasted and hookerless, I slept peacefully.

We spent the next day in the room. There was this firang cottage behind our hotel and we holed up in our rooms sipping beer and smoking the unmentionable [thanks to vatras] hoping to see white girls undress or have crazy balcony sex like some exhibitionist slut. All we got to see was a fat German auntyji in a single piece swim suit sipping coffee. Well, nevermind.

We rode back to Belgaum via Arambol pulling in at every other wine shop on the way, sipping beer and eating fried, namkeen cashew. I was still high when my dad asked me how my vacation was. I nodded my head, told him I was tired and jumped into my bed, Lamb of God blazing loudly in my ears. A bad, bad hangover was beckoning.

Man, I love Goa.

P.S: Caught up on some wonderful classics [The Bridge on the River Kwai, Raging Bull, Full Metal Jacket, and many more] during my stay here. Details in the next post.

The Wings

2009-01-09T23:07:00.005+05:30

In the dark corridors
He saw his light.
He found the reason,
The wings for his flight.
Pair of emerald glimmered
Through the distance
That separated.
Deep and arousing.
Like an uncolored cinema
Behind the time
Yet so ahead.
He walked before the ignorant
Blissfully.
Thin and frail
He stood in the rain
Admiring,
Wondering.
She saw him not.
He saw the wings on her back.
He moved closer
She tumbled unable to fly
Wrapped within his arms.
He moved inside
She trembled unable to hide
Enslaved by the pleasure.
The wings flutter on his back
Flocking with birds now
Flying like a bird
In the sky that is his now
She withered away
Like an ugly witch
Losing her potion
Never finding her way.

C Man

2009-01-09T12:53:00.005+05:30

"Lagi. Bohot kharab lagi. Bhen ke _____ ne utha utha ke mari."
"Bola tha maine tujhe, bech de, bech de. Magar nahi _____ mai kide tere."
"Aare mai socha faide ke baremai, mereko kya malum inke undar ka lafada. Baaraah hazar khaye mere. Ek mahine ka aadha pagaar, ________. 400 pints beer ke. Soch."
"Dekh masti teri. Kide tere. Greed teri. Kyu leneka agar management ke baare mai malum nahi hai toh? Tum log jo ye bees pachis shares ke saath khelte ho na roz, ________ gambling hai ye."
"Apne desh mai ek hi toh legal form hai gambling ka."
"India ko gali matt de, saale fakir. Sab teri _____ masti."
"Tu mereko console karene ko aaya hai ya meri maarne?"
"Abe rotlu. Rona band kar, bottle paas kar. 509 ka 20. Let's toast to the lie in the truth."
"Peene ke baad shuru teri angrezi philosophy, ________."
"Saach ke condom pe joothe extra dots. _______ banaa gaye tujhe. Raju ban gaya gentleman, tu banaa C Man."

Across The Swamp

2009-01-08T23:41:00.004+05:30

I ran away
Away from the lies
From the promises
False and vile
I swam like a Salmon
To nest
To hide
To heal
To realize
I jumped the obstacles
Just to meet another
Across the swamp
I met the hungry bear

Wake Up

2009-01-08T01:17:00.001+05:30

You woke me up,
And I slept.
Bleary,
Sleepy,
You took me there,
Where I never came.
The moon shone bright,
All I saw was the night.
You lay there,
Before me,
I couldn't see.
Beautiful.
My fair lady.
Eyes like an angel.
A witch,
A broom,
I saw.
I was swept away,
My queen.
A mere speck of dust I,
Your knight in a suit of armor.
The wind howled,
I heard my cries,
I thought I laughed.
You were there,
Silent.
Still.
And flesh,
And bones,
And worms,
And the earthly dust.
Your scent,
I felt the stench.
Now in the moonlit darkness,
You still lay still.
Quite.
Like a sleeping neonate.
Like a tree on windless night.
Before me.
But I see the storm,
The nightmare,
The apocalypse.
My Queen,
My love,
I still do.
I still do.
I very much do.
Come back,
Wake up,
Wake me up.

Pranav Patil and The Relentless Persuasion

2009-01-06T22:13:00.003+05:30

[Earlier]

As expected of a shy and introvert engineer, I never met her. And she never expected me to meet her.

“Sorry, I was so caught up in my submissions and stuff, I couldn’t make it.” I say apologetically.

“I understand. Not a problem. I talked to the GS about the farewell party. I’ve given her the collected money. She said it was more than enough,” she says, mildly adding, “pity we couldn’t go out for lunch.”

The first sign that a girl is flirting with you is when she deliberately considers your earlier conversation, picks up your flirt-lines from that conversation and puts them before you now. The second sign is her stupidity. She’s acting stupid, she’s flirting. But they act stupid all the time. Here’s the catch. There are two kinds of stupid girls: one, persistently stupid, two, transitorily stupid. All girls are persistently stupid, meaning they are born with the essential qualities and characteristics desired of a stupid person. However, you are in search the transitorily stupid girl. These are the girls that act uniquely stupid for a moment, stupidly giggle and go back to the persistently stupid state. They are like wet dreams. Rare but there.

“We’ve got all our lives. We can go out anytime. Uh, what are you doing today evening, by the way?” I try to capitalize on her previous remark.

“I don’t know. Uh, I mean, I have my assignments and my journal to complete. Er, I’m not sure whether I’ll be free in the evening,” she replies after slight hesitation.

Hesitating girl is like a fresh graduate with high grade marks card and gullible brains. Identifying one is all you need to do. Find one. Promise. Recruit. She hesitates, there’s your chance. Pounce on her like a wild cat.

“Assignments will never end. Journals will never be completed. But Saturdays come only once.” I say trying to make sense and persuade her at the same time. “Once in a week.”

When you think you are making no sense you should think about the time when you visit your lecturer to ask for more marks you think you rightly deserve. You’ll suddenly realize there are so many other things that make so little sense.

“I’m not you,” she disappoints.

Girls like naughty boys. Not women. But girls. Young undergraduates, fresh recruits; they love it when you tell them how you got drunk and called up your professor’s wife and told her how much you hated her husband. Tell the girl this story even if it never happened. Most girls will make a stupid face and giggle. But not women. Try and call up your professor’s wife and tell her that you call up professor’s wives and tell them how much you hate their husbands. It’ll be the second last call you’ll ever make, the last—to your lawyer or dad. Depends.

“I’m not asking you out for a movie or something. Just one hour. A simple, plain Latte and after that you’ll on your study table writing best case and worst case scenarios for Merge Sort,” I say sounding like an engineer trying to impress his lecturer. “I promise.”

“Ok. Just one hour. I’ll have to convince my mom I’ll be going to library to return the books. Returning books never takes more than an hour.”

She agrees.

I smile.

She smiles.

“Alright then. 6pm, CCD?” I ask.

“Ok. But don’t make me wait,” she says.

This is a tricky line. This either means she has met other boys who’ve made her wait or she has seen a lot of those dumb movies where a muscular guy is making this badly dressed girl in a pub; he enters late and after a comic scene involving another muscular guy they break into a dance number; the music, ripoff of a pop song and the lyrics, nauseating. Anyway, they always say this: “Don’t make me wait.”

“I’m already there,” I joke. “Where are you? I’m waiting.”

“I waited for you and you never came. I had my coffee and went back home cursing you.”

Everybody wants to be a joker.

I smile.

She smiles.

“6pm. See you.”

“See you.”

She logs out.

I call up Nisha and tell her that I won’t be able to make it to the music class today. I tell her I have my lab journal to complete. She thinks I’m unconvincing. I change the subject and tell her a joke—there was this band that played rock; the lead’s mom disapproved of the band; she wanted them too play football. She giggles. Always works.

You should have a backup when you don’t have any. If one fails, you know, marries a rich guy or leaves the country to pursue higher American culture or is hit by a truck, you always have another to begirlfriend.

I wonder how awkward the date’s going to be. My first date is always as memorable as a nun’s visit to playboy mansion.

I log out.

[to be continued]

Pranav Patil and The First Meet

2009-01-03T16:10:00.003+05:30

It’s always the same. You think you love the girl, she knows you think you love her, nobody makes the move, she marries the project manager who’s earning good bucks never thinking of you again, wiping you away like you were some dirty, stinking waste stuck between her butt crack for 1 year; now her kids and her husband smile in the framed photograph on the television set and you are left with all the memories, the pain and a bottle of cheap whiskey.

It’s always the same.

That’s my story in brief. Want to buy the rights? Want to make a movie? Go ahead it’s an universal story. It’s your story. Just sit on your bed alone on a cold night and revisit that 18-25 phase of your life. You have it. We all have it.

“Your have beautiful hair,” was my pick up line.

“Sorry, do I know you,” was her put down line.

Now long, silky, black hair is my weakness. I don’t always stalk women with this feature I find extremely attractive, but, you know, she was different. Every other girl is different when you like them.

“We study in the same college. In the same branch. Information Science? You happen to be my junior,” I tell her.

When a girl questions you about your identity you have nothing much to do but to reveal it. You can’t say, “Yes you do know me and I think you are amnesic.” The moment you try and act smart, she has about a thousand opinions about you and none of them in your favour.

“Is it? I don’t think I remember you. Uh, what’s your name again?” she asks.

“Pranav. Pranav Patil.” I say and signal a smile.

This is when the conversation reaches the pit of no return. Whenever a girl asks you your name without first introducing herself, she’s convinced about one of her thousand opinions she has about you and she wants you to leave her alone in her pink, confused and unreasonable world.

“So, I said I like your hair.” But I have balls of wrought iron.

“Thank you,” she says finally without being able to think of anything else. I sure was making her nervous.

When you get the girl nervous, it’s like you’ve hypnotized the audience with your music. Everything will come under your control if you play the right notes now.

“I saw you in the college bus today; you were looking for a seat and didn’t find any. I offered you mine but you rejected it.”

“Oh. Right,” she says sounding bored and eager to end the conversation.

The pit of no return. Moral: Always end your lines with a question. Girls love answering questions. Ask her about her dog, about her new eyeliner, about her unusual bike number, her jute carry-bag, her pink mobile phone, her pink mobile cover, her pink sandals. Invent a thing, paint it pink and ask her about it. The chances are quite high that she might actually have it.

“The other day I saw you at the mall you were wearing that pink top or something. Before I could come and ask you about the farewell party fund collection you vanished. By the way, you guys are done collecting the money? How much did you collect?” Mall and Pink—these are the two important keywords. Take them and throw them in any sentence. They never fail. And end with a question.

“Everyone has paid. We have enough with us now,” she replies and smiles.

It’s a common misconception that when a girl smiles you have her under your charismatic control and the work’s done. Contrary to the popular belief, when a girl laughs your work increases two-folds because you have to make her sustain that smile on her face. She smiles, your night shift begins.

“That’s wonderful. I’ll meet you in the college tomorrow during the lunch break and we can discuss it. If you’ve collected extra money we’ll buy our lunch in the canteen,” I joke.

And she smiles.

“Ok, my mom’s calling me for dinner. Got to run. See you tomorrow. Nice hair you have there in the profile picture again. Good night.” I add.

Every engineer’s love story begins electronically. If possible we’d assign the two binary numbers to each other—1 for male and 0 for female—have virtual sex and produce a new digit. That’s how much we love doing things online.

We spend most of our lives before an illuminating screen telling us what to do with our pathetic lives. We make friends online, we write about our lives online, we buy online, we work online and we have sex online. And we know it’s pathetic but we still go on about it as if we were born to stare at a rectangular sun. It’s like dope. We are hooked.

“Ok. Good night. Nice talking to you,” she says. “See you tomorrow.”

I log out.

[To be continued]

Now

2008-11-24T12:08:00.004+05:30

Yesterday was my movie marathon day. Usually all Saturdays and Sundays are. I make it a point to watch at least three movies on Saturdays and three more on Sundays. This routine of mine might also give you a little insight about my social life. It is as active as a 98-year-old Himalayan saint’s sex life.
Speaking of movies, ~~Condom~~ Quantum of Solace stars the gritty, tough, rugged and remorseless Daniel Craig as the British secret agent James Bond. [What a revelation you might say.] According to my opinion [as some saint once proclaimed: opinion is like an asshole, everybody has one] he’s the best Bond compared to all his predecessors. The last two movies have been dark, less on the witty one liners content and more focused on Bond and his inner turmoil along with some amazing Aston Martin car chases and exotic locales. Not to forget the delicious women. With Marc Forster [Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction] as the director I had some heavy expectations from the latest but it falls short of being the best Bond movie. The plot is clichéd [“it’s a Bond movie you asshole,” you might shout] but look at Casino Royale. It was entirely different with all the Bond elements intact. I have few qualms about QOS. It was, as I said before, clichéd, it was confusing at times and it was not all that I expected after the brilliant Casino Royale. But even then it pulls itself off as a decent entertainer and a legacy continuing Bond film.

[hathoda]
Friend C: Why aren’t there any chicks in the Multiplex?
Virus: If it were Pills of Solace they’d have all rushed in.
[/hathoda]

I remember watching Casino Royale in Belgaum, while I was being trained to be a cynical engineer, and, that, I’m now. A notable thing about watching angrezi movies in the cinemas in Belgaum is that you’ll *only* get to watch the wonderfully translated Hindi versions of the original. Sample this:

Bond to the waiter: Dost, mere liye vodka aur rum. Aur thoda santre ka juice uspe chidkana.
Felix Leiter to the waiter [in a voice similar to that of Discovery channel’s hindi translator]: Hello Boss, mere liye bhi wohi lana.

I’m not making this up. These are the lines spoken by our desi Bond and desi Leiter in the Casino just before Bond is poisoned. And people blame piracy. But they were some great days I tell you. I and my friends watched every movie [literally all Hindi and angrezi movies] that ran in the theatres. We cared about our internals, our journals and finals as much as insects cared about those blue florescent traps. No wonder we used to end up like them insects.
I watched The Pianist all over again. It is a movie that gives me hope. In my current work place I can very much relate to Adrian Brody’s character in the movie. Two scenes in the movie never fail to amaze me with their sensitivity and hopeless hope. The first one: when asked not to make any noise in order to survive the Gestapo raiding, Szpilman plays the piano by hovering his finger an inch above the keys imagining the notes float around him like fresh air around a tired worker while the sun is setting on a summer evening. The second: when the Nazi Gestapo gives Szpilman bread and then his coat and when inquired what’d Szpilman do after the war’s over, he says with that immense optimism of a fresh college graduate, “I’ll play the piano in the Polish radio.” The optimism is so authentic on Brody’s face that you’ll believe him. You wish the Russians invade and his ordeal end right there and you listen him play. No wonder Brody won an Oscar for his performance. The Gestapo asks him for his name so that he could listen to him once the war ends. However, the Gestapo dies in the Russian prisoner-of-war camp in 1953. What Spielberg did with Schindler’s List, Roman Polaski does with The Pianist. These two auteurs are undoubtedly the best directors who have made the two finest Holocaust movies ever. Such brilliance and sensitive touch is rarely seen on screen.
I watched As Good As It Gets yesterday. And, needless to say, it is amongst the best comedy/drama I’ve seen. Everything about the movie is absolutely perfect. Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt both won Oscars for their wonderful performances. I suggest this movie for all hopeless romantics, dog lovers, homophobics and homosexuals. Watch it even if you don’t fall in these categories.
I read a couple of hilarious books by Scott Adams recently. I suggest The Dilbert Principle and The Joy of Work: How to enjoy at the workplace at the expense of your co-workers for all the software engineers [so-called] and every other cubicle who are so jobless that they are reading this right now. That man, Scott Adams, he’s got the wackiest sense of humor for an economics major and an ex-employee of a software company. Good thing he quit his job and took caricaturing seriously. Our messiah that sonofagun became. I’ve got to get my hands on his recent book Dilbert 2.0.
My previous post was supposedly “scandalizing” and “MCP-ish” according to the readers. I have a plausible explanation. Divs mailed me the very moment she read the post which went somewhat like:
Seriously, do you hate all the women? Or just a few? Do you think all women are dumb, unfit people who serve the purpose of your ogling?

And I replied something like:
Of course not. Have you seen the movie BORAT: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan? It was the most misunderstood film of 2006. It caused ripples in the press for its negative portrayal of Jews, homosexuals and Arabs. What I wrote was a satire. I wrote keeping in mind the stereotype India male.
I don’t hate your entire clan. I love Keira Knightly.

The non-believers will still shout SEXIST! but I hope it clears it all. And I must confess that I enjoyed writing it. Immensely.

I got a chance to double click this much relished amateur movie in the male-engineers circle called MM. It stars an unknown, supposedly Mysore girl indulging in all forms of carnal activities with her male partner. They both speak fluent Kannada and the girl is as beautiful as a yesteryear Bollywood actress. She reminds me of Tanuja. Thick lips as if perfectly pencilled by an artist, eyes as big as grapes and equally delicious, cheeks and chin like that of a 14th century sculpture. She is perfect. The sad thing is the personal video was leaked, obviously by either of them, and it spread like wild fire during our engineering days. On the internet several “fanboys” suggested several interesting stories behind the making of the “movie” and the “stars” it featured. Wonder what she’s doing now.
A colleague of mine gave me the complete Sandman collection [seventy frickn’ five issues] and Stephan King’s The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born graphic novels. As of now I’ve read the first issue of Sandman—Master of Dreams and to say the least it is brilliant. The illustration is unorthodox and the plot unique compared the superhero infested comic world [I’m a huge superhero comic fan for that matter]. I’m yet to read The Dark Tower. All that I know is Stephan King, like million others, was awestruck by J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and went on to write his own seven book series called The Dark Tower. A limited edition comic book was published by Marvel in 2007 which was later published as unlimited edition by thepiratebay to all the filthy downloaders. Seriously, what would we do without all those torrents, seeders and uploaders? Hard to imagine.
Last week Divs was in Mysore. We had a nice, quite lunch at the serene The Sixth Main and later watched Over the Hedge back at home. She had to make it early to Bangalore so we couldn’t “socialize” in the evening. The next time I’m in Bangalore, we will. I’ve promised. And I owe her a gift I don’t know if I’ll ever give it to her. Maybe I’ll make it 201 bucks instead of 101 in her marriage gift.
I’ve started to dislike Bangalore less with every visit. I’ve been there a lot many times now and the place doesn’t seem as repulsive as it seemed before. This is because of my newly discovered fact that people suck everywhere and the application of “Ignorance is bliss” to this amazing discovery.
Abhi and Vatras are great fellow beer lovers from Bangalore. Abhi, who when drunk claims he’s a serious follower of my blog, is a frustrated fellow software engineer. Vatras, a movie lover, is a sensible writer whom I met recently and realized we shared some similar interests except my hated and his love for Grandpa Ganguly. They both think I’m gay and leave no opportunity to mock my orientation they’ve wrongly perceived and stored permanently in their brains unchecking the “write” and “hidden” permissions. [Sorry can’t help.] Heck, half the people I know think I’m gay, the other half are convinced I’m gay. Hoping the Goa vacation this Christmas will be as memorable as the last one with them. [Trust me I won’t pack those pink shirts and they were gifts you losers.]
Office work’s been too bloody hectic since a couple of months. I’ve been working on weekends and overtime to meet the impossible deadlines and unearthly requirements. Pantera and Bob Dylan are my dope. Hope the ordeal ends soon.

That’s it for now.
Drink less. Drive safe. Show The Finger when necessary. And don’t smoke.
-Virus

Female Engineers: An Observation

2008-11-11T10:57:00.003+05:30

~~Earlier this week~~ Last month, an engineer female friend of mine came up with an irrational homophobic post you really don’t want to know about. Being utterly disrespectful in her obnoxious post she verbally assaults male software engineers in particular [I do not have any respect for any of them either] and masculinity in general. Now as a self-declared misogynist I consider it my duty to do justice to my cadre of superior sex by replying to her illogical logic and the “Friday blue” she blatantly brags about.

Here I present my reasons why I affirmatively disagree with female engineers in particular and female-anything in general.

1] First and foremost, they are not men. [Makes me a “chauvinistic pig” and not a gay; not that there’s anything wrong in being gay]

2] The bigger the breasts, the smaller the brains. It is an accepted statement worldwide by all men and all the lesbians. In my 23 years of experience as a superior-being I’ve noticed—and my observation has been increasing exponentially since the day I reached puberty—the bigger the “boulders,” the more stupid they are as a person. However, this observed phenomenon has two major advantages for us:
->Mating advantage.
->The difficult Indian route to reach that “mating advantage” stage.

Studies* have shown that Indian women won’t let desperate Indian men [read the entire Indian male population] anywhere near the sacred region between their legs unless they are dumb enough to believe you when you say, “You don’t trust me?” Interestingly enough, every other Indian woman becomes surprisingly dumb on the night she gets married to a total stranger. Anyway, that’s not the point here. The point is that as days progress in a woman’s life the fleshy matter that exists in the skull will be systematically transferred to the mountainous region below neck we men like to talk to while conversing with her. The transfer rate attains its peak level at the age of 18 and at the age of 22 most of the gelatinous substance is where the bra manufacturers want it to be. Thus, this verifies the authenticity of all the blonde jokes and the unnecessarily extra alphabets women use and simultaneously swallow during an online conversation.

Case Study 1:
Typical Indian Woman Pooja: hieeeeeeeeeeeeeee whts up?
Frustrated Indian Male Rahul: Hello there. Busy with my work, Pooja.
TIW Pooja: o!!!!!! u do so mch wrk no tim 4 me only
FIM Rahul [considering the above reply as a route to “mating advantage” stage]: I’ve been busy like a pregnant ant carrying a maple leaf. How about we grab a burger and some coffee in the evening, if you are free?
TIW Pooja: heeeeheeheeee ve to cmplt ths rprt n snd it by evng. :`(
FIM Rahul: I’ll do it for you. No problem. Send me the template and the data.
TIW Pooja: ooooooww cho chweettttttttttttttttt 6pm cmpus ccd ok?
FIM Rahul [drooling]: Sure.
TIW Pooja: c u thr bieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
This is when she closes FIM Rahul’s chat window and double clicks on AFIM Rohit. Apparently, Pooja has microscopic breasts. Avoid Pooja at all costs.

3] When women are going through these little known scary things called PMS and menopause, they see to it that they make the life forms that fall under 500 meters of their radius suffer until they either strangle themselves with Ethernet cable or go and have a conversation with an HR [both the options will eventually kill you]. And if an HR ever comes up with a PMS policy it would read somewhat like this:

During Those Days of the Month v0.1
i] Women will be allowed to telecommute during those days of the month.
ii] As it has been scientifically proved that those-days-of-the-month occur once in a month and never once in nine months if you ever believe your boyfriend say, “You don’t trust me?” or “I will redirect the data packets outside, don’t worry,” then the policy will be tweaked and applied accordingly.
iii] Men are pigs. Do not trust them.

This is a self generated e-mail, if you have big breasts then you qualify to reply to this e-mail under the Huge Breasts Dumb Engineer Policy v0.1

4] All men masturbate. If we had enough ovaries in the drainage pipes there would be less attention paid to Paris Hilton and more on the amazing life forms of the sewers. The underworld humans would start a mutiny to overthrow their surface fathers and seize control of the Earth. There is so much sperm down there right now that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the underworld humans succeeded in defeating us and started colonizing.
Men masturbate so much that you shouldn’t be surprised during the early periods of your married life if your better half sits on the easy chair and wanks the heck out of his organ all the while staring at you sitting on the bed. That’s a disturbing yet possible possibility.
Now, men acquire this rather amazingly satisfying habit at the tender age of 14 whereas female engineers or for that matter all women, who will NEVER publicly accept that they “cave in” at times, acquire this habit after their life partners lose the interest/grow impotent/never grow out of the masturbation habit they acquired at the tender age of 14. Studies* show that women who fall under the above mentioned category are the largest consumers of vibrators, pink dildos and vibrator attached penis shaped brown strap ons. The latter are the favourite coital device of the tomboys.

5] Men love pornography. Women, who usually seem to shudder when the p-word is uttered, act in them.

5a] Feminists would however argue that, men too, act in these objectionable carnal materials. But studies* suggest that female-female or female-female-female or female-female-female-female… are the major genres of these “objectionable carnal materials” that rule the torrent download charts.

6] Female engineers are all nerds. Studies* have shown that a beautiful female engineer was a beautiful character from the 15th century S-City folklore. Past behaviour of engineers also points at one rather disturbing fact: all male engineers end up marrying female engineer due to extreme lack of options all the while dreaming about marrying the doctor they secretly loved in 12th standard.

7] Talking dirty with female engineers is like discussing advanced calculus with a new born. Firstly, they are not interested. And even if they were they wouldn’t understand shit. Secondly, their IQ fluctuates between that of a new born and an embryo.

Case study 2:
Dirty Engineer Vinod: Hey, long time no see. Where’ve you been man?
Dumb Female Engineer Champa: I’m hre only no wre I shuld b?
DE Vinod: You are there just because of those hot muscles in your cubicle huh?
DFE Champa: wht?
DE Vinod [assuming she’s flirting with him]: Or is it that hot piece of meat I have my eyes on. I thought you were straight man.
DFE Champa: im vegtrian vin nd r u caling me bamboo cuz im tall n thin?
DE Vinod [apologizes, logs out and gets back to coding]

8] Casual Fridays should be banned in the corporate world. The food courts will be packed with Rani Mukarjees from Chandighar and Namithas from Chennai. The bhens from Gujarat too join the Friday circus. Women think that denims make them look thinner, intelligent and womanly. However, unknown to these lesser sex, it casts the exact opposite impression upon us male engineers. But due to the pervading lack of option, we accept them as the only source of official sight seeing entertainment and look ahead for the Friday night. That is when we get wasted and write such illuminating posts.

The author, a male engineer, took immense pleasure while writing this piece of information. He even cried when he realised that he was making so much “sense” after a prolonged period of time. The characters appearing in the above post are all fictional due the way they appear, but the scenarios are all real. Many animals were harmed while writing this post. Only chicken sandwich can make you write something so educative.

*all the studies were conducted on female rats in an uncontrolled environment.

Actually, pun was intended.

Sutta na mila

2008-10-03T17:07:00.002+05:30

A raging debate on the cigarette smoking ban erupted on my company bulletin board this afternoon. Most women seemed to welcome the ban. Heck, they were just two and they agreed with the center's move to ban smoking. The section of men supporting the ban and the section opposing the ban was equally distributed.
Banning smoking in pubs/bars/discotheques is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in the recent times. [banning live music in areas serving alcohol was the most recent ridiculous thing from the government ranking slightly higher than our commies opposing the Nuke deal]
I rarely dwell into this scented turd called Indian politics. Turd scented turd called Indian politics to be precise. We are slowly evolving into a totalitarian nation. We call ourselves the largest democracy yet we'll whip the ass of an innocent smoker red, who's enjoying a puff by the road. What next? Free speech? Oh, wait. We've already done that. The blogosphere was blocked for nearly a month during the Mumbai blasts reasons being "outpour of heated views by bloggers." Being a billion strong nation, we are no better than some fascist African nation if we cannot tolerate an innocent smoker who has nothing but his own lungs to harm.

A person in his right senses will never smoke in a bus, train or any crowded public place for that matter. Smokers, if you've observed, are puffing their life away with fellow smokers beside a petty cigarette shop by the roadside, in smoking zones, in pubs or in solitary state of bliss in the confines of their own frickin' houses. Some views:

1] No person who disapproves of smoking will ever venture near a fag store. [Ever seen someone eating vada-pav at a cigarette shop?] No passive smoker, apart from the vendor, is harmed here.
2] Unless you are a habituated smoker or a close friend of that habituated smoker you'll never hang out with any person in a smoking zone. No one's harmed here too, save for that willing best friend.
3] One who opposes cigarette smoking will never go to a pub or a discotheque in the first place. Speaking of which, pubs are the place where you hang out with your friends to have a smoke or a drink. If you go to a pub and are a teetotaler then you definitely fall in the category of a libertarian with no opposition to other people smoking and consuming alcohol. This is common sense. The libertarian is the only willing passive smoker here.
4] Most married men prefer smoking in their house. I've seen people smoking away their lives in a state of total bliss while dragging that one puff in their houses. It's their house. They have complete freedom to smoke as may fags as they wish. I've never heard of wives complaining about husbands beating them up after a smoke.

What on God's beautiful, green Earth are we cribbing about then? Considering all these points, the ban is an outrageous move. Not only will it NOT stop the smokers from smoking, it'll also ask for more court-work, foster corruption and distance the smoking community from the government.

As a nonsmoker, I reiterate that this is a prejudiced move by one minister who wants gay marriages to be legalized [I'm with the minister on this matter] and is nosy enough to comment on the personal lives and habits of other people.

All the people supporting the ban expect a DVD copy of "Thank you for Smoking" by Reitman in your house. Provided you deposit 1200 INR in my account.

Hopeless

2008-09-24T14:59:00.000+05:30

Hopelessly I loved you,
Never could I speak;
When I did, you hardly understood,
When you did, thought I was weak.

Angles, you made me believe in,
For you were one;
You made me revolve around you,
For you were my bright sun.

I dreamt of you each day;
I slept often to see you again;
Your thought never let me sleep,
Awoke, I still dreamt the same.

“I love you,” once I revealed,
“I do too,” you never replied;
I waited for an answer all night,
And the night hasn’t yet died.

Blue is my heart, misery I sing about,
Pain I’ve embraced, seeking you in vain;
You once gave me life, my dear,
Resurrect me again.

A tree grows in your beautiful mind,
Fruit, I wish, I was there;
But I’m falling and rotting, hold me,
Without you, this life I cannot bear.

The above poem was written by a nursery kid when he was 23 years old. He called himself Virus.

September

2008-09-09T12:12:00.003+05:30

I’ll be attending an exam after nearly seven months. It’s this certification that every employee needs to take up in order to climb the “corporate ladder.” Unfortunately, there seems to be no elevator. You have to do it the hard way. Earn it like a man. Take an elevator and you’ll be demoted to HR.
Belgaum trip was fun. Had beer and biryani at Savera and visited my college at 11:30 in the night. Met few to-be engineers studying in the library who’d soon pass out of the college to become great, socially inept cynics like us. Also had tea at Highway. By the way, the owner of this Hotel Highway has a great looking daughter/wife/niece/sister/mistress. I’ve never seen her during my six year evening tea session I used to attend there to ogle at the doctors from the neighboring medical schools. Tall, fair, thin, straight nose. A perfect Parsi beauty. I’m a sucker for straight noses. Right next to feet, noses do it for me.
I’m listening to Frank Sinatra these days. If ever you feel let down and are depressed for no reason at all then put on his record. He’ll make sure you go under irrecoverable depression and commit suicide. He’s got such lovely blue texture in his voice, you’ll want to die and meet him up there. India: Rafi :: America: Sinatra.
Watched Dumb and Dumber: pure slapstick, not as dumb as it seems. Going by its name and the cast I thought it to be another Jim Carey slapstick. Hell no, sir. It is not. It is dumb but beautifully. You’ll love the two dumb character in the end as the credits roll. Also watched A Scanner Darkly. Only the Almighty and the director knows what was going on in most part of the film. I did get the whole point of it, maybe most of it in the end, but man, what was Linklater trying to convey with all the espionage drama, small-talk and surrealistic cinematography? I don’t know if I liked it but I’ll surely give it another take some other day. Perhaps this is another Pulp Fiction. It took me two views to understand the vastness of that one. And when I realized I said, “Mr Tarentino, take a bow.”
Last month’s issue of Rolling Stone features some great guitarists of our as well as our father’s time. The cover story features 100 greatest guitar songs of all time. Some of my personal favorites didn’t make it to the list, but nevertheless it is a good list of some of the greatest songs. Get a copy if you love them strings.
My room was vandalized by a couple of pricks when I was in Belgaum. My imbecile roommate let them invade my room in my absence and show their graffiti skills on a couple of print outs I’d stuck on the wall [The warning message from Fight Club and Society OST from Into the Wild.] Though they are all my friends, I hate such still-sucking-on-my-mommys-tits behaviour. Grow up. Respect privacy. Do not cross the fvcking line.
That’s all for now. Hope I clear the exam tomorrow.

Read, listen,watch,
Virus.

Baingan

2008-09-01T14:14:00.000+05:30

I have already finished 10 months of my professional career and I’m as satisfied as a prostitute who has received no pay check for all the work she has ever done for all her disgusting clients.
I still can’t figure out if this is what I want to do my entire, now seemingly worthless, life; if this is what I wish for—coding my ass off, copy-pasting overtime, entering unintelligible data for firings who change their requirements every nano-second.
When I was a school student I complained about the infrastructure and the quality of education. When I was in my 11th I complained about, uh, no. Surprisingly, I don’t remember griping during my 11th and 12th college days. Apparently, those two years were the “best days of my life,” and then I joined engineering. Everything fell apart in the second semester. I was jubilant and overjoyed in my first, like a goat soon to be slaughtered. I then realized that every computer engineer will not launch a successful social networking site or start up a huge video streaming company. I’ve realized that we are all those defective branded factory products that keep coming out of the factories, rejected and sold at half their original price on every other corner of Bangalore city. In my case, Mysore city.
I’m like this rusty, overflowing, government office complaint box. I never have remedies. I don’t have suggestions either. Just the simple, plain old nagging complaints.
Anyway, solace is a mysterious word now. Fridays at a pub, getting wasted; blues-rock at home; Chuck Palahnuik and Puzo, Dilbert and my comic books and graphic novels; movies I watch and re-watch are the only activities I find amusing and soothing and satisfactory. I haven’t reached my mid-life yet and here I am, 20 some-fvcking-thing, going through a goddamn crisis. I shudder at the thought how it’s going to be then, in my mid-life, if this nauseating routine keeps me healthy and alive. They say love is a bitch. Exactly. And life is her mother.
Perhaps I’m over reacting like them Miss Universes being crowned. Perhaps there is solace to be found in work, if only one can dig through all the rotten, stinking pile of feces we dwell on. Perhaps I might find it one day. Perhaps this is my early 20s crisis. Perhaps I will come out of it all one day and achieve Nirvana. Hope is like one real good, kick-ass dude, man. But sometimes it gives you the finger.

On a differently different note, I’ll be visiting my hometown day after. Desperately want to eat Savera’s Biryani and savor Hotel Highway’s tea. Also give a visit to JNMC campus for some “freshness.”

Rain, movies and beer

2008-08-29T13:48:00.004+05:30

Dated: 27-Aug-08, somewhere around 8 o'clock in the evening.

It’s raining hard outside—like a million Meena Kumaris weeping their eyes off [I love Meena Kumari analogies]. I’m in my cosy, small, warm, untidy room sitting on a red plastic chair, sipping chilled beer, typing. I have nothing interesting to say here actually. Just, you know, felt like typing. I love these keys on my notebook. They feel like sponge. Soft and smooth. If they were women I’d have asked them out, unsuccessfully, of course. I love these keys.
Anyway in the ‘let’s make sense section’, I finished watching The Savages an hour ago. Loved it. Especially Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character. Sensitive, introvert, romantically bankrupt, sometimes strong-- maybe pretending to be strong. I could relate. It’s a delicate and compassionate story about three members of the Savage family; a father who’s never really taken care of his two kids in their childhood who is now on his deathbed and the two children that are now old enough, forced to take care of their father. Already entangled in their own mid-life crises; the brother is finding it hard to write his book and maintain a committed relationship with his Polish girlfriend and the sister is sleeping around with a married man trying desperately to sell her semi-autobiographical play but here they are caught up in another whirlwind nursing their father who they’ve really not know and hardly loved. Will they ever love him? Watch it for yourself [heck, yes they’ll love him.]
I simply couldn’t understand the background score on this one. It is funny sometimes like they are scoring for a Charlie Chaplin movie; it is deep and thoughtful and engrossing like an orchestra when it’s not funny. I just didn’t get the message the composer was trying to convey. I don’t blame them for my lack of comprehension though. Overall, I loved the movie. It is not pretentious. It doesn’t ask you to sit through it. There are no “funny” moments to keep those moviegoers on their seats and make them feel happy and, you know, contended when they get out of the movie hall still laughing and throwing their hands on their friends’ shoulder saying, “that was some funny shit man.” It is a convincing, reticent family drama [May I say tragedy?] Watch it if you’ve lost someone, if you’ve truly cared for someone [I’m not implying romance here.] If you’ve badly wanted someone to stay back and hold you in their warm embrace and talk to you for hours during the depressing darkness of those moonless nights. Watch it if you’ve had misfortunes in your life. If you’ve taken a wrong step and tried to correct it taking a much worse step. Heck, watch it any way. It is a good movie.
I’d also suggest Sherry Baby starring Maggie Gyllenhall, Juno starring the Academy Award nominee Ellen Page, Love’s a Bitch, 21 Grams and Babel by Alejandro Inarritu and Crash by Paul Haggis. These are few movies I can presently, in my tipsy state, suggest for those peaceful nights when you are all alone. Darkness setting within you and around you. Watch them during those tranquil evenings. Watch them again if you already have.
The beer’s half full.
*burp*

The Rat and the Pied Piper

2008-08-25T10:04:00.003+05:30

Please excuse the indentation and other missing conventionalities. Most of the words remain un-italicized. I can't publish it so from my office. The proxy server doesn't allow that.

[Warning: The following write up shall be quite lengthy. I request you to quit reading right after this sentence if you are not a cinephile or a comic-book fan.
If now, by any chance, you are still reading this line then you are either a defiant prick or an authentic movie lover. I should further warn you that this write up will contain more such irrelevant lines and biased views towards cinema and comic books. You have been warned.]

[Special Acknowledgment: Having said that, I would like to thank two of my chums who made it possible for me to watch The Movie: Tennan, who was instrumental in letting me catch all the four shows at the cinemas by cancelling his trip to Mysore and Fatso who was kind enough to get me the ticket for the second show through his evil schemes and cunning ways. I wouldn’t be writing this today if it wasn’t for them.]

Introduction:
By this time it may seem too late to read this commentary on what is [was] said to be the event of the year. Some went so far as to call it a phenomenon, a once in a lifetime occurrence; it was the release of the much anticipated, much talked about, outrageously marketed, immensely hyped comic book sequel: The Dark Knight, a follow-up to the original Batman Begins by the young visionary auteur—Christopher Nolan. I, for one, had never been so eager to watch a movie before. When the Lord of the Rings released I knew not much about the Tolkienian world, I must confess. I was quite naïve but there was the same excitement that surrounded the movie. I know of no other movies that have been successful in creating such frenzy, such mad rush and such crazy devoted following than there two movies: the Lord of the Rings franchise and the Batman franchise.
Ever since the release, the boot-up, of the Batman series I had been recklessly following every move of the movie. Right from its casting to the final day of post-production I devotedly followed it like a rat that followed a pied piper. It was an enchanting journey which lasted two full years that led me into the beautiful sea where I spent two full days [and later a whole lot many days in hang over] immersed and soaked wet in the beauty of a cinema so vividly cinematic, a movie so phenomenally ground breaking and a film so artistically dark and maverick.
Having been an ardent follower and admirer of Nolan’s nonconformist works: Memento and The Prestige and his first comic-book adaptation—Batman Begins, I couldn’t have been more enthusiastic expecting to watch the next instalment in one of the most commercially successful and artistically fine superhero franchise in the history of film making.

[Be warned again, for I shall continue being an arrogant fan and a prejudiced moviegoer in the rest of the write up too.]

Retrospection:
I always ask this question when I watch a movie: How is the movie different from the others of its genre? An answer in positive constitutes a commendable movie for me. I decide the positivity by thorough retrospection: the originality of the screenplay or the screenplay for its cohesiveness when adapted from a material already present, the performances of the actors, the auteur’s ability to handle the script and his actors, the background score [For a brief moment forget the actors and the story and watch The Godfather 2 and then watch Sarkar Raj. The latter tries desperately to seduce the audience and evidently fails with its ridiculously loud, directionless score if somehow we manage to ignore its senseless story and boisterous one-liners throughout], the effectiveness of the final edited material [Memento, The Bourne Ultimatum, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Fight Club are few fine examples of creative editing with artistic merit attached to them that I can currently think of] and lastly the behind-the-screen technicality involved. These factors influence my mental tastes buds whenever I watch a movie.

The comic-book genre:
Now that I have presented my sanity in judging the movies, let me make a bold statement [as if it hasn’t been made already] based upon the above mentioned factors: The Dark Knight, is a path breaking, genre shattering, conventionality demolishing, standardization defeating, epic comic-book movie that has been made till date.
I’d like to categorize this movie as a comic-book movie, a genre that has been refused a place amongst the others genres. There exists sci-fi and there also exists fantasy; but the “learned” critics and film scholars have always refused to categorize movies adapted from comic-book into a separate and distinct genre. All the movies since Tim Burton’s classic Batman to the present day Nolan’s Batman Begins have been placed under different genres—crime, thriller, drama, action, adventure, sci-fi and sometimes fantasy. The need to categorize them into one distinct genre was never felt before partially due to what was considered by the general populace as the lack of cinematic credibility involved in those movies. Never before were they taken into account as serious cinemas and artistic rendition of something beautifully written and drawn on a 20-bucks-a-issue comic book. But the scene was deliberately changing after the release of Sam Raimi’s Spiderman. It narrated the birth and growth of the web-slinger in a commercial yet artistic fashion. Although it was aimed at an audience that look at movies as a tool of entertainment, it was also cinematically rich that would cater to the tastes of audience that watch movies for their authenticity and genuineness and the I’m-not-a-sell-out beliefs. V for Vendetta, adapted from the wonderful Alan Moore’s graphic novel was the next to follow. Sin City, adapted from the maverick writer and penciller Frank Miller’s graphic novel was so dark that it almost looked like coal—the potential to power an 100 ton engine and burn down an entire city [He was instrumental in reviving Batman through his now immortal comic series: The Dark Knight Returns.] Sin City set the benchmark in my opinion; both in the comic book world and comic book adaption of movies. It taught the comic industry the exact definition of “dark”, although Alan Moore had already defined the words “dark” and “unconventional” in his phenomenally successful graphic novel Watchmen [I should thank in-a-jaR who introduced me to Alan Moor’s works] that looked at the darker side of the superhero obsessed and crowded world. He did that back in 1986. Nothing much has changed in the present year save for the fact that we have among us few amazing movies that have defied conventionality and conformity and gone their own ways etching their names in the list of truly authentic epic cinemas. Sin City, V for Vendetta, Batman Begins and now The Dark Knight.

The analysis of The Dark Knight:
Why is everybody talking about The Dark Knight these days? For starters, the studio marketing was bigger than the marketing strategy of iPhone and Windows Vista combined. It wouldn’t be stupid if I say people in Timbuktu now know who Heath Ledger is. His performance in The Dark Knight has been much talked about. If by now you haven’t heard the names Joker and Heath Ledger you probably are as culturally literate and cinema updated as a coffee pot. He is now touted as the greatest actor to play villain on screen. People no longer remember Hannibal Lector. They say the Joker’s portrayal by Heath is the major reason for The Dark Knight’s enormous worldwide success. However, I say, that coupled with his untimely demise is the reason for the movie’s humongous success [Mind you, I’m not forgetting the screenplay, directorship and other technical aspects]. I watched him in his Oscar nominated film Brokeback Mountain where he plays a gay cowboy; he proved he was worth the nomination if not the win due to tight competition. I watched The Dark Knight and I was—I’m falling short of adjectives here—blown away. I was scared. He was terrorizing in a terrific way. He made you believe that he was not merely a character essaying a role allotted to him. He looked like he was living before us, walking along with us and breathing around us. He was authentic. He had an SSN. He had a passport. He held stocks in a dozen companies. He owned that car. He went to the Wal-Mart and bought knives. He was there. He made us believe he was really there. He made me believe he was there. And this effect is a rare occurrence. There exist very few movies that give you what they say “the chills”. This movie along with Heath’s performance sits on the top spot. Undisturbed. And will rule from up there for years to come.
Christian Bale is a fine actor. A method actor if I dare attribute to him that title. Christopher Nolan, as evident as it is, prefers working with Bale. He’s worked with him in The Prestige, Batman Begins and now The Dark Knight. Bale is an actor who can mould his body to suit any character. He reportedly shed quite a few pounds to portray a psychologically troubled worker in the brilliant thriller The Machinist. He essayed the role of a marooned soldier in the 2007 drama Rescue Dawn. By the way, remember the kid in the Spielberg war epic Empire of the Sun? That’s the versatile Mr. Bale. When I first saw him in Batman Begins, forgive me, but I had this feeling that he wouldn’t make it big as the Silent Guardian. As the end credits rolled, he had pulled it off. And he’d pulled it off big time. He had made it bigger than big. There seemed no other actor that could portray Batman like a genuine Batman like how Bale essayed it. If Daniel Day Lewis did it in There Will Be Blood, Christian Bale did it in Batman Begins. He was [is] a champion actor.
Two more years, one untimely death, exemplary marketing focused on the dead actor and dark theme fuelled by tiring [but satisfying] amount of discussion about the Joker online took the limelight off the lead actor: Bale and Batman. Or so it seemed. But, contradicting most of the reviews and discussion, I would like to go ahead and say that this movie is as much about Batman as it is about The Joker. I would even dare go on and say that the Joker is one Mr. Tyler Durden and the Batman our troubled Narrator. If you’ve watched [watched as in understood, felt and relished] the 1999 thriller Fight Club you’ll know what I’m talking about here [Like numerous others’, Fight Club is a movie that changed my perception about life and society.]
Joker exists as a separate chaotic entity but he is essentially Batman’s violent alter ego, the only difference being, instead of being a mere figment of Batman’s imagination the Joker is all flesh and blood. Although the concept itself is self contradictory that the Joker is a “living alter ego” which is like saying “hot iced-tea”, it makes profound sense when the Joker observes during the interrogation by Batman: “You complete me.” The Joker intelligently whispers it to a now tumultuous Batman. This is a scene of immense importance and brilliance in the movie. This is one scene that makes the entire movie clear. This is the only scene where the objectives of the Joker, if he has any, are understood. He means chaos as much as Batman means vigilante-order. The scene opens itself revealing before you, only if you can see it. The Joker is what he is due to Batman. Even though he has a thousand tales regarding his physical and mental scares, the true tale that has never been directly disclosed in the movie is subtly implied: the Joker is the evil side of Batman only with a different face and name. What Batman hides behind his mask, the joker hides it behind his paint. What Batman does to criminals [mind you he never kills], the Joker does it to innocent beings. The Batman has one rule and that is there are no rules. The same applies to the Joker. So all in all the Joker is nothing but the evil personification of Batman who thinks like Batman only wickedly, who acts like Batman only cynically and who behaves like Batman only chaotically. While Batman is the Saviour of Gotham, Joker is agent of chaos. Only the names and designations differ. They are connected to each other by a single chord and Joker understands it better. Maybe Batman understands it too but refuses to believe the hard truth. Or maybe he understands it better than the Joker himself.
This is a movie worth studying. It is a modern masterpiece. It can be studied for its financial superiority; it broke almost all the box-office records. It can be studied for its pop culture impact. It can be studied for its artistic ingenuity. It took me four shows to grasp its magnitude. And still I felt I’ve missed out something.

The four shows:
The first show at 6 in the evening was the typical enthusiastic fan event [I geared up for the event by watching Batman Begin in the afternoon on my notebook]. I had the top row Balcony seats. Waiting in the huge line in scorching sun paid off well. The stage was set for the biggest event at Mysore Multiplex. Pink floyd’s “Time” was blazing out before the show began. The Dark Side of the Moon warmed me up for The Dark Knight. It began: the dark Warner Bros logo appeared and my joy knew no bounds. Flame and fire covered the screen while entirely being silent. There was no sound, save for those irritating late entrants and few dumb moviegoers that thought the theatre was on mute. A Batsymbol appeared that was visible only to the keen Batfans. And then it began, all without any credits, title or any form of interruption. I’ve always believed in that form of an opening. Show the movie; keep the razzmatazz for the end. I didn’t move an inch until Gordan proclaimed: “because he can take it…because he's not a hero… he’s the Silent Gaurdian, a Watchful Protector… he’s a Dark Knight.” I sat there, thunderstruck. Rarely do we see such a remarkable finish. It was like India winning Gold in all the events at the Olympics. I was awestruck. I was amazed to say the least. Frankly, I was almost in tears. Very few movies have done that to me: 12 Angry Men, Casablanca, The Godfather, Fargo, Fight Club, American Beauty, Juno, Into The Wild, Ratatouille to name a few.

The second show at 9pm was no different. I was as enthusiastic as before. I couldn’t watch it with a critical eye. No matter how hard I tried I felt that there existed some kind of Batforce which kept me pushing out of the judgemental capacity and placing me firmly on the fanboy seat. I loved that seat.

Having finally watched the movie, yes a phenomenon, I slept like a baby that night.

The next day during the 2pm screening I managed to get a Balcony ticket. Pink Floyd was again blazing before the screening began. I somehow accomplished viewing it with a critical angle this time around. The movie had qualified for an astounding eight Academy Award nominations during my previous viewings: Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Score, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing. After my third viewing it narrowed down to six. I ruled out Best Director and Best Film Editing.

The 6pm show was no different. I again managed to get the balcony ticket. I sat down, this time as a serious analyser. I left my thoughts behind and yanked away the fanboy hat and wore the analyser’s toupee. Or so I tried. There were some minor, microscopic flaws in the movie. For instance, during the Batmobile chase scene when the Joker fires the bazooka and the tumbler go crashing, the tumbler falls down on its wheels on the ground. But moments before it touches the ground the tumbler is slanting wheels up and top down leanding an impression that it would apparently fall down like a helpless cockroach with legs up and wings touching the ground. But somehow, magically, it seems to land on its wheels. You may say, it is an action scene and the flaw is almost negligible. But that is not what the perfectionist Stanley Kubrick would have said. Anyway, this is the one I noticed. There are few others being discussed, but trust me they are not major flaws like the one in Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where Indy survives a nuke test in a refrigerator.

Epilogue:
So in the end is The Dark Knight the best movie of all time? The answer, depressingly, is no. It has it short comings. The movie tries to make money with its PG13 rating. I would so very much have preferred an R rating which could have rendered it much darker and let the Nolan brothers explore more of the violent and chaotic theme. They could have used more of Joker. An R rating, more dark theme, shedding off all the comic moments like the unexpected scene when the Joker says to Rachel, “I like that,” and Batman pounces on the Joker with, “then you’re gonna love me.” That is all clearly studio appeasing stuff. An R rating and more darkness was all that it needed. However, I beg of you. I beg for pardon. Please don’t be mistaken. I’m not at all criticizing the movie. I’m not worthy enough to comment on a movie so big. So huge. So out of my reach. Forgive me if I’ve said too much, for I’m just a crazy Batfan asking for more.
After four shows and all these days I could finally ease off my mind, clear my thoughts and put it in writing what I feel about comic books, comic book movies and The Dark Knight. If you call me crazy, I’ll take pleasure in it. How empty is a life without nothing else to admire but oneself? For what is this life without a little addiction, without maniacal obsessive admiration and without wild craziness?

The Tale of Onions, Twins and Burgers

2008-06-06T17:58:00.005+05:30

The air was unusually cold yesterday. The clouds were gloomy and dark, maybe suggesting a forthcoming storm. There was not a soul anywhere in the vicinity of Gazibo, but two soggy figures forced their way towards the smoking huts. One of them went to the fast food joint and said, “Two Veg Burgers please,” and added, “with lots of onion in it.” It had to be Puneet Kulkarni. Among many others, his major belief was eating onions increased sperm count in turn making him a horse in the bed. He also believed that having sex twice on the same night would impregnate a woman with twins. Nobody dared argue with him, for he possessed a weapon which everyone feared: Sulochana Deshpande. Sulochana was not a woman; she was a weapon of mass destruction. She had successfully destroyed Puneet’s relationship with his friends. He no longer had time for his friends. Puneet, who once used to skip going to the loo in order to talk to his friends was now a guy who was either seen studying in his classroom or negotiating with Sulochana.

This cold Thursday was no different. He sat across her and offered her the Veg Burger with “lots on onions” in it. He had a plan. A filthy woman-like scheme. He had thought of it all. Only time would tell whether the plan would be worth all that he’d lost—friends, relationships, studies, CGPA. Everything.

Sulochana wanted only one baby and she wanted to name him Narasimha Kulkarni. However Puneet wanted twins—Vittal Kulkarni and Narsimha Kulkarni. Sulochana, whose name indicated her to be a nice, homely, open minded Brahmin woman, was exactly the opposite. She was a devil disguised in a 60s sub-urban Brahmin household name. She always had the final say in their relationship. Puneet once wanted to support United, the double champions, the world’s most influential and admired football club. But Sulochana, who knew nothing about football, clenched her teeth hard and with fire in her bulging eyes ordered him to support Chelsea just because blue was her favorite color. Such was her charisma. And such was Puneet’s adversity. He was as helpless as a male-slave in a femdom, sadomasochistic BDSM orgy. But he never complained. He took it all like a man, forgot all his friends, bid farewell to fun, shook his hands for the last time with “shenga” and totally dedicated his life for one selfish cause: Sulochana. But she deceived him. She tore him apart. She ripped open his chest with her bare hands, squeezed his heart out and danced on his lifeless corpse. Though people said he was dead the day he met Sulochana.

She said she wanted one child. Only Narasimha. But Puneet was persistent on twins. She never agreed. She wanted to break up with him. She swore at him. She threw study-material at him. She said he stunk like an onion. Ah! That was when the idea struck him. His belief would finally give him the twins. He’d eat lots of onion, make her eat lots of onion and finally on the D-Day he’d inseminate her with his powerful sperm which would join her ultra-powerful ovary and develop into a Super-man with good vision unlike Puneet. And he’d inseminate her twice. He wanted twins.

On that cold evening, they ate four Veg Burger and they still eat Veg Burgers at Gazibo with lots of onion in it. Puneet is one conniving and deceitful bastard. Only time will now tell if it’ll be Narasimha Kulkarni or both Narasimha Kulkarni and Vittal Kulkarni.

Sidenote: The name Sulochana was a common name in the Northern part of Karnataka, where I'm from, in the 60s. Much like Pushpa and Hema. Narasimha and Vittal are common Brahmin first names. I wrote this story just to screw my friend Puneet who was[is] notorious for his pranks and sarcasm across the town. I know, Battery, you love this story as much as I loved cooking it up. So, peace. Gazibo is a "sutta center" in my company. "Shenga" means peanuts and is a slang for "timepass".

Mysore Days: The Arrival and Responsibilities

2008-05-26T14:53:00.009+05:30

Update: Thanks to my company's "stringent internet usage policies" I'm using a proxy server to access my dashboard and publish new posts. I request you to bear with me here. The indentation may be improper and links may not work. It's a big pain in the neck publishing from a proxy website. I have to type my posts in HTML mode and preview them before posting. It seems all right in the preview section, but the moment I press the publish button *poof* it starts behaving like Krantiveer's Nana. Also I may not be able to reply to your comments. The comments section is entirely blocked. So don't presume that I'm a conceited basted that doesn't reply to your comments and quit commenting. Your comments are no big morale booster to be frank, yes, as hard as it sounds, it's a bitter truth, but I love reading them anyway. Who doesn't? Anyway, my cellphone refuses to open the comments page too. I request you all to come, read and get the hell out without complaining [yes, after leaving a comment that is].
*Now imagine a smiley here that fits in the context*
Finally, all the grammatical and punctuational errors appearing in the posts are solely mine. Let's not blame George Bush.

Somewhere around 6:30pm in the evening, Mysore.

I’d never seen the bastard before in person. He was now standing near the Mysore bus stop, with probably a thousand thoughts on his mind: job, home, his ex, Shantaram, people around him and of course me. I was halfway to pick him up when some awful thought struck me. Some things always keep striking me. Amidst an unbearable pain between my legs as I’d hit my testicles hard on the fuel tank of my Pulsar, I wondered, “what if he’s an LeT militant? What if he’s a serial rapist? What if he’s gay and a serial rapist?”

Suddenly I felt like I wanted to take a leak. Desperately. My head, my crotch and now my kidneys. I relieved myself of everything and kick started my bike laughing at my earlier thoughts. Peeing is the next best thing to you-know-what.

Sukrit was standing exactly where I’d asked him to. He seemed nervous. Maybe for him, it felt like a first date at an unknown place with a person he’d never met before. I sure would have been nervous as hell. We hugged, shook hands and greeted exchanging some Hindi pleasantries. He didn’t look like an LeT militant though. And I hoped to hell they were not bombs and semi-automatics he was carrying in that black travel bag of his. Fiction reading had escalated my imagination immensely. He hopped on my bike and we set off. We were all ready to be wasted.

Somewhere around 7:30pm in the evening, Mysore.

There was no power when he entered our shithole. Chaithanya, my roommate, and Sukrit acknowledged each other in the dark and we settled down on our bed with my guitar and his black bag. By now I was convinced he wasn’t into terrorism or sex related criminal activities. He looked more like a metal-head with that unusual patch of beard below his chin. Also we talked a great deal about topics of similar interests: chicks. He wasn’t gay, I could tell.

~~Surendra~~ Fatso, my other roommate, arrived, met Sukrit and we left for this nearby pub. But before that I and Sukrit were assigned the task of purchasing a bottle of Rum or something hard. Bacardi White Rum was priced somewhere around 550 bucks. I raised my eyebrows and thought of all the beer I could drink for 550 bucks in Goa. We eventually bought Old Monk for 200 and hid it in a dust bin in the gallery as we didn’t have the key to the house.

“Well, we don’t drink the bottle, do we? What matters is the content and not the shell,” I convinced him and he seemed to agree.

~~Surendra~~ Fatso, Chaithanya, ‘D’ and ‘A’ were already waiting for us at Purple Haze—a local pub named after Hendrix’s classic. A firang was trying out his luck with ‘A’ before we arrived. He was drunk as hell. And the shameful part: he was our colleague. The pub was about to close, we ordered some Budweisers and Fosters and settled down as the DJ played some classic folk-rock and blues-rock. The firang after puking all over the place made his move towards ‘D’ this time. He was making a clown out of himself. He made some wonderful gestures which involved marching his hands over his privates [He was fully clothed during his act]. I asked his friend, another colleague, to take him out before things got ugly. Instead the pub authorities showed him the door while he was toying with his “body” and some banned substance. Finally, the pub was shut and we were “requested” to leave, we had our last drinks not to mention D’s improvement in her bottoms-up skill [She recently defeated me and Chaithanya in a bottoms-up contest. She can gulp it like warm badam milk. Man, is she good or what]. ‘A’ still has a long way to go though. A single sip is like bottoms-up for her. And she gets high from the smell of beer. She declared during dinner, “Mujhe chad gayi hai” after a glass of beer.

When we reached back home it was morning already. We picked up our treasure from the dust bin and settled on the bed with my guitar, Pink Floyd and Sukrit’s “responsibilities”.

Somewhere around 3:30am in the morning, Mysore.

“Dude, there’s this thing called ‘responsibilities’,” Sukrit was lecturing me. ”We *burp* have responsibilities towards our parents, we have responsibilities towards this society, as fvcked as it is, but we still have responsibilities towards socie...”

I cut him there and mumbled,”Balls to society man”.

“Yeah, exactly,” he continued,”Fvck the society. You remove society from the picture; we still have this thing called responsibilities”.

He forced his heavily stoned figure towards ~~Surendra~~ Fatso, my roommate, and requested the last drink for the ~~night~~ morning. ~~Surendra~~ Fatso who was sober having had just a small peg of Old Monk, sighed and shook his head at our stoned-as-hell figures and strolled into the kitchen and got us our last drinks. But the bastard ruined the drink with his incompetent bartending techniques. 90% coke and 10% rum. Damn, it tasted like piss. But we didn’t complain. We were so high, if given a guitar we’d take it for an erect penis sporting extra-dotted condom. We drained the drink in a single shot, just like we’d drained the previous five shots and shivered as it passed down our sore throats.

“This is the last drink you fvckheads get to drink. Do us a favour and shut your eyes, mouths and anything that makes noise. Right now,” ~~Surendra~~ Fatso fumed.

Chaithanya was recording every bit of this intellectual discussion about “responsibilities” on his mobile.

“All right hai apan. All right,” I declared quoting the famous line from The Angrez.

I’d almost passed out when Sukrit declared his agenda for the ~~night~~ morning. He had an uncensored presentation to deliver on the topic: Responsibilities. I headed for the loo since those six bastards had waged a war in my stomach. Sukrit broadcasted few great points on responsibilities to the entire neighborhood and none of us till date remember what they were. And no one has dared ask the neighbors. After discussing chicks, past affairs, politics, Pink Floyd, chicks, vodka, Grunge and some more chicks we finally got wasted. The last sound I heard before I passed out was birds chirping.

Conferences

2008-04-02T15:27:00.002+05:30

Seven people sit in a conference room as hot as a furnace and stare blankly at the monitor mocking us with unfathomable java code. A confused voice from a speaker phone confuses us trying to explain the code. I take out my phone, start opera, log in to blogger and type. I cant use blogger from my desktop. Company policies forced it to be blocked. But I can access it through my mobile from conference rooms. Irony you say. Almost all meetings and conferences are something like watching Bermuda and Holland play a test match. Waste of time, insanely worthless, offensively boring and pointlessly directionless. I'm part of this wonderful game since couple of weeks.

Well, I'm goin' home

2008-03-12T12:10:00.001+05:30

The Legendary Chronicles of S-City.

2008-03-05T16:45:00.005+05:30

1]The British could never colonize S-City, for they knew that they couldn’t.

2]The 19th alphabet “S” of the English language was derived from the first letter of S-City.

3]There is no written record available about the formation of S-City— it existed even before this planet evolved.

4]First there was S-City, then the dust particles fused together to form a planet around it.

5]The sun revolves around S-City. Nicolaus Copernicus— an unnoted fantasy fanatic— was simply messing around with the minds of the ignorant with his purely fictitious “heliocentric theory”.

6]S-City has the biggest sky-scrapers in the world. Ground floor starts from the core of the planet, pushing out only the top two floors atop the surface of the Earth.

7]S-City is so big that a single strand of grass grows in an acre of land.

8]Children in S-City are so outstandingly brilliant that Horlicks exploited this condition with the punch line—“We make, they drink”. Now they are the largest malted milk-drink company in the world.

9]The word “unintelligent” is unheard of in S-City. Naively, its appearance in day-to-day life is considered ungrammatical.

10]Gary Kasparov is said to have meditated in the temples of S-City and Michael Jordan is believed to have jogged on the streets of S-City before they began their professional careers.

11]Mt Abdul Shah, a stupendous mountain on the northern-side of S-City [there is no northern-end or for that matter any end to S-City], served as a prototype for Sir Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa before they set out to conquer Mt Everest. They could, however, never reach the peak of Mt Abdul Shah.

12]Dinosaurs are not extinct. They dwell in the deep jungles of S-City. All the scenes from Peter Jackson’s King-Kong were shot in the abysmal jungles of Mt Abdul Shah contrary to the popular belief that they were graphically created.

P.S1: For the lesser mortals who haven’t heard of S-City before, S-City is an alias for the much popular Srinagar, where I live and which is usually mistaken to be a part of Belgaon. The unknown fact is that Belgaon is a part of S-City and falls under its jurisdiction.
For a bird’s eye view of S-City click here.

P.S2: This post comes on the occasion of 10,000 hits on my blog. Hope I'll be more regular and do what I love most. Enjoy life.

Bangalore to Mysore

2008-01-18T19:01:00.000+05:30

This is my second day in production. I'm no more a trainee. I'm a software developer. And I have developed nothing but boredom. They gave me a brand new Dell machine, a cubicle, a personal phone and lots of nothing to do. Well, actually, that's what I wanted after this horrific 2 1/2 months of ordeal called training. To bring us closer to being an asylum inmate they end our technical training with leadership building, written/spoken communication skills, presentation skills and more of such invaluable sessions during the last week of the training. They love squeezing out every ounce of energy from our bodies if we have anything left out in us after four years of engineering. By Rajanikanth's and Prabhuji's grace it's all over.
I took a transfer back to Mysore from Bangalore. People said I'm insane. Nobody says no to Bangalore. You are a weird fvck, they said. But the love and respect I have for Bangalore forced me for the transfer. Plus, my school friend got his posting in Mysore. So, I'll be sharing a 2bhk house with him. Please, stop thinking dirty.
I was asked to talk about "My Vision for this World" during one of those repulsively yawn-inducing session. I thrust my lazy ass towards the podium and said this,

I want to live in a musical world. Every other person walking on the face of the Earth must be in love with music. A guitar should be the weapon of choice, if at all we want to fight. Music, they say, binds cultures together. So when everyone is in love with music, there wouldn't be enough place for hatred to foster. Music should be the religion of the future and music should be the god to be worshiped. Bullets and bombs should then be replaced by notes and rhythms in a jihad. Proliferation of nuclear weapons should be replaced by proliferation of guitars. And people should sing in debates and heated arguments should be displaced by poetic rhymes. This unreal fantasy is my vision for this world.

My speech was surprisingly well received. In fact very well recieved. I hadn't made the stuff up, it was straight from my heart. Then a beautiful young lady[my colleague] came over to me at the end of the session and said: "you don't look like the way you talk and the stuff you say". Which I thought meant: "you look like a sick sonofab!tch and talk like an intelligent sonofab!tch". It was an offensive appreciation. I looked straight into her eyes and asked: " how can such a beautiful woman live with such an ugly brain?". She then said something about men and pigs, and left. No wonder I can't get along well with girls. Sometimes I feel they look intelligent and bearable only in porn flicks.

Back to Black

2008-01-10T19:14:00.000+05:30

Allright. Happy new year. I and Santa drained a full bottle of vodka. He was frickin' fun. I rode in his ultra-modern transport sytem-- Reindeer Sledge '07. He strummed my guitar-- Givson. Christmas was, I could say, eventful. I slept somewhere around 4 in the morning. But I don't remember where. When I got up, which was in my room, the guy was gone. *poof* Vanished in thin air without leaving behind a present. I still had the empty bottle of vodka beside me though with of course illusionary characters playing squash in my head.

I'm finally done with my training. My posting is you-know-where. I don't mind. I'm just happy that I was not thrown away to Siberias of IT industry-- Bhuvaneshwar and Chennai.

I enjoyed my stay here in Mysore. Nice wheather. Stupid people. It was as expected. Can't believe it's already two and half months since I landed my ass here. Time flies. Not like houseflies resting on every piece of turd but like money from your pocket-- constantly and deliberately at a fixed rate which always goes unnoticed.

P.S: Sukrit reminded me that I owned a blog and that I should update. Bhai, here I am. Uh, and I still wonder where Santa vanished that night. I suppose it'll remain a mystery. A mystery maybe untill another vodka drenched night.

Chalo bulava aaya hai, company ne pukara hai..

2007-10-27T14:42:00.000+05:30

I'll probably be absent for a long time. So Happy diwali, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. All in advance. So long..

Update 1: [14-11-2007]
I sit on a cozy chair. All cushion. Cold, artificial air hugs me and the cozy chair. A black synthetic board with small square bumps over it seems like my new girlfriend. Girlfriends are confusing. They are like jumbled alphabets. Starting with Q and ending with M. A and Z lying somewhere in between this confusion. Anyway, the accommodation is again unimaginably cozy. We are supposed to watch TV when not working. But I'm on the cozy chair, always, which is all cushion with cold, artificial air hugging us. Me and the chair, of course. I love my chair. It kisses my ass even before I ask it to. Nobody has done that here. Yet. Not even when I've screamed and barked like a dog.

Update 2: [15-11-2007]
This is all that I want to "say" today.

Update 3: [19-11-2007]
Frustration. I bought a new guitar. From ~~Bangalore~~ Bengalooru. The city that's as fvcked up as it's new name.

Update 4: [26-11-2007]
It happened three months ago. And it happened again. It seemed inevitable. It was August and it was raining hard then. I was in one of those Government offices. If measured against government standards, it was in good shape. They had four buckets to fill the leaking water. Risk management plus recycling. They had brains. They had thought of it all. It was the Regional Transportation/Transport Office. I'd filled up the "do number" form, as the loud-mouthed woman reffered to it. Four wheeler. Learner. I completed the formalities. Formalities like asking for directions and being misdirected. I re-filled the form thrice for having taken the wrong signatures. Eventually, I entered the Officer's cabin [pun intended]. He was there, red eyes, skin like cheap burnt kabab, thick lips which would have looked like that of Jouli's if only they had not kissed cigarette butts dozen times a day. He was sitting there, with his belly. Belly as humongous as Chris Gale's six. I produced the form before him. No money attached to it. No money inside it. No money in my hands. I looked like a kid from an orphanage claiming to be deaf and dumb asking for financial aid. He looked like a reluctant professor of an engineering college for whom cutting students' marks mattered more than fondling his wife's you know what. He wanted my money. I wanted my license. For free. So, like any other reluctant professor he fired questions which like any other engineering student in his right senses, I claimed: out-of-syllabus. He smirked. And wrote "Failed. Retest Monday" on my third form and lectured me on the importance of traffic rules and signals. My middle finger stuck out. He couldn't understand. He probably thought it was an engineering student's symbol of appreciation. I came back home distraught and somewhat surprisingly content, having failed for the first time in my life and given him The Finger. And, now, I fail again. A module test. They never say "you've failed" here. They always say "you've a re-test". Professionalism. The comforting part of it all was that my friend failed too. Misery loves company. He came out with a distraught Meena Kumari look. I said to myself, "I have company" and nodded approvingly. I was beaming with delight. And after seeing me, he felt good too. He could sense it. He was now walking with Kareena-Kapoor-before-interval-in-Jab-We-Met face. We both had failed. With may others, of course.
I have a re-test scheduled on God knows when. It's online. We don't have answer sheets. Green bills inside ~~answer sheets~~ form would have ensured this as my first failure. But this is the second time. And it's online.

Update 5: [29-11-2007]
I'm getting my first salary tomorrow. I've my 4th module test tomorrow. If I clear I'm drinking vodka on the rocks. If I don't I'm drinking vodka on the rocks.

Update 6: [15-12-2007]
@Update 4: I sailed past the seas of RDBMSonian demons.
@Update 5: I drew my first salary, unlike many of friends who'd forgotten to update their bank account details and had to look out for financial aid from alternative sources[parents of course and "philanthropic" friends like me]. I narrowly cleared the module test.
Now, unavoidably, I'm "scheduled to take up a re-test". Again. I flunked miserably in my stream subject. I sleep for 1.5 hours and study all night and I flunk. I study 1.5 hours and sleep all day long and I land up with a frickin' distinction in my university. Amazing how stuffs work. Yeah, of course, they never pay you to study in university. I'm being paid here, and along with the generous dough I'm gettin' screwed bigtime.
Parents, sister and nephew are in the city today. I'll have to go meet them and show around the city tomorrow. I've got a project to complete on Monday and test [fresh, first-time, non-baasi, can-be-flunked-once test] to attend on Wednesday. Then I've my hands-on practical comprehension exam on Saturday followed by theory comprehension on Monday the day before Christmas. I hope to sail past this sea too, fight all the scary monsters with brave dexterity and hang out with Santa Claus, sipping cold beer, peeing like overflowing water canal and strumming my guitar waking up my roomie and giving him The Finger when he scoffs, "bhen(h0d sooja, varna gusead dunga tera guitar pichwaade mein, musical fart karta firega". So this is it for time being. I'll update on 26th. All you remaining jobless people interested in my reality show can come back on 26th for a story called: Me myself and frickin' Santa Claus.
[Sidenote: However, the rights to publish or publish-and-delete or never-publish the next update remains with the mighty Virus© [Yes, that's supposed to be me]. He's a crazy sucker and can change his mind like BSE index.]

Smoke the music

2007-10-20T13:06:00.000+05:30

Indian commercial music has rarely made sense. And these days [after the advent of Capesh Reshammiya] there's nothing we can call music. Just pure filth. We have voices making there way out of mucus filled noses. These recent "composers" have been feeding us with phenomenally low-grade "music". Reshammiya became a celebrated trendsetter of this genre. Everybody else seems to have adopted this undefinable genre. Seriously, what's this genre they're so prolifically churning out? Outcry?
However, there have been some commendable composers who've defied the age old stick-to-crap policy. The trio Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy in their latest Johnny Gaddar, Mithun for Maula mere, pritam [if we could ignore plagiarism and call it influence] in Life in a Metro, and the unorthodoxly offbeat Vishal Bharadwaj in Maachis, Satya, Omkara, and now, in No Smoking.
The Darklord Anurag Kashyap's No Smoking sounds promising enough. Literally. Assisted by Gulzar's lyrics, Vishal Bharadwaj's music is *really* music to ears. There's a jazz and trance version "Jab Bhi Cigarette", which I'm sure enough will be heard in the pubs and discotheques. But the major track of the album is "phoonk de". It has two versions. One sung by Sukwinder Singh in his trademark voice amidst fast beats and the other by Rekha Bharadwaj [of namak ishq ka fame] which is rather gloomy, dark and intoxicatingly euphoric with exceptional lyrics. And trust me you'll feel stoned. The song will surely get you high. Sample this.

hayaat phoonk de, hawaas phoonk de
ke saans se sila huva libaas phoonk de
phoonk, phoonk, phoonk de re...
...jab nasha tutataa hai, kitne tukade gire ?
hosh chunane lage hum, hum bhi kya sar phire hain
lab pe jal rahi hain, woh baat phook de
honton se raat ko yeh raakh phoonk de
phoonk de yeh raakh phoonk, phoonk de yeh raakh phoonk de
phoonk de hawaat phoonk, phoonk de... [video]

Another song worth mentioning is "Kash Laga". Sung by Sukwinder Singh, Daler Mehandi and Bharadwaj himself; the composition and lyrics are both brilliant. The musical quality is that of a bhajan. Not boring though.

Zindagi hai kash laga
Hasrato ki raakh uda
Yeh jahan paani hai
Bulbula hai pani hai
Bulbulon pe rukna kya
Paniyon mein bheta ja bheta ja
Kash laga...

All in all an outstanding, brilliant and remarkably fine album. Go buy it, or download it, now. You rarely find creativity, brilliance and quality all put together in an Indian movie album. OST, for you angrezi folks.

taa na naa tana na-na naa..

2007-10-14T21:55:00.000+05:30

Let's for a moment forget Shaktimaan, Aap Beeti, Karan The Detective and Aankhen. They're all legendary TV shows still being aired by the legendary television broadcaster-- ~~Dukhdarshan~~ Doordarshan. I've grown up with these TV shows. I've fair amount of Doordarshanized brain cells stuffed eternally in my upper compartment. And I'm forever thankful to the entire production unit at Prasar Bharati, especially Lord Mukesh Khanna's Bishma International, for bestowing me with such yaadgaar lamhe in those boring adolescent years. I'm saying all this just to let you guys know that there's no other TV show or broadcaster with such Einsteinian levels of imagination and ingenuity. Long Live Doordarshan. I bow.
Now returning back to kalyug from tretayug, Seinfeld, I think, is the best, greatest and unparalleled TV show ever conceived. It has this astonishing quality, this sheer exuberance and buoyancy about it that you lose yourself in it's chaotically silent world. For me this sitcom is like Malgudi Days, Circus and Mungeri Lal Ke Haseen Sapne served together in a single bowl. There's humor in every frickin' aspect of this "epic saga". And I consider George as the greatest character in this sitcom or any sitcom for that matter. He can bring out the laughs in me even during those extremely constipated moods.
It is my opinion that Friends, which enjoys huge popularity, has an enviable cult following and boasts a heavy fan-base is Crime Master Gogo[Mugambo's nephew] when compared to ultra-sophisticated Dr Evil called Seinfeld. Friends is a highly over-rated TV show. Sleazy sex+sarcastic sex+wry sex+obscure sex+hidden sex+plain old sex=F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Sexual humor has been it's backbone. And people seem to love it. That's my opinion. Evidently, Seinfeld ran a total of 9 seasons [all of which are currently on my HDD]. God bless torrents. I've waited an entire month for these 9 seasons, thanks to the seeders who like our Indian Cricket Team are never consistent. But in the end it was worth every single internet hour [yes just like flight hour]. On the other hand there's Simpsons too, which has been aired for 19 seasons. Not out. Story of a typical Ammrikan dysfunctional family, this is a close second on my All time Favorite TV Show list. Following Homer and Co is yet another animated comedy series, currently in it's 11th season-- South park. Then comes Bryan Singer produced medical drama-- House. Never knew Singer was associated with it. I only found out the other day I was goin' through his profile on IMDb. Then comes Friends. So here's the list.

[please note the list doesn't include the yesteryear TV shows from Doordarshan. Those I've mentioned in the second paragraph. They make me nostalgic. They rock big time. No pun intended.]

1] Seinfeld
2] Simpsons
3] South park
4] House
5] Friends

p.s 1: Prison Break is reshammiyafied commercial crap.
p.s 2: And this is how I'd look if I were in Springfield. Check out how you'd look here.
p.s 3: I've uploaded a couple of Seinfeld videos. One is an intro, the other is Frank's impression of all Seinfeld characters. The guy does Emily too. Simply brilliant.
p.s 4: The dedication trend has been on the blogosphere since quite a while now. I'm doin' it for the first time. Maybe second. Uh, so here it goes, all the way to the city of dreams. For you Babel Fish. Listen and listen again.

Berang si hai badi zindagi, kuch rang toh bharoon..

2007-10-04T21:31:00.000+05:30

It is lunch time for birds. Humans too. Eyes only half open. Images are all but blurred. Everybody is on business. Cellphone feels like a dildo vibrating near my butt. Numbly, I open my inbox. Ad. Just what I needed. Day kicks off with junk. Itching butt, swollen eyes, blurred vision and stinking-like-dead-rat mouth accompany the remaining me to bathroom. Small red bite on my shoulder like a teenager's pimple grabs my attention. Mosquitoes had some party last night. "One shot of O+, on the rocks, please". I chafe hard. It bleeds after that momentary scratching pleasure. Scratching a wound is like extra-marital sex. You just won't pull out until you're done. Feeling guilty later.
Disheveled hair, tousled pajamas, solid white saliva like a thin layer of ice, scary swollen eyes; unbiased, the mirror describes me. Mirrors are the worst critics in this world. I frown. Something whirs behind me. Softly like a broken AC in my college lab. Like a new, sore-throat, obese yoga camp recruit chanting Om. Quietly irritating. Like hot wax on tender skin. I turn around. It's my now obsolete computer. My old man. I move the mouse. Monitor springs to life. But the soft, irritating sound of the fan persists like the stench of burnt milk in the kitchen. Torrents are in action. God bless them. And internet too. I login. No offline messages. "You goddamn sadist", I curse. I login. No new mail."You cynic", I curse. I login. No scrap. "You rotten woman", I curse. Bill, you money laundering son of a gun; Larry, you American gigolo; Sergei, you Russian commie; Orkut, you Turkish twerp. I curse them all. Cursing wrong people for wrong reasons helps calm down. Magical anti-depressant. But I slam hard on my century old keyboard. Space-bar and return-key make a suicidal dive into the innards of it never returning back.
1:45 am, Monday is painted on the lower right corner of the monitor. I finish my morning chores [rather afternoon chores]. Two more hours hours pass as I finish trespassing on restricted scrapbooks. The fan is still chanting. I login, I curse. I login, I curse. I login and I curse. Obsession is a bad thing. That bad thing we love loving. And the subject, the bad thing of this obsession, this excessive preoccupation is always stupidity.
The movie completes downloading. I delete the torrent. I never seed. Rand says altruism is a bloody doctrine according to which one must justify their existence by service to others. I will serve, but for a fee. So I never seed. After some philosophical contemplations and two more hours, I hate the movie. "Stinking, rotten piece of crap", I curse. The afternoon birds, which were having lunch earlier, are now returning back home. Or so it seems from their chaotic chirping. Sun dives somewhere behind the mountains. Moon is out from the hiding for astronomers, romantics, mothers feeding their brats and for jobless bloggers like me. I re-login thrice. And I curse thrice. I read some news. I read some blogs. Torrents are running in the background. I read the October issue of penthouse. I don't seed, as always. I then read the latest batman comics with utter dedication and loyalty cursing at "to be continued" on 38th page. Mom signals dinner. I leave my old man alone with his online friends: torrents and more torrents.
I login. "Hey sorryyyyyyyyy", an offline message. Yeah, characters are free and in abundance. They are not responsible for global warming too. There are people who like showing off their keyboard characters. They use them like solar energy. My friend is one of them.
2:00am, Tuesday is painted on the lower right corner of the monitor. "Bieeeeeeee", reads the last line. I curse myself for putting up with this kind of crap talk. I curse more for waiting all day long to put up with this kind of crap talk. An hour later, mosquitoes invite me to my bed. They control it. It's their neighborhood. I pass out amidst soft, irritating humming. Torrents are in action. They always are. Can Batman save the Gotham city? Will I curse more tomorrow? Will people ever stop abusing keyboard character? Will I stick around and linger like a jerk again? Will I put up with more of her crap? Will I wait to put up with more of her crap? Yes, to be continued again. Tomorrow.

[Title credit: In Dino]

Words from across the border

2007-09-26T23:11:00.000+05:30

Our neighbors were reportedly heard singing these infamous lines upon these undesired arrival back home. They are apparently referring to the lost trophy. T20 became their Apollo 13 mission.

Bhenc**d, amma bhenc**d
Mori akhiyon ke taaray bolay
Bhenc**d, amma bhenc**d
Nadiya kinaaray bolay

Mori nindariya mein aa ke, moray sapnon ko saja ke
Moray sapnon ko saja ke, mayeka apna bana ke
Ummm...
Mayeka doli mein bitha ke
Mayeko dulhaniya banwa ke
Mayeki bindiya laga ke

Bhenc**d, amma bhenc**d
Mori akhiyon ke taaray bolay
Bhenc**d, amma bhenc**d
Nadiya kinaaray bolay

Tum bin mori nayya, doobti jaaye
Tum bin mori bayya, tooti jaaye
Tum chal diye kahan?
Haan...

Bhenc**d, amma bhenc**d
Mori akhiyon ke taaray bolay
Bhenc**d, amma bhenc**d
Nadiya kinaaray bolay.

[An Ali Hamza Song]

MyToday

2007-09-24T22:10:00.000+05:30

News.
*Pakis ruthlessly molest petite Indians.
*Sehwag's absence proves fatal.
*Frustrated, Sehwag ki maa sues Reliance Industries.
Ad:
http://arcanevirus.blogspot.com

I typed it on my mobile. Every single person on my contact list received this text message after the Indian innings. My dad was disappointed with the score we had put up. However, my mom still had faith. She kept saying Dhoni is a lucky man. We're gonna lift the trophy.
Being a hardcore Sehwag fan I just couldn't accept his absence. It's like a G-string, my mind was telling me. Not enough to cover Indian ass and more than enough to entertain the pakis on the other side of the border. And now my throat's sore. My legs weigh 2 tons. Each. My neck's almost broken. My neighborhood's on frickin' fire. My tenant danced with me. My mom's distributing Dharwad pedas. My dad's on a lusty firecracker shopping spree. I'm lovin' it. Lovin' every frickin' moment of this victory.
And those of you who received that unwarranted text message from me, your mobiles will tomorrow beep for "NEWS: Pakistan's coach found dead in the bathroom under mysterious conditions".

Last Kiss

2007-09-22T19:40:00.000+05:30

Oh, where oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world.

We were out on a date in my daddy's car
We hadn't driven very far
There in the road, up straight ahead
A car was stalled, the engine was dead
I couldn't stop, so I swerved to the right
I'll never forget the sound that night
The screamin' tires, the bustin' glass
The painful scream that I heard last.

Oh, where oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world.

When I woke up, the rain was pourin' down
There were people standing all around
Something warm rollin' through my eyes
But somehow I found my baby that night
I lifted her head, she looked at me and said
"Hold me darling just a little while."
I held her close, I kissed her our last kiss
I found the love that I knew I would miss
But now she's gone, even though I hold her tight
I lost my love, my life that night.

Oh, where oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world.
Oooh~ ooooh~

There's an interesting history attached to this track. A beautiful song written by one Wayne Cochran [I'd never heard of this guy before] in 1963 and later sung by many artists including Pearl Jam which led to the mass popularity of the song.
Anyway, we-smell-everyone's-ass Wiki says "Wayne Cochran is a soul singer, known for his outlandish outfits and white pompadour. He is sometimes referred to as "The White Knight of Soul". Cochran is best known today for writing the song "Last Kiss", which he performed with his band the C.C. Riders." [Never heard of this band either. Maybe these two bands are like Tariq and Kaajal Kiran from Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahi. Nobody knows who they were and where they vanished.]
This song was inspired by a car accident which happened somewhere in 1962 when a teenager named Jeanette was "out on a date" with her boyfriend and few other friends in her daddy's car. A truck hit them in heavy traffic killing Jeanette and one of her friend and injured the rest. This song was later dedicated to Jeanette. The song was never a success upon it's initial release. However it was covered by another band called The Cavaliers [Haven't heard of these folks either] in 1964 and was an instant commercial success. Later the lead singer of the famous grunge-rock band Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, found this song in some antique shop in Seattle [the city of the grunge movement]. He and his bandmates then decided to play this song in their tour and in 1998 it became their biggest hit to date. The popularity of the song made them release it as a single in their forthcoming studio albums and compilations. However, all the revenue earned from the song was forwarded to some war related relief measure. Now, they play the song in almost all tours.
Success from misfortune, you may say.
And yeah the youtube junta is obsessed with this track. There are loads of covers, some brilliantly performed and some amateurishly attempted. But the whole idea of youtube is glorification and aggrandizement of amateurism. So here are some "Last Kiss" videos in order of my preference on youtube.

[more history]

Eternal Rest

2007-09-21T16:46:00.000+05:30

This unfortunate event[content in marathi] occurred in my neighborhood on Tuesday night. A respectful school teacher who lived with his wife and three daughters few yards away from my home poisoned his twin daughters and wife and then choked them to death with a plastic cable. He then hanged himself to death sparing his eldest daughter, aged 12, so that she could live to tell the world about this macabre episode. He stated in his suicide note that it was his wife's persistent illness and poverty that drove him so depressingly mad he decided to end three innocent lives [the twins were 8] and then kill himself. Reminds me of Chris Benoit incident. I write the following in memory of the departed.

All white on black,
Knocking into pupils' head,
I taught.
"Yes, indeed", they thought.
Impressed were they,
Depressed was I.

Sun glimmered bright,
But dark I was,
Inside.
Home a shack,
My old lady sick,
Jester's mimic was life.
"Dysfunctional", cried twins,
Never impressed were they,
Depressed was I.

Bitter potion served,
Deathly necklace gifted,
Threesome in heaven,
As I prepared for hell.
Fragrance of death enveloped,
"Life is beautiful", they'd claimed,
"Afterlife is more", I'd said,
But never impressed were they,
Oh! depressed was I.

Glory of the corpses,
Now radiantly cheerful.
Bright sun ashamed too,
Over three departures.
Older bird I uncage,
Aghast, she flew away,
Choker around my neck,
I quit,
Happy and gay.

Nihility

2007-09-16T12:48:00.000+05:30

"I'm significant", screamed Calvin.

*eerie silence*

"Screamed the dust speck", he mused.

[courtesy]

Chota hai toh behtar hai

2007-09-13T19:20:00.000+05:30

"Take a bow. End of a woondaful innings. Such a delight to watch. Oonbelievable knock. Oh, he's a toough guy. Take a bow." Only one man can utter these outlandish lines. Our very own mirch-masala, baat-nawab-ke-kaam-hajam-ke, controversial commentator/cricketer-- Tony Grieg. But what the heck. I like the guy. Controversy sells like sex.
Well, it's been ages since I watched a cricket match. Like every other jobless Indian, I've been a fan of this game. Rather, I was. However, the joy there once existed when Srinath massaged his crotch with that red sphere under the bright floodlight surrounded by moths and flies and crows and more jobless freaks is rather missing now. It's lost somewhere between Ganguly's daytime blindness and Tendulkar's pseudo-altruism and BCCI's autotheism. I don't cut classes now. For the game, that is. But surprisingly, my indifference to the game couldn't hold on. It was on 11th September, Osama's second birthday, when my love, lost love, for the game came limping back. Chris Gayle was the cupid. The Great Caribbean Khali, hooked, punched, pulled, slapped, striked every ill-fated ball that was delivered his way. In short, he beat the sh!t out of them arrogant South Africans. And to add some spicy ketchup to the shezwan noodles he was cooking with South African oil there were strippers.. er.. cheerleaders all around the stadium stripping.. er.. cheering on Anil Dirubhai Ambani Group's podium. The billionaire sure has some spicy taste.
So here I was glued to the TV set, texting my friends in a jiffy to switch over from unreal reality talent hunts to some hot action on ESpN [yeah, also there's this melodramatic coalition of Chetan Sharma and Mohindar Amarnath and Yashpal Sharma on Star Cricket] where the Caribbeans and Rainbow Nation narcissists were confronting each other in an action-packed Twenty20 World Cup opener.
Seemingly now I say, ban test matches and ODI's. I say, play more extremely-limited-over-matches. I say, recruit more Latin chicks with flat bellies and Jenna Jameson-esque bazooms who could get even that fish-hook straight. If this is the only game that we can possibly play, I say, make it as entertaining as possible. I say, Reshammiyafy it for us ignorant auto drivers. I say, make Sehwag the striker, skipper and opener for life. I just can't wait to see him beat the crap out of pakies. No offense.
And lastly I seek Sehwag ki maa's blessings to be entertained to the fullest on D-Day.

Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein: 2

2007-09-09T11:22:00.000+05:30

Wide awake on a dark, chilly night I wonder, "Why do I hurt myself?"
Rain drops strike the dusty leaves, they pound hard on the dry and thirsty fields.
I hear a voice amidst all this painful salvation of nature.
"Pain makes you appreciate what little happiness life throws towards you", it declares.
I smile. The contentious smile.
"Why? Why should it always be around us?", I still wonder.
"Because pain is the winter that paves way for the happiness called spring", asserts the voice.
I smile. Now the content smile.

[1]

Kya hua

2007-09-07T13:23:00.000+05:30

What follows has been inspired by true events. Resemblance to any person living or dead is, yes, purposed and intended.
And, I apologize to the junta who love the original version. I couldn't help but molest this number. It's been a long time.

Woh kehte hai na, ladkiya bohot hoshiyar hoti hai-- galat kehte hai.

Bar mein baita tha saala,
Vodka pine tha mein chala,
Dostone jo puri quarter mujhe de dala.
Ladkone mangayi whiskey,
Ladkiya bhi kam nahi thi,
Tequila ke char shot unhone chada liya.

Kya hua jo bunk maari?
Vodka jo maine peeli,
Chadgaya toh mera kasoor kya bhala?
Tukrakhe mujko chali,
Baat bhi karti nahi ab saali,
Aisa bura bhi ab maine kya kiya?

Engineeirng.. Suna tha yaha ladkiyon ki kami bohot hoti hai. Koi ladki agar dhik bhi jaye toh kitabon ke siva kisi aur ko patathi nahi. Magar in char salo mai woh mujhe aise khwab dhikayegi jo private variables banke hamesha ke liye encapsulated rehejayenge aisa maine kabhi socha nahi tha. Friend function bhi use nahi kar sakta, ye bhi socha nahi tha.

Uske jitna mai nahi padtha,
Mai hu ek awara bandha,
Café ke samne mein toh baita rahunga.
GTalk mai baat bhi kiya,
Google ka revenue badaya,
Fir bhi tumne mera kachara kar diya.

Kya hua jo bunk maari?
Vodka jo maine peeli,
Chadgaya toh mera kasoor kya bhala?
Tukrakhe mujko chali,
Baat bhi karti nahi ab saali,
Aisa bura bhi ab maine kya kiya?

Woh kehte hai na, ladkiya bohot hoshiyar hoti hai-- sahi kehte hai.

[video]

Suicidal debut

2007-08-26T13:34:00.000+05:30

This guy has brutally devirginated every bollywood movie ever released more violently than Lamboo Aata. He's ripped apart every fleshed being in Indian Cinema, from Ramsay Brothers to Amitab Bacchan, with his comatose "chatuklas". And today he and his mountainous arse have concocted a tortuously annoying and insensibly dumb movie with three jokers unsuccessfully trying to sell elephantine lumps of cheap slapstick humor alongside a babyy [literally] which pulls off Puss in Boots act. All this with a missppeelleedd title [to avoid copyright infringement suit? what is that unlucky thing they've copied so badly?].
Okay. The movie is so sickly boring that I was discussing Mayawati's sex life with my friends shortly after that introductory song with around 16 sluts. Sahid Kahan [correct spelling: Sajid Khan], the master behind the epic, assumes that sh!t[literally] on face is cool and can induce uncontrollable laughter, white powder on face coupled with moronic expressions will make audience shout lol lol lol, a mustache can metamorphose a hard-d!ck Casanova into an unrecognizable Arab and that na-ki-punsi is the hindi equivalent of ROFL. I should say, incredible assumptions.
Charlie Chaplin pioneered slapstick humor and took it to new height. On the other hand Sajid Khan, like his innumerable other colleagues, drowned it down the gutters with equal depth. Earlier it was David Dawan. Now it's Sajid Khan.
Why can't we have Monty Pythons or Borats or Dr Strangeloves or Little Miss Sunshines here in Indian Cinema? And if it compulsively *has* to be slapstick then why not Ace Venturas or Austin Powers or Mr Beans or Andaz Apna Apnas? When will we see a decent and seriously humorous Hindi movie?

One who knows how to adjust is the one who knows how to live. Balls.

2007-08-21T23:19:00.000+05:30

Firstly, apologies. I couldn’t post and couldn’t read your posts because I’d been to, uh, out of station. You know guys, this out of stationing gets me all nostalgic. It reminds me of them good ol’ primary school days when we used to stand up in the class, joyfully clearing our throat and proudly announcing: “tomorrow I’m going to out of station”. Then smile. Smile like a complan-boy unaware of the grammatical rape. Back then, “Out of station” was a cute lil’ place— a noun. Innocent were those days, when we used to ask for time as: “how much ‘o clock?” and when recess was not a short break but a euphemism for a quick piss. Only after the advent of Wren & Martin did we become hardcore literalists. Not exactly, but somewhat. We still like terminating our sentences with “no?” and “only”. No big deal, no?

Fast forward 15 years [minus 20 days] and I’m in flea ridden nimma Bengalooru. It’s not literally flea ridden, but it’s that strong dislike for something and you call names and just can’t stop negatively bragging about. Know what I mean?

You simply can’t walk on Bengalooru streets without stinking freaks behind your arse. As long as you’re strolling the crowded streets, platforms, footpaths and malls you *have* to have them hands on your wallet and your cell-phone. If just for a moment, that small teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy moment, your attention inclines towards a low-waist, heavily voluptuous bimbo, boy you’re a goner. The instant she walks past you bouncing and shaking her you-know-whats and vanishing in some thick mob suddenly all that blood flowing between your legs rushes to your numb hands reminding you of P C Sarkar. Magic, you know. *poof* The wallet’s missing or the cell-phone’s vanished or they both are vaporized into thin air. Worse yet, there’s a hole on your denim and your arse is for display to entire Bengalooooru junta. Ugly things happen in big cities.

And if you’re traveling between 9:00-11:00 in the morning & 5:00-7:00 in the evening, be sure to pack up some snacks, a Rubic’s cube, an oxygen mask [preferably a huge black one which can scare the sh!t outta the person before you. These work better than sound horns there] and lastly some hideous profanities preferably angrezi, ‘cause these folks back here don’t know any Hindi. So B’s, M’s and C’s won’t do you no good. But beware while hurling angrezi insults ‘cause “rascal, I say” is the ugliest form of cussing and weighs more than “motherfvcker” back there. Extremely funny but equally dangerous these people are.

They have these indigenous names for every other stuff. One morning I ask this guy to give me dahi-vada and he makes a horrible face like Mrs. Gandhi being talked to in Bhojpuri and says “We don’t have it here, I say”. I point at a bowl full of dahi-vada on the table and say “What’s that? Limestone and water?”. He stupidly giggles and says “mosaru-wade”. Yeah right, frickin’ cute name. Do me favor and gimme one of them. All these days I thought dahi-vada was a standard name across India. I was wrong. Now I wonder what they call it in lungi-land Chennai. *sigh* If God’s wrath prevails, I’ll have to stay in this city, Bengalooru, for most part of my future. Coding and of course eating mosaru-wade.

One productive thing I did there was purchasing this VCD of Ek Chalis Ki Last Local from planet-M [moser baer wala, 34 bucks. I trust torrents when it comes to movies but this one was cheap and the movie’s amazing. Ekdum Quentin Tarantino istyle]. I also bought some branded crap from those factory outlets where they hang these gigantic banners announcing “upto 50% off”. But once you’re in, they give away socks and expired deodorants at 50% and every out heavy duty stuff at a “huge, jaw-dropping” 10%. You know folks, that “upto” has some big invisible strings attached to its arse. Frickin’ clever business. Annoyed, at one of those outlets I wrote a feedback which read “Shove them billboards and ad banners up your arse. They deserve to be unseen in some dark, gooey place”.

Apparently I decided to get back home after 12 dreadful days [some were exceptionally great though]. I booked a seat in a train to another town, 80km south from my place. There I regrettably hopped into an unknown city bus which took me on a stupid city-tour for almost an hour. After enquiring few fellow travelers I realized the main bus stop was some 100 yards from the railway station. An hour later I was back to the same station. I walked to the bus stop and waited for some more time guarding my prehistoric-Adnan-Sami-sized luggage. Then finally I bounded one very stuffy bus which promised to go straight to my town, but it stopped every 15 minutes at every village like an old man with weak bladder. But somehow I made it back to my home. Ah, breathed the cold air like Kumbh Mela sadhus sucking on marijuana. I tell you, there’s no place like home. Later I hitchhiked to my house. I knew the driver. He was my school-mate. So, home I was. But there I saw a denim clad girl walking straight into my home along with a dangerous looking German shepherd. Now that couldn’t have been my dog. I had a nice little Pomeranian— Scooby [poisoned by some sick bastard, it passed away couple months ago]. Anyway, that girl, my mom said, was our new tenant and she would be staying on the ground floor with her parents and that “beautiful” dog. “They don’t seem to be from this part of Karnataka”, I said, “where are they from?” “Bangalore”, she answered. Instinctively my hands reached out for my pockets. And just like I feared, my wallet was missing along with the pocket, leaving a neo-Adnan-Sami-sized hole on the back of my denim.

P.S 1: Finally, I cleared my final semester with a distinction. My university made me poorer by 800 bucks sucking them as revaluation fees to stamp that FCD on my marks sheet. But it doesn’t come as a surprise because we’ve shelled out so much dough for every imaginable and unimaginable things these four years at this university. So I’m cool with it and I’m happy that my one night study fetched me a coveted class.

P.S 2: The state’s decision to rename my town has been turned down by the center. Kudos to the decision makers. These scum bags down south have already flushed the capital’s name down the loo and renamed it Bengalooru. Not my town, Mr. HDK. Not my town.

P.S 3: Whatever happened to that flat carom-board like belly Urmila Matondkar used to carry? This immodestly named movie RGV Ki Aag has her dancing in this mehbooba number with that belly hanging out yelling for a crane to lift it up. Her cleavage too appears so big that a crane could probably be parked in that titanic slit between her twins to lift up her belly. What are these bollywood bimbettes eating these days?

P.S 4: Chakde India was a lame attempt at fighting politics infested Indian sports. As one of the tabloid put it—“16 ugly women and no romantic SRK”, it’s you know not well polished and misses that fine tuning. Ugly or not, lame or not, romantic or not, but the cameraman sure was suffering from grave Parkinson’s disease. Man, he’s shook the camera so much that my head just couldn’t quit shaking when I went out to take a leak. I mean just think about it. I go out there, zip down my denim and with my head uncontrollably shaking I look down. Suddenly this guy standing next to me turns towards me and makes this disgusting face. Damn you cameraman.

Dedicated to the cameraman:

'Cause the walls start shaking
The earth was quaking
My mind was aching
And we were makin’ it and you,
Shook me all night long
Yeah you shook me all night long

Partner

2007-07-29T19:40:00.000+05:30

Director: David Dhavan, the renowned and eminent Indian director who prefers his audience to have an IQ equivalent to Academy Award® nominated thespian Rakhi Sawant.

Producer: Sohail Khan, well renowned across the globe as the brother of better half of Malaika Arora.

Writer: The intellectual David Dhavan himself.

Cast: Salman Khan, well known driver.
Katrina Kaif, chairman, Non-Actor’s Guild of India.
Lara Dutta, one time Mr Olympia.
Govinda, adorably obese politician.
Rajpal Yadav, wannabe comedian, Indian Cinema.

Parents Guide: Disputed [Above 13, officially but Under 5, in reality]

Genre: Retardese.

Plot Synopsis: Hitch.

User Comments: salimrikshewala@himeshreshammiya.com from India

10/10
Amma kasam, kya filim banaya… Rapchik comedy... Deknekach… [Must Watch]

P.S: I hope David Dhavan doesn’t stick to his words and not roll out a sequel. And, hey, watch it for Govinda, if you have to.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: A treat

2007-07-22T22:12:00.000+05:30

Now here's something you ought to know before you start reading the latest and the last installment in the series. Thought provoking.

I only appreciate Italian cuisine and insults.

2007-07-21T20:17:00.000+05:30

Finally Congress wins the battle. The President, who's the head of the states and the Supreme Commander of the armed forces is now, like our prime minister, a mere puppet. A lady, who's brother is an alleged murderer who was allegedly rescued by her sometime in the past when the congress in power was playing the role of the termite and her husband who's alleged responsible for the suicide of a school teacher, was never the choice of the liberal and educated Indians [save for some feminists, pro-congress termites and retards]. However, she is now the First Citizen of the sovereign Republic of India who'll henceforth be controlled by the Italian-Indian leader of the ruling party. Though presidency is nothing more than a ceremonial post, it does matter.

It is a shame that our new President has been allegedly involved in a series of controversies like making foolish statements as the Health Minister of Maharastra state in 1975 and getting involved in a bank scandal. Though Congress is like the special Ramzan sweet for the minorities, Mrs President recently made an enlightening statement saying Muslim women started wearing the burka to save themselves from the invading Muslim's of the Gulf and so it was in the national interest now to abandon it, disturbing the Islamic leaders. [Dude, Osama, you heard her?]. Maybe some Intercontinental Ballistic Missile is already in place somewhere along the borders of Afganistan and Pakistan to react.

I now numbly wait for the day when they'll have the horse and bull in our National Emblem replaced with Sonia and Manmohan and "The Family" scribbled over "Satyameva Jayate".

Though it's a day for the nation to rejoice as we've got our first female president, it is also the day to mourn the death of secularism and deliberate growth of monarchy.

Dr Shilpa Shetty, mercyfvcked by Leeds

2007-07-19T20:26:00.000+05:30

I’m not amused anymore
And nothing’s a muse anymore
I sing of love and of hate
But I’m just masturbating my soul

And I don’t want to live anymore
And I don’t want to give anymore
If I fawn, if I flirt, I just keep getting hurt
And it’s taken its toll

I wish I could fvck all my sorrow away
And fvck ’til the dawn of the next fvcking day
fvck the chorus and verse, fvck the pain getting worse
fvck it all ’til I burn

I wish I could fvck all of you ’til you see
I’m the worst fvck up in all history
Fvck your image and mine, fvck your limp valentine
Fvck it all ’til I learn

I’m not a kid anymore
I don’t know what I did anymore
But on every damn pass, karma bushwacks my ass
And I get it all back

And I don’t want to move anymore
I’ve got nothing to prove anymore
If I run, if I sit, still it all turns to sh!t
Then it turns to attack

I wish I could fvck all the memory I keep
Fvck the next ten years and just go to sleep
I’m fvcked if I do and I’m fvcked if I say
I’m fvcked if I don’t, so I’m fvcked anyway

I wish I could fvck all of you ’til you see
I don’t need your mercyfvck sympathy
Fvck your word and your prayers, fvck your stares and my cares
Fvck it all ’til I learn.

p.s: Here's the perfect recipe to get a mercyfvcking honorary doctrate: paint your ass-cheeks brown, balloon-ize your twins with considerable amount of silicon, cry murder on a fake reality show in an alien nation [preferably the one which has mercyfvcked you in the past] and lastly invoke the blood thirsty feminists and insanely retarded media with a pre-planned, well-orcestrated rascism causatum. Go on, we're so fvcking interested.

Of Bitter Freedom, Vodka and Booby Traps

2007-07-16T22:58:00.000+05:30

The past week was no different— anticipation of warm trouble-free mornings and peaceful nights, but being blessed with the very opposite.

Firstly, I got my usual unimpressive exam result—supposedly the last result of my academic career. Of course, cleaning the dust off books exactly 20 hours before the schedule with ever interrupting thoughts about that-hot-chick, that-awesome-movie, that-cool-gadget and that-disastrous-past, one cannot expect the university to honor him [read me] with a goddamn honorary fellowship. Apparently, I had to see them wonderful numbers on the notice board. *sigh* Engineering was a huge catastrophe. But fortunately I somehow managed to complete it with a FC aggregate and limped through it never flunking in any of those utterly stupid subjects. There were a few subjects I never wanted to learn but inevitably had to. You don’t have options in engineering, and if you do they’re all compulsory. Man, they love black humor. There were these two subjects for me—Advanced Microprocessors and Electronic Circuits which were like two female anopheles mosquitoes giving their best soprano performance in my ear. *phew* It’s all over now. Finally, I’m an engineer—a software engineer. Feels great.

To mourn the aftermath of this 4-year-hurricane I’d been to a shoddy bar/restaurant near my college. However, some students here consider it with high regard. They say it’s better than the college we’re slogging in. Amen. Accompanying me were Mr K aka Salim Feku and Mr A aka Tennanbaum. Salim Feku, to our surprise, had invited couple of esteemed lab-assistants from our college. His justification: I owe them. Alright, couple more jerks to mourn the end of this journey and make it more enlightening. Bring ‘em on. And enlightening it was. 90ml down your throat, those degradingly low numbers on the notice board start looking like a stripper in a G-string. Little starts appearing good. And if you’ve failed the exam it’s like a lap-dance, if you’re washed [failed in more then four] it’s like a drunk-orgy. The worse it gets the better it feels. World always seems a better place with Smirnoff. Plus we had these two drunk morons with us, their subconscious playing marbles under dimly lit street lights as if they were at Wembley Stadium playing the FIFA world cup finals. The scene was funnier than Jim carry, Will Ferrel and Adam Sandler put together. Mr B, the senior lab assistant, suddenly transformed himself into a Pakistan-born, Indian freedom fighter who migrated here in 1970 leaving behind a fortune estimated [by himself] to be somewhere around 60 Crore. He went on to tell us that he worked on a Russian vessel during the Soviet era bedding all those sultry long-legged dames on the ship. Exactly, Russian models work on clumsy fishing ships, I thought and burped, as an acknowledgment. Later he broadened our mythological knowledge declaring that tsunami is the indication of a new God being born. “Last time it was Lord Krishna”, he said. “This time maybe it is Paris Hilton”, quipped Salim Feku, “Or maybe her renowned sex tape.” Mr B further enlightened us on complicated issues surrounding early Indian political scenario [that how Nehru screwed India producing Pakistan and then screwed his wife, literally, producing the future feminist PM], Christian Mythology [that Jesus was hanged on cross], Indian Mythology [that Lord Krishna was born out a relationship between an earthquake and huge oceanic waves] and lot of such other intellectual stuff. All this time Mr P was busy gulping gallons of KF beer without showing an ounce of intellectual grandeur which was spilling out of Mr B like Champagne from celebratory Champagne bottle on the F1 podium. Mr B glanced at Mr P with eyes half closed like the shutter of a wine-shop at midnight and took this opportunity saying, “My father forced me into marriage and so I’d to quit my job as the FBI undercover in New York’s Organized Crime.” On hearing these miraculous words I got up to take a pee break. Desperately.

All the calls that I get on my mobile phone are from the Hutch customer care centre [pre-recorded calls they are, adding to the agony] but even then I carry one. I mean a mobile. And surprisingly I’ve changed the sim card for the 4^th time as if I was being stalked by a female fanatic. I went to this Hutch Shoppe near my college expecting a heavy buxom damsel to help me select a new recharge plan. But to my ill-fortune I was deliberately evangelized by this Benny Hinn-esque guy to embrace this new sim card [which promised a free umberella ella ella eh eh eh] and calls at half rates for an entire year. Now, these service providers use this dirty corporate tactic of activating the offers only after 24 hours of recharge/purchase. But the mild-mannered, novice, greedy kid in me made a monstrously long call only to find that the balance had magically evaporated in thin air. *sigh* Opening my new umbrella, I walked back home like a total moron humming— “You and I, on this beautiful road…”

Ignorance

2007-07-05T19:48:00.000+05:30

"It's true Hobbes, Ignorance is bliss."
"Once you know things, you start seeing problems everywhere. And once you see problems, you feel like you ought to try to fix them. And fixing problems always seems to require personal change. And change means doing things that aren't fun. I say phooey to that."
"But if you're willfully stupid, you don't know any better, so you can keep doing whatever you like."
"The secret to happiness is short-term, stupid self-interest.", quips Calvin.

*Wagon gains speed*

"We're heading for that cliff", yells Hobbes.
"I don't want to know about it", says Calvin closing his eyes.

*Thud*
*Crash*

"I'm not sure I can stand so much bliss", says Hobbes.
"Careful! We don't want to learn anything from this", remarks the kid.

Kind of summarizes the mess we create in our lives, innit?
How remarkable was Watterson's wit..

2007: Epilogue

2007-06-29T12:25:00.000+05:30

[continued from 2007...]

As he looked away from the awe-inspiring portrait of HOD, he saw ahead what he thought was an angel. It was like hot shower on a winter morning. A beautiful broad clad in green salwaar with magnificent long hair smilingly walked pass him. With that smile to kill for, he thought she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen in GIT. Girls never smiled in GIT. If they did, boys never acknowledged it with a counter smile. That was the rule. And the ACE coordinators saw to it that the rule was never breached. For a moment he’d forgotten ACE, he’d disregarded HOD, he’d abandoned the supposed code-of-conduct of GIT and most importantly the Room 101. He smiled back as he saw the magnetic glimmer in her eyes. He felt there was something she was seeking as desperately as he was. Love, freedom, affection, liberty… He knew and was sure of it with that one smile she threw upon him.

An entire month passed by like sand through fingers. Everything remained the same. The same cold breeze, the same bold-red GIT, the same broken water cooler, the same appalling DPs, the same scary portrait, the same angel with the same smile. And 28 smiles but the same hesitation. Days changed but the situation remained firm like frozen water on the river keenly waiting for the sun to show over the dark clouds.

On the 35^th smile, finally, he met her in the Victory Hall on the smelly ground floor. They were alone, the two of them. He said nothing and it seemed she understood everything. She held his hand and caressed it like her pet cat. Their mouths were shut tight. Eyes did all the talking. He knew he’d eventually found the Holy Grail he was seeking all these laborious years. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen”, he said speaking for the first time, technically. She acknowledged it with her 36^th smile. He still had the count. They talked for hours without any fear. Fear no longer existed. All that they knew of was love and liberty. He then gently held her face shifting a lock of hair behind her left ear and kissed her pink pillow-like lips. She shivered as his cold wet lips sent a current of warm pulses throughout her body. He held her even more tightly. She responded by raising her feet and pressing her body to his. Their lips moved about rhythmically like the coryphée of a ballet. However, the momentary happiness was suddenly ruined by the merciless DPs and half a dozen nerdy Loyal Students standing on the entrance of Victory Hall. They both stood, pleasurably unashamed, surrounded the so-called moral brigade of GIT. Holding her hand tightly he closed his eyes and darkness engulfed him making sense. He thought of Room 101.

He was made to wait in the hollow chambers just across HOD’s den. Sitting before him was Department of Care for Students’ most dreaded Preacher—Harry Kentucky. Unwillingly waiting to be summoned inside Room 101 he looked at Mr. Kentucky. “He isn’t as soft as the chicken though”, he thought. He hated Mr. Kentucky. And the hatred seemed mutual. The clock on the wall showed 0800 hours. Harry grinned and took him into the room most feared GIT. The Room 101.

Room 101 was nothing anyone had ever imagined. Those “Students” who’d been in there never discussed it. In fact no one ever asked them. As he entered the room he saw a vast never ending hall painted vomit green with rusted fans dangerously hanging from the ceiling like a knife hung with noodle. The entire hall was tightly filled with historically old Pentium-processor computer systems. He’d seen them only in his text books during his first year at Great Institute of Thoughts. The entire scene looked to him like a creepy haunted mansion from a gory Hollywood movie. I’m in the IT prison, he thought. And so right he was.

He was forced to sit on a cushion less iron chair. And then, just ahead of him, he saw a dark bald man walking towards him. Closing his eyes he thought of that angelic smile which had revived his lost hope. But all that he could see was a scary man with demonic eyes standing before him. “Eyes speak and who knows it better that you my dear, shall I say, friend. However, we here in Department of Care for Students know it best. We are equipped with intellectual and psychological capabilities unimaginable by filthy liberty-seeking scums of Great Institute of Thought. We read eyes with the proficiency of a hawk scrutinizing its prey. Yet you fail to consider us with even an ounce of earnestness. Your indifference will only jeopardize your “freedom”. You should understand it, my dear friend. We always preach, “Intimacy leads you to Him”. Don’t be fooled, I’m not talking of the divine power you worship. I’m talking of Him. Me. I.”, said the HOD's voice filled with pure terror. “Welcome to hell”.

The very next moment he was staring at an old computer system before him which didn’t look any less young that his great grandfather. “Build a COBOL program, for a Client/Server scenario, to be executed on a Linux machine using FIFO as the IPC channel for communication between the two Pentium-pro processor based systems in this divine hall. :-)”, was written with white text on a horrible blue screen. He translated the emoticon into “HOD IS WATCHING YOU”. Apparently it dawned upon him as he sat there staring at the blinking cursor at the end of the problem statement on the emoticon; they did to you what you hated the most. He hated coding for Linux machines. He hated COBOL. He hated acronyms. It was the perfect torture. And to increase the intensity of the torture they reminded him of the things he loved. Client/Server scenario was what he loved most. He loved network communication. Ah! The best orchestrated torture. He had no choice but to submit himself. He surrendered. He bowed. He had to. He was brought to his knees.

The chilly wind blew against his face. But it made no difference now. He stood at the doorsteps and looked up at the bold red letters. “Great Institute of Thoughts” was scribbled. He didn’t shudder. He moved in without any thought. Climbing the stairs, without stopping at the broken cooler he walked on the corridor. Nothing mattered now. He respectfully bowed at Harry Kentucky on the corridor as he moved past him. He now respected the DP’s more that anything in this world. Further down the corridor he saw the portrait of HOD. It was the most beautiful portrait he’d ever seen. “HOD IS WATCHING YOU”, was written below it. The words now made profound sense.

She passed by him looking weak and spent. Dark circles below her eyes said they’d done the same to her—forcing her to do what she hated most while reminding her of what she loved. They looked at each other. Their eyes were as dead as a decapitated body in the morgue—unwritten and unreadable. They no longer spoke the language of love or intimacy. They now spoke the language of professionals. Freedom was entirely erased. It never existed. It never will. They both loved HOD…

Effectiveness

2007-06-25T20:47:00.000+05:30

June 25, I get this wonderful mail from one Mr F*ck Hard in my INBOX with the subject line shouting: Big your piano, be a real man. Nice name I said and opened it for some quality humor. And this below cryptic message was all that I got. In bold blue fonts it was written:

Chicks always laughed at me and even guys did at WC toilet! Well now I smile at them because I took megadlk for six months and now my disk is much bigger than NATION average piano size. I bought that music disk from this store, $121.6 billion mostly for the ongoing efforts in Iraq recommendations, said OLG Board Chair Michael Gough in situation where our servicemen and women are seized when "I hope we manage to get them [the Iranian government] According to preliminary official results", Jean.

Was Mr F*ck Hard trying to sell me some enlargement pills or was he trying to sell me an Ipod for as low as $121.6 billion thinking I was some sort of a retarded moron or was it an Anti-bush bulletin or the quota issue back here in India or a debate on nuke possession by a Muslim nation or just bloody plain spam?
With the mail blissfully resting in my INBOX and not black listed by the spam controller, I suppose it's everything but spam. Google is supposed to be efficient.
So fellas, wanna buy an Ipod or humor? I can forward it.

Ah.. Creativity: Gunda

2007-06-20T22:06:00.000+05:30

Roger Ebert hasn’t yet reviewed this masterpiece. If he had, by any chance, his website would have screamed with delight—Man, at last, reaches the apex of creativity. He’d have gladly rated it with maximum stars, four. And the actors he’d have rightly called—Gods of postmodern cinema.

The epic movie I’m talking about is the Cognoscente Kanti Shah directed, Prabhu Mithun featuring milestone in Indian cinema—GUNDA. Written by Indian cinema’s most prolific and dexterously accomplished script writer Bashir Babar, it is India’s answer to the so-called remarkable movies of the west like The Godfather, Indiana Jones and Goodfellas. No movie in the history of Indian cinema has ever been able to match the sophistication and elegance depicted in this chronicle of human saga. Prabhu Mithun, who plays the role a coolie at the airport with utter perfection and brilliant might, carries the movie single-handedly to its now historical victory. This intricate saga casts an outstandingly creative ensemble. To name a few, Ishrat Ali as Lambu Aata, Mohan Joshi as Pote, Shakti “Lolita” Kapoor as C*utiya and Mukesh Rishi as Bulla. Each of these character delivers the dialogue with poetic brilliance. For instance,

Bulla says, “Mera naam hai bulla, rakhta hoon hamesha khulla…”

Likewise,

Ibu Hatela says,” Mera naam hai Ibu Hatela, maa meri chudail ki beti, baap mera shaitaan ka chela. Kyu? Khayega kela?” [Euphemistically, in this epic, Kela represents male reproductive organ.]

But nothing can ever beat the dialogue delievered by Prabhu himself. He jumps into the frame with accurate timing and spits venom on the goons, which has found it’s place in the annals of history books, which has been considered as a threat to the so-called western greats like “This is not personal sonny, it’s strictly business” and “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”.

He threatens, “Mai hoon jurm se nafrat karne wala… Gareebo ke liye chiraag, gundon ke liye jwala.”

And interestingly all the female characters in the movie are raped. Historians claim that the rape sequences were unanimously embedded into the script for reasons unknown. Some say that it was an unconventional method used by Connoisseur Kanti Shah to depict romance unlike other Indian Cinemas where romance always happens behind two rustling flowers or in the shadows on white walls. However, the real intention behind the filming of all those merciless rape scenes still is under research by IIT-Kharagpur junta.

All in all it’s a movie of a lifetime. Do not miss it for the world, ladies and gentlemen. Be enlightened by the magic of Philosopher Kanti Shah and Prabhu Mithun.

Here are few praises by art lovers:

“Surely some people may dismiss the movie as any other "B" grade movie, but the kind of thinking that has gone into writing the story, screenplay, dialogs, and creation of characters is unparalleled.”

“Truly a cinematic masterpiece, GUNDA propels the viewer through a world of pony-tailed-gender-confused-rapists, villains spouting rhyme, prostitutes suspended in mid air and heroines with fluctuating vital statistics. “

“This movie has everything: from The Rape of the Century to The War of the Century.”

“Leave the problems of your daily lives behind you. Join this awesome movie and its magical script where Mithun puts one of the best shows on camera.”

“Seems like Indian challenge to South Park to me.”

“Mithun's tryst with greatness. The defining moment of Indian Cinema. This movie is a must watch for every Hindi speaker. More inspiring than The Shawshank Redemption, with the thrill of Die Hard.”

“Let it be said at the outset that the true star of this movie is the scriptwriter. The dialogs have to be heard and understood to be believed... Evocative stools-inducing dialogue like "Main Roz Husn Ki Peti Khol Ke Hawas Ki Seeti Bajata Hoon" will have you reaching for the nearest bottle of Isabgol”

Watch the epic movie here:

An introductory clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZcURBogNlA

Entire movie: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3923767355169636477

P.S: I mean every single word I’ve written above. Watch it for the love of God.