Post-Christmas update

It has been a while since my last post, what with having no access to Internet at home and the office blocking access to blogging and personal email. Other than that, I have got around to a more steady pace in my office, working about an hour less, but I still resent reaching work at 7am, only because a bitch in the Delhi office keeps taking days off all the fucking time. Anyway, I have moved to my own house which is quite nice. My flatmates are real nice and friendly, more than any other strangers I have lived with before, and I foresee a rather trouble free co-existence.

Oh, my phone met a gruesome fate last weekend, getting crushed under a local train. And then, two days later, me and 3 other friends got busted by cops for smoking a wee bit of hash. Knowing my luck, I ain't surprised in the least. And since we were carrying, between the 4 of us, a substantial amount, about 25g, of narcotic substances, we got pretty screwed. So now, I have stopped carrying even the tiniest amount of weed with me, and I am not smoking outodoors anymore. Anywhere. Ever. Unless its somewhere legal like Amsterdam. Fuck you, fate.

The lack of time at home (except on weekends) to do any personal work (such as getting an Internet connection) is another irritant. I also hope my credit card delivery doesn't go back to sender. Thankfully, at least my maid knows what I look like.

Next month arrives and brings with it a full month's pay cheque. Need to get myself a new phone, a monitor for my PC, and start thinking about a car if I want to spare myself the trains once the so-called winter here is over.

Oh, and here are some Christmas wishes!

Moved to Bum-bay

Been a working man now for a couple of weeks. Does it feel good, after all the unintentional unemployment? Can't say a resounding yes to that, but I am certainly relieved. I have yet to settle in at the workplace, so to speak, which I suppose means giving other people there the time to get used to my presence. Of course, once again, I am moved to a mild mixture of irritation and pity at watching all the usual office politics, formation of coteries and other such bullshit that forms an integral part of any workspace.

But I am more concerned with my own work timings, which currently involve about 11 hours spent in office. There will be some rationalisation soon, I am told. The best thing, though, about this job is that I can, every now and then, work out of Delhi if I so feel inclined. Like I will be doing in 4 days' time.

My own place, the one I have found for myself in this city, will be vacated next weekend, when I will be in Delhi. So I will move in once I get back, which will be a huge relief. I am spending between 2.5 and 3 hours travelling daily right now, and that shall go down by at least an hour once I move to my place. Of course, the many other merits that come with having a place to call your own (even if rented) are quite welcome too. The first one in my list is that I will finally stop living out of a suitcase, like I have been doing for more than 6 months already. It will also feel good to have the use of my PC again so that I can play some more random games again!

This post will be incomplete if I failed to mention the only too famous rush in the local trains that I have to endure everyday. What bugs me most is other peoples' oily smelly hair actually physically going up my nose.

It gets better, after all!!

All the confusion has been sorted out, and I will be joining work from Monday as an Assistant Programme Editor, whatever that is. My office briefly considered paying my airfare so that I could join them earlier, but finally left it to me to make my way on my own. So I am taking a train tomorrow morning.

Yesterday, I met a friend from London who is here for an internship. While waiting for him (which was about half hour), I was thinking about how my bad luck seems to be abating, and then, in one of those reflex thoughts deriving from invisible strands of superstition, I regretted the thought, hoping it wouldn't jinx anything. Then I proceeded to smoke a cigarette and then, sitting in the car, to roll a joint. And I got busted by a cop, green-handed.

Sure, I had to bribe him with all the money in my wallet. He also took the weed and even my cigarettes and told me, as his parting gift, that if I kept smoking, I wouldn't be able to have sex or children. Sure. Anyway, I then found my friend who was already around and went to drink some beer. The mood lightened once again, and during conversation, I said it aloud, you know, about the bad luck abating.

Later that evening, I dropped him home, getting mildly lost in the process. On the way back, got still more lost, and then, once again busted by the cops. This time for drunken driving. The cop was more concerned with red puffy eyes and kept asking if I had smoked. I asked for the breathalyser, the legal limit on which is apparently 20 per 100mg. And guess what? I had a 21. Ah, interesting times.

So I guess I should go back to my old point of view, always expecting shit to happen in the worst ways possible, without any pauses or gaps. And I have learnt an important humbling lesson too, one involving being careful in public places.

Where or when, if ever, does it end?

You know that feeling when you find yourself humming some tune that you hate and no matter how hard you try, it stays stuck in your head and on your tongue for days? Or the feeling of being a stuck record, playing the same bit over and over again? In short, the feeling that you have been saying the same thing for what seems to be eternity, and that even you are bored with yourself?

But what can I do? My brightly shining lucky stars seem to never lose their dark sheen, though I am hoping it has diminished a little. Last I bitched, it was about moving to Bombay to join NDTV who were yet to give me a written confirmation but were expecting me to join on Monday, 2nd November anyway. So I landed up in Bombay the day before to start finding meself a house and all that. And they tell me day before that I will most likely be joining for Tuesday, the 3rd. And as of yesterday, they are really quite unsure when I will actually be asked to join, and that it will definitely be sometime later in the week, maybe even the week after.

So in less than 48 hours, I am back in Bangalore. Partly because I was living in a place where I was quite far from my comfort zone (the household sleeps at 9pm without giving me a key to the front door, needs a 5 hour notice if you are going to eat a meal at home, and let's not even get to other more 'extreme' bits). Partly because if I have to spend a few more days doing nothing much except twiddle my thumbs, I had rather do it in the comfort of my room in my house where I can at least play my music out loud, eat when I want and get food on demand, and when tired of twiddling thumbs, take dad's car for a drive. Partly because it is easier to kill days in your own space than in a strange one. But mostly because I was thoroughly disgusted with the disgusting manner in which I was being treated by this company. My cousin-in-law and the HR lady I was talking to professed both cluelessness and helplessness about the situation, with, I am sure, no intention to deceive.

The first thing I did after getting back is shoot an email to most senior person I know in the organisation, who was the same person who had decided to hire me after interviewing me. I must say, in all modesty and with due honesty, that despite its reticent exasperating tone, it was a wonderfully written email. Sure enough, a reply came in less than half hour, reassuring and apologising. Which is precisely why I am daring to hope that some of the dark sheen will lose its lustre. And oh, also, I have found a nice house with with nice flatmates already. So I guess hoping is not out of order here. But seriously, I am beginning to tire of flying, not just because the airport here is 50km from my house.

Mass transport making mass news

To be honest, mass transport is often in news. Be it the days of the unsinkable Titanic sinking in the cold Atlantic; be it the train most of which slid in to an overflowing river during the monsoon in India after an engineer braked too hard in order to avoid hitting a cow (killing about 600, perhaps the biggest train disaster ever); or be it the planes that crashed in to the World Trade Centre and miraculously converted them to dust.

But these last few days have been quite something else. First, there were the pilots of Northwest Airlines in the US of A who overshot their destination by 150 miles only, because they were engrossed in a heated discussion about crew schedules for the next month or some such. Excuse me? Sure, you weren't sleeping, but aren't you meant to be flying instead of drawing up the schedule for your crew on your laptop while sitting in the cockpit of an airplane which has 144 passengers on board and is not on the tarmac but at 37,000 feet in the air?

Then, there was Abhishek Gupta who decided to call up GoAir at the New Delhi airport to warn them about a bomb on their Bangalore bound flight. Flight gets delayed, blah blah. Turns out, Mr Gupta was going to be late to catch that same flight, and made the casual call in a bid to buy some time. Now of course, he is doing time, as he should.

And this happened today. The not too frequent incident of a train being hijacked, albeit the second one in India this year. Done by a 'Maoist-backed group', a bunch of 300 or so stopped the train, pulled out the driver and kept him abducted for many hours, while they exchanged gunfire with the armed forces. Anyhow, no damage done, all passengers safe and the 'rebels', who had been demanding release of some of their leaders, all scattered and hid in the nearby forests.

Well, look on the bright side of things. At least you can hope that your travel will get more interesting!

Joining hordes of migrants

Moving to Bombay is a pain, even though 10,000 people do it every day, some merely in the hope of making a better living in the big city and some attracted by the glamour and the allure of the film industry. Blind to the stench that envelopes the city and oblivious to the grime that coats it, they cling to their hopes and their dreams, filling ever more its bursting trains and choked roads, making the city filthier, coarser, and more pathetic than every previous day.

I am going to join the ranks later this week, and I wish I had a choice in the matter. Don't like the city and don't like the company that is sending me there. Moreover, NDTV is asking me to join next Monday but has still not given me any sort of confirmation in writing. I would have thought that it was a scam too, but I have worked with them before and my future boss is my cousin-in-law who tells me that there should be no complications, so I am going to set myself up anyway. Small mercy that at least I already have some friends in that hell-hole of a workplace and a stench-pit passing for a metropolis. Now I need to find myself a pigeon hole in that bizarrely-priced-for-real-estate city.

But I really can't complain. After months of being bothered by a total lack of occupation, I will finally have something to do, and hopefully, it will be something I won't be averse to. I wish I knew what it is I am supposed to do, but they haven't even given me a job description yet. All the same, I am, more than anything else, relieved. Though I will miss the beautiful Delhi winter and the fog. Instead, I will see people wearing sweaters only because it makes it easier to pretend that it is cold outdoors. And I can look forward for the monsoon to turn the entire city into one huge sewer.

Two weeks later

Today is the 14th day since the last post, and hence an obvious time for an update. What has happened in the interim? Nothing much, to be honest. True, I met someone at my erstwhile and perhaps future office, and we talked for over an hour at the end of which I was left with some advice, a bagful of good wishes and the instruction to wait for a meeting with the CEO. This chat I had was on Monday and it is Friday already. No one told me but I am pretty certain the CEO won't be working weekends. And with him presently in Mumbai and me in Delhi, there is only so much hope of us meeting today.

I always considered myself rather patient but now, I am scaling new peaks among the lofty ranges of patience. One never ceases to learn.

So to pass the time, and also to keep my proverbial eggs in more than just one wicker basket, I am still applying for the few jobs that present themselves. So I went for an interview yesterday which turned out to be an English test rather than an interview. Not that I have anything against such tests, but this one was rather lame. For one, some of the questions were inherently wrong. You know, give me 10 sentences to pick out the ones with right usage of commas, and five of those sentences don't have any commas. I point this out to the woman who handed me the test paper and she looks at me like I am a retard, and says, "If there are no commas, then it is obviously wrong. Why do you need to ask?" Alright you fucking bimbo, you surely are the smart one here, not realising that it is MS-Word's auto-correct screwing up your test questions. But who am I to complain? Of course, the bimbo was nowhere to be seen for long after I was done with the "test" and after waiting uselessly for a while, I just left the papers on a table and left. Did I mention it was a hand-written test involving considerable amounts of actual writing, all without even a table to sit at? Let them figure out my handwriting.

Eating pie

A wise man once said, "Eating humble pie, like authentic Chinese food, is an acquired taste." Obviously, he isn't Chinese himself. And to tell you the truth, he isn't all that wise either. Not any more. Not since he had some of that humble pie that left not just a bad taste in the mouth but caused severe indigestion in his brain.

Over the last few months, I have been doing my best to not make compromises, to stand my ground, to do what I think I want to do. And the results are there to see for anyone who cares to look. Nada. Zilch. I blame my luck which shines down endlessly on me in all its darkness, and there are some who agree with this point of view. A very few others tell me that I have perhaps not made enough efforts or haven't gone about things in the right way. But the one thing that I have heard more than anything else, in terms of perfectly good-willed advice, is that I should start believing in god. Ah, the temptation...

Anyhow, so I was saying. With my back to the wall, I lowered my expectations and broadened my search to include things I had totally written off earlier. And now that my back has made a shallow hollow in the wall and is hurting like hell on account of being bruised, I am perhaps going to take the final step back, in to the wall, the personal wall of shame .

Three years ago, I had left television production, full of disgust for the industry in general and for my erstwhile workplace to be specific. I went to study some more in the hope that it would help me move away from the line of work I had previously found myself stuck in. I left London because I found myself doing broadcast work again. And now, it seems to me that once again, I will find myself back in shit creek. This time, for good. Same old job, same old office, same old colleagues, and I hate it all. Aye, the taste of shit is remarkably similar to that of the humble pie that is curdling my brain.

Two weeks.

A treat for the readers

I have put up very little of my personal writing on this blog, but here is a poem I wrote some days back. Yes, I know it is very generous of me to share it, and the words of course, are charming as ever. So enjoy "an ode to the one i loved". And oh, I hope no turd will rip off any of it for any reason whatsoever.

31.viii.2009

like a pit full of burning lava
blood bubbles up in my heart
it flows hot through my veins
reaches my brain with a start

confined space not much help
ventless anger builds up quick
choose the gun or the crowbar
damn, its so difficult to pick

no, i will use bare hands only
that is the only thing to satisfy
as they close around her throat
so hard, she won't be able to cry

how her body is thrashing now
she really wants to scream for help
wants to beg for her shitty life
but she only manages to softly yelp

even if she did get a word in
too late for mercy and forgiveness
but it must not finish so quickly
a tad too soon yet for nothingness

i will spare you the other details
her soul went north and body south
i sat there with a difficult smile
thinking, with my gun in my mouth

Ah, science...

Well, I don't know about the end of life on earth, if you ask me for a fixed date, that is. But I can tell you for certain that it will happen sooner or later. What scientists can tell you with a lot more certainty though is that the earth is tilting. Well, it always was tilted at the angle of 23 and a half degrees. But all the melting ice is creating more water which is accumulating in a slightly lop-sided fashion, causing the weight of the earth to increase more on one side than on the other, thereby affecting the already existing tilt. They might need to shift the position of the poles in a few years, with the North Pole over Alaska, for example. What it means for the earth on the larger scale, I do not know, and I am not about to make any random dire predictions.

However, I do have something more to say about the idea of life, even as we know it (whatever limits that imposes), existing on earth, and on earth alone. Couple of weeks ago, scientists analysing a piece of comet grabbed by a NASA probe in 2004 found in the space rock glycine, an amino acid. That is one of the fundamental building blocks of life, and if it is spread all over space, there is little reason to think why the same couldn't be true for life itself. Such is how the scientists are theorising, and I more than agree with them. So much also for these damn creationists who imagine that some sculptor kind of god moulded them out of putty with his very own hands.

On the other hand, however, one must take science with a pinch of salt too. Take the case of man landing on the moon, for instance. When Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin Jr went on their triumphant world tour upon their return from our satellite, they also carried with them pieces of moon rock to gift to countries that they visited. So last week, it turns out that the piece kept in Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is actually only a piece of petrified wood, which quite surely is not from the moon. Expectedly, the US has offered no explanation for the Dutch discovery.

But then again, science is cool. Imagine, they have actually managed to image the chemical structure of a single molecule. Yes, image, not photograph. For those who understand elements of nanoscience, I don't need to explain why. And for those who don't understand it, I can't be bothered. But to me, it sounds really cool to think that it is possible to image not just the shape of a singe molecule but even chemical bonds!

Random rants...

Does hard work always pay off, even if only eventually? Or is hardly working quite enough sometimes to have a windfall? When indulging in diligence, where does one draw the line between utility and futility? Newton and physical laws apart, what reactions does one expect from actions when the reactions have only a very slanting relationship with the actions? Does one good turn deserve another? My grandma tells me that it doesn't work like that often, and I can only agree. Karma seems like a bit of a joke, if I be kind to the concept, and if I be brutal, then well, it is a lie. Unless of course, you drag in the concept of reincarnation too and then include actions from past lives in the karma equation. But I will leave you to decide all that for yourself.

An empty mind is not the devil's workshop, nor is it empty in a vacuum-ish sense of the word. An un-preoccupied mind (for that is what I think is usually referred to as an empty mind) has enough thoughts of its own which may or may not be regarded by devilish. But such a mental state tends to bring out the worse in us because idle thought is perhaps the worst enemy of our species. It often leads to the most productive and constructive sort of creativity too, certainly, but creativity can be destructive too. A so-called empty mind usually shows us the darkness within, and most of us have a tough time coming to grips with it.

The holy month for the Muslims is upon them and you and me. Fasting and feasting go hand in glove, chasing each other much like the sun and the moon. While Muslims try to be even better than they always are during this time which should cleanse their bodies and purify their souls, I wonder how many of the quam continue to indulge in unholy acts during this time, acts that perhaps provide them sustenance or have become fixtures in their daily lives. Even if they may be god's chosen people unto whom he gave his last and final and true word, I am sure there are still those among them who knowingly go against the light they have seen.

Stress can lead to acne, whitening of hair and impotency. The first, I seem to have largely escaped. The second, I have concluded, is an irreversible sort of process. The hair doesn't go back to being black once the stress leaves. The third, well, I really can't say since I have had no instance to find out for certain one way or the other. But it is surely a worrying thought. Someone enlighten me about what other physical changes stress can cause, and I shall check for those too if I can.

While Indians are known for their veneration of cows, it seems we are hardly alone. Check this out: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gkkgQupj_lWIxw_huyo_1FCL5OAAD9A7B0000. If the link doesn't work, just search for it. Cambodians worshipping a calf that has reptilian skin, and some woman getting cured after drinking water that was used to wash its dead body, after it died because excessive deification kept it away from its mother who could not feed it enough, leading to the death. Beat that, Indians!

The right and wrong to education

The government has passed the Right to Education Bill recently for reasons that should be obvious to most people. And being on the right side of my thinking, I am in no mood to argue against those reasons. The law provisions for compulsory and free education about class 8. Very good. However, some of the mandates laid down by the law are a little troublesome, to say the least.

Of the four important bits, let me get out of the way the non-tricky ones first. There is to be abolition of any selection criteria for granting admission to students. No interview for kids or their parents, no examination, nothing. Personally, I think this is a pretty good thing in theory, but of course, I also think and know that practitioners will find a way out. Since it is supposed to be random, you can choose who you want (based on inputs in the application forms, for instance) and ascribe it to randomness. Not too difficult. However, the law itself, I agree with.

Then there is the bit that reserves 25% seats in all schools, public or private or whatever, for children from underprivileged backgrounds. That is to say, 25% seats in all schools will cater to poor kids for free. Again, I agree with the law, especially since there is much lesser scope to weasel your way out of this one.

Now to flip the coin. The law further says that no student shall be failed, that is, retained in the same class for another year. Compulsory promotion to the daftest laziest stupidest along with the smartest brightest blah. Not that I am a fan of merit (if anything, I realise more everyday the falsity of the notion), but this blind promotion is going to only promote laziness and hence stupidity. Kids will have no reason to actually learn what they are taught.

And this last one... 75% of the managing committee of any school will have to be made up of either parents of students or appointed nominees. Again, I agree that parents should have some representation on the school's management, but 75%? What the hell will parents know about managing a school? Will they actually be able to always think beyond the conveniences (not needs) of their own child and actually think practically from the school's perspective too? You know, it will become a bit like an unwieldy democracy where too many of the 'masses' have too much control over how things are run. I wonder how existing schools will react to this one. I can think of only some more corruption.

Taking a jab at fat

Why are fat people either obnoxious or immediately likable? I am not referring to hating or liking the physical mass obviously, but of the person that is hidden somewhere within those folds of lard. And this bipolar view of those with an unfair share of avoirdupois (unfair because there still exist the starving Africans) is based almost entirely on such people I know, as also some consultations with a couple of close friends (who based their input on the 'fatties' they know) who do not mind discussing such a topic without already assuming politically correct stances.

So this is the theory. Maybe it is already propounded by shrinks and the like, but none were consulted before arriving at this conclusion.

Most fat people have always been fat. They never lost the so-called baby fat, and only accumulated additional layers as they went along life, much like people accumulate memories. And consequently, they were always the target for pranks, butt of jokes and the "It" in every game they played with their friends. These friends, being children and thankfully still in their true elements, lost no opportunity to remind the fat kid about the fat, even though it was perhaps in all innocence. I, for one, do not remember ever omitting the mention of fat to a fat kid when making fun of him (I say 'him' purely because most of these memories have to do with the time when I was in an all boys' school, the exercise I am sure would be a lot more fun with a girl), no matter what the context was.

The point is that most fat people have always been fat (except perhaps those who suddenly grew some hormonal imbalance, the only sort of fat people for who I have any sympathy). And society being what it is, shaped by the worship of images of toned shapely bodies everywhere one looks, continues that innocent non-malicious childish teasing in to adoloscence. The bucket of lard really gets it then, with the fat usually becoming the defining characteristic of the kid. If the kid becomes big (not just sideways), he can probably bully his way to avoid being bullied. And look! the first seeds of a life-long existence of an inferiority complex hidden by aggression has already become a strong green sapling. If you cannot fit in with the rest, lord over them; a logic very difficult to argue against.

The other reaction is that of trying really hard to fit in, usually by doing the hard-work required to make other aspects of the personality show even through the thick opaque folds of flab. And this variety usually stops caring about their own fat sooner or later, taking it for granted. Once they have done that, others seem to follow suit rather quickly, discovering in the person other wonderful traits which makes her or him immensely likable (and not because they are "cute"). And of course, this is the better kind of fat people, not merely for being likable but also for having come up with a better solution for their problem despite being lazy enough to not get rid of it entirely.

Another distinction I noticed between the two varieties of fat. The obnoxious sort are only too eager to get their pictures clicked, for instance. They are hungry for fame in whatever cheap ways it comes their way, a manifestation perhaps of their hunger for love, which they seem to also often slurp up in whatever falicious forms it makes its way to them. It is perhaps an understanable reaction to being 'disliked' all your life. The likable fat people, on the other hand, don't give a toss about fame or love (no more than the average thin Joe). They seem to have reacted in an equally understanble way to all the years of teasing - by totally rising above the need for such affection and recognition.

That too...

Why won't you smile with me? - Because you are too sad. Why won't you marry me? - Because you are too late. Why won't you love me? - Because you are too good. Why won't you fuck me? - Because your dick is too big. Why won't you kill me? - Because you are too alive. Why won't you give me a job? - Because you are too cerebral.

While the first few may be exaggerations or stretched truths or simply fabrications, the last one is just the latest episode in my saga of job hunting. Yes, that is precisely what I was told as I was turned down for a job with the BBC World Service Trust. That I was too cerebral, and hence overqualified for the task at hand. Some world we live in, eh?

Since when did having a functioning brain begin to get in the way of getting a job? Should that not be a prerequisite instead of being an obstacle? Should it not improve one's chances instead of obliterating them? But then again, real life has a way of dispensing with logic and screwing up the best laid plans.

I am tempted to lower my own standards but that would be too bad. I am tempted to give up and stop trying but that would be too dangerous. I am tempted to once again take up something that I just won't enjoy doing but that would be too fucked up. And I am thinking all these thoughts because frankly, this entire streak of "bad luck" is getting too tiring.

I have been advised that it might really help my cause if I began believing, since this is all apparently His way of bringing me around to His flock. Now that is simply too much.

Loving animals

I had an interview last week for a job with an organisation that calls itself Circle of Animal Lovers. The opening was for a content writer's post who would also handle their media relations and PR activities. When I reached the 'office', I found it to be rather... ummm... nondescript. It was housed in well, a house, in a small DDA flat in Saket with merely a half-torn, half-faded sticker the size of an infant's hand, on top of the door proclaiming its existence there. Anyway, after reconsidering whether I should ring the bell at all, I figured I might as well go through the interview since I was already at the venue. Of course, there was no bell to be found. So I called, and was told that someone will shortly let me in. After a few minutes, a door on my side slid open up, revealing a man in his 50's who looked like his work in an office could not involve anything more than letting people in and out, or maybe making the occasional cup of tea.

Anyway, I step inside, to be greeted by 7 mangy street dogs who seemed excited to the point of being frenzied. They jumped around me, put their paws all over my clothes, I thought one of the many unclipped nails would scratch me through my shirt while also making a hole in it. The old man, at this point, grabbed a broom and used it lavishly on the prancing animals. Some love, eh? And oh, as for animals, I could spot none other than dogs. There was also a tailor labouring away at a sewing machine in the middle of it all. Anyhow, before these facts could do anything more than merely register themselves in my mind, another door was slid open and I was shuffled inside.

Inside the room, which was as big as my bathroom and smelled entirely of dog fart, was a woman and three more dogs; four computers, of which one didn't work; three chairs and a narrow uneven settee on which I was sternly asked by the old man to seat myself and wait for "madam". A couple of minutes later, yet another door slides open and in comes "madam", a fat Bengali lady in her 50's too, maybe late 40's. In what seemed to be a miracle, she managed after some effort to fit herself cross-legged on that very same narrow settee. But the miracle turned out to be an illusion as she also slipped off at least thrice during our 20-minute conversation. Every now and then, she would look through the door she had come through (which for some reason was not slid shut again), and would call out to 'Motu', another dog, and ask him to shut up, or ask someone else to shut him up.

I spent those 20 minutes there out of sheer niceness and politisse as I had pretty much decided after listening to her for less than 2 minutes that I did not want to be there ever again. Anyway, if nothing else, it provided some sort of comic relief, you know, her thick accent and the general monologue that she spewed out. She began with telling me about the organisation. Basically, they cook food for 200 dogs daily and distribute it through their 5 centres. The fifth centre is in Haryana where they don't cook, neither does that centre get supplies from this main office, so I wonder what exactly it is that centre does. I couldn't be bothered to ask though.

Then she told me how they rely on public donations for the most part, and hence needed to communicate with the public effectively. Then she told me how her husband had a heart attack while he was talking to someone in Calcutta 2, no, 3 weeks ago (the confusion was her own, not mine). The husband's death was to take her to Calcutta, then back to Delhi and then to Simla, and so she didn't have time to write herself. She would merely tell her ideas to the writer who would then do the needful. Then she asked me all the designing experience I had, when my CV mentions nothing about designing except a working knowledge of Photoshop and HTML. Blah blah blah.

To cut a long story short, she told me towards the end of it all that she would be happy to have me if they could meet my financial expectations. I really didn't want to cause another heart attack in the family, so I did not say what I expected, and instead asked her to give me an idea of what they would offer. In response, she told me the salaries of every employee in the organisation, which apart for vets, included all of 3 full time employees. After ignoring all this needless information, I again asked her to give me an idea, this time, specifically for my job role. She took a long look at my CV, and then said the following words (accented to present a more accurate picture), "Shee, loooking at yore a-ducation and a-xperience, I theenk you would a-xpect about fourteen thoushend. But shinsh I don't know you yait, I would shuggesht you shtart with tain."

Good thing I had kept my gob shut earlier. So anyway, I told her I will think about it and let her know. Just about this time, Motu had made his way in to the room we were sitting in, and was looking at me and barking. I reached out my hand to pet him, which he immediately lunged at to bite it. Good thing I have decent reflexes too, else... That is when I was also informed that Motu was the dead husband's pet and didn't like anyone but the now dead man touching him. Wow.

Anyway, I figured I had wasted enough time and money by merely turning up for the interview, and I do not have it in my poor wallet and large heart to waste another phone call for turning her down. And this job hunt keeps on getting more interesting.

The boy who cried revenge

"Revenge is a dish best served cold" are the words that kick off Kill Bill. And as you watch Uma Thurman hack and slash her way through her past to avenge the wrong done to her, you perhaps agree with the purported ancient Klingon saying (the saying actually goes back to at least the 18th century and was perhaps Afghan in origin). Anyway, I had written a poem some years back which had a line "the smell of revenge, sweet, ain't it sweet". So I suppose one could say I agree with the Afghan-Klingon saying too.

There are also the arguments about how revenge is not a good thing, about how it hurts the avenger too. I have never put much faith in this side of the picture, except when it comes to a few specific people. These few, I really would rather not get vindictive with, because well, I know how totally shit it will make me feel like if I did indeed manage to cause them hurt, distress or any of the other things that vengeance is supposed to cause.

So then, how am I supposed to react to something that I did not do when that something smells like it must have been me out seeking revenge? It is a bit like some mystery movie where someone commits the perfect crime and someone else gets caught and the someone else can't prove his innocence only because very strong motives can be ascribed to him. Much as I may savour the taste and smell of revenge, I refrain. And then, I get blamed for doing the exact things I pointedly did not do. And then, despite not doing anything vengeful, I still have to live with the taste of shit in my mouth which accompanies hurting one of those precious few.

So I often beat my chest in the past, talking about the wonders of vengeance. Now, it seems my words have overtaken my actions and it's perhaps time to stop beating the chest and making loud proclamations. One never knows where and how one will get persecuted for one's beliefs without even having any thought police.

Strange amounts of intuition

Thursday afternoon, I got a call asking me to come for a job interview on Friday morning. I agreed (pretty obvious I suppose), hung up and went through my mail to see what job the interview was for. Blah blah later, I don't know why but I had an almost certain feeling that I would not just get the job but that it would be good job and that I would get it on my terms. I was so certain about all this that I told 3-4 people about this "good feeling" I had. Sure enough, the next day, it was a breeze. I got along famously with my employers, I got offered a better job than I expected and I got as much money as I asked for. The stranger thing was, even as I was sitting there being interviewed (it was more general conversation than interviews), I had the same certainty all along. Which is why I stuck to my guns when they twice, briefly, tried to offer me lesser money.

About 10 days ago, my friend, whose hospitality I have been (ab)using for the last month and a half, left for Africa for work. When leaving and saying bye, she said she would see me when she gets back on the 2nd July. I told her that she won't see me at her place when she gets back because I would have a job by then and will be getting my own place.

This sense of intuition is something I had in very small measure till recently. But since a couple months, this feeling... no, sense is a better word than feeling for this phenomenon... this sense has been sort of growing. And I admit freely that at times, it tends to be most disconcerting. Suddenly, it becomes difficult to distinguish between intuition and fanciful thinking, and to some extent, also between fact and fiction.

There have been many instances in the last two months or so where my gut feeling has not just been on the target but has totally swamped it, this job business being just the most recent one. It has caused me to wonder about potential links between intuition and high intensity mental/ emotional activities. I have yet to come to any sort of conclusion or hypothesis though.

Anyway, on a more important note, I have yet to see my terms of employment. I hope I even get a contract at all!

Update:

This is 5 minutes after I published above. I called up my future office to ask about my contract etc. The big boss picked up the phone and told me that I and him and everyone else in that office is out of work since the company has just shut down. So much for intuition. :P

Plastic NGOs

While applying for jobs to NGOs, how does one react to an article like this?

http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/10/stories/2009061056832000.htm

A cyclone strikes an ecologically fragile area, and the people living there are in desperate need of food, water, clothing, shelter etc. Right on cue from the cyclone descend NGOs and private donors, doing their bit to help the suffering, distributing packets of food and water, and clothes too. I suppose they construct some make-shift sort of shelters too. Either way, those packets, well, they are actually packets made from plastic which are disposed of as and where. Mind you, this is an ecologically fragile area which is also a world heritage site.

So the cyclone leaves and leaves behind a flood of plastic. Not bad, eh? Who would have thought such things possible except in some weird sci-fi novel like The Garbage Chronicles? (For those of you who haven't read or heard of it, I suggest you start trawling through bookstores, second hand vendors, rare-book shops, websites, your uncle's attic, wherever, and get a copy. It will leave you amazed beyond words and when you turn to me thank me for introducing this master-piece to you, you will have no words left.)

How brilliant are these NGO people anyway? Are they still habitually wearing horse blinds? Is it really that difficult to think of such basic simple things? You know, like don't leave your trash behind? Especially if it happens to be a 'delicate' locale you are in? I wonder if some other NGO is now going to offer help in cleaning up the place. Or maybe the government should force the NGOs who are responsible for the plastic mess to clean it up too. Or maybe that is taking too much risk, lest they clean up the current mess and create a fresh one while they are at it. Nothing is too difficult for such brilliance to achieve.

Demotivating in some ways, as an aspirant to join the industry. But more frustrating than anything else, seeing how some of those arseholes probably earn fat cheques for being retards while my genius goes squandered! Aye, the nobility of intent is rather meaningless then, isn't it?

The power and the glory

I have now been in Delhi for 3 weeks and a few hours, where I am trying to find a means of living. The city was blistering under the heat of May when I arrived, and now it is still burning despite the respite that few brief showers brought. And while I am still as jobless as I was when I arrived, I feel that the downward spiral I was on has been arrested. Apart from a hiccup that might present itself in another week's time, I foresee the blinding glare of the future which makes me think I need to buy another pair of sunglasses. And even that hiccup, if it happens, I have a good idea of how to deal with it.

I have thunk things through, and made decisions about my course of actions based on eventualities that may arise. I have decided yet again that the notion of karma is mostly bullshit, and hence, I am out to craft my own path with little thought and consideration to the "right" way of doing things, to being "nice" or to the feelings of others who may be impacted by my choices. Consequences of actions can take care of themselves, and other such bullshit, you know.

I remember being like that for the most part once upon a time, and I think I also remember being happier then. Less involvement, at the personal passionate level, with most things and most people led me to being less bothered with how the former went and how the latter behaved. A blend of cynicism and carefree-ness was my typical take on life, and I wonder why I ever let that go. Actually, I know the answer to that one. I still don't care much about things, but its those pesky people who pierced my little bubble, came in, danced wildly around while I watched mesmerised, shed my armour and joined in the dance, only to realise too late that it was Siva's dance of destruction.

But that's alright. I have learnt a trick or two from Siva myself, such as the delicate art of balancing poison in my throat, and getting on with the rest of it. And of course, there is the power of herbs that one must never rely on but well, it sometimes helps anyway.

Another three weeks, I would say. It should take about that much time before I have a job offer that also offers to pay the kind of money I am asking for, which honestly, is not too much. And if it takes longer than that, well, I will just have to see when my money starts to run out. But either way, I am sure of it, I will be soon raising a toast to the power and the glory.

Astrology domine

For reasons that had nothing to do with me (except driving), I ended up spending the better part of a day in the company of an astrologer who was dispensing his cosmic wisdom and interpretation of astral positions to various members of my family who had assembled for this very purpose. And as I found out after reaching there, my mother had come prepared to pose a question or two about yours truly as well.

Her chief worry was to find a way to keep me at home, I think she is afraid that I will my parents to suffer in their old age. While Mr Astrologer, or rather, Dr Astrologer (the man has a PhD) did not tell her of a remedy that will keep me tethered near her, he did reassure her by saying the stars speak of much too much familial love in my heart. Her other big worry was my marriage. To this, the stars say I have a "very very high possibility" of two marital associations. Hmmm... interesting. Either way, if my mother bought that, I don't think she will be bothering me about marriage any time soon again.

The astrologer also told me about the phases of my life that will bring prosperity or destitution, not necessarily material but in general. He told me colours I should and should not wear, some stones wearing which could do me good and he probably would have told me a lot more such amusing, interesting stuff had we not been interrupted by lunch. Either way, I can't wait to see what February next year will bring, since it is supposed to be the start of a 10-month long golden run.

After I got back home, I did some research about this whole subject. I had never been a complete non-believer in the 'science' but had always distrusted the 'scientists'. And as such, I had never really bothered to read about the science itself. But the little I read has got me quite interested, and when I have a little more of the luxury of time, I shall delve in to this topic deeper. Who knows, may be the stars and planets actually do reveal a lot more than one would expect inanimate objects to know about!

Hubble hobble

Astronauts are on their way, for the last time, to the Hubble with the intent of giving it life for another five to seven years so that it can continue sending back to us wonderful spectacular images of space - that we had otherwise never see - before it becomes a part of the seemingly infinite capacity of human pollution, this time in the form of space debris.

Many are bemoaning the demise of this 'eye in the space' while they look at the brilliantly coloured images it has sent back to fascinate and delight both space enthusiasts and laymen. I used to be amazed too, till I learnt the truth about them. Yes, there is always the pesky truth of things, waiting to jump out and spoil (or increase it, whatever your take) the fun.

So what happens is that the telescope only 'sees' in black and white, and such are the images it transmits to the scientists back home. Those guys add on layers of the primary colours (based on electromagnetic wavelengths) and voila! we have a coloured picture. By the scientists' own admission, this process is part science and part art, as also that the colours shown us in these photographs are not the same as we would see if we took a spacecraft (like that is possible!) to go and see those sights for ourselves with our very naked eyes. And then we have people complaining about 'Photoshopped' images in advertisements!

And that is not even all. Before Hubble even captures these images to transmit, it filters out a whole range of light that is for some reason "unwanted". The idea, I suppose, is to remove shades of light that are inconsequential to human senses, but I can't help wondering how much scientifically tampered data of this sort is passed off as the true picture of things. No wonder we haven't spotted any aliens yet. Who knows, may be H.P. Lovecraft was on to something when he wrote "The Colour Out of Space".

Anyhow, go ahead, star-gaze some more and hope that there will soon be a day when the likes of Virgin Galactic become as common as the average airline and we can all rely on our senses than on the scientist-artists whose well-meaning work is distorted by an ever-celebrating media to make people like me feel cheated!

Third of its kind

After my journalism BA and finishing my advertising course back in 2004, I spent 5 frustrating months between 2 cities looking for a job and finally found one that had nothing to do with either journalism or advertising. After finishing my anthropology MA, it took another 5 months of frustration before I landed myself a proper job and it had nothing to do anthropology. And now, after coming back from London, I am hoping the cycle will continue at the same pace.

It has already been 4 months, and I have yet to find myself a job. But then again, I have only begun looking last week. Obviously, what I am hoping is the fifth month to bring about a small windfall in the form of a job, despite the present depressed employment scene. More that that, I am hoping for a drastic change of industry. I mean, I haven't done another academic course, so I have nothing to contrast with, except my career record which is a trail of things I have despised doing.

As such, I am only applying to sectors where I have no experience, and not much knowledge either, but only the cliched burning passion (and of course, my over-arching genius) which I am guessing is a workable route to being happy. Now, this becomes a bit of a problem because jobs of this sort that I might get will most likely want me to start at the bottom of the food chain, which I don't mind per se, but what I do mind is the pittance that will come my way in the guise of a salary. I am beginning to understand better the circumstances that perpetuate the philosophy of the casting, or in this case, the employment couch.

These job sites, the lesser said, the better. And once again, the Times group takes the cake by a wide berth. I updated my 5 year old CV there, adding on an MA, some more diverse work-ex and my current 'entrepreneurial' state. Till before the updation, they had been sending me random marketing and BPO job offers. Guess what they sent me now? Work as a driver. Yes, a driver! I mean, agreed, I have 3 driving licences now, but still... And as if that wasn't quite enough, they call me today to sell me their premium paid services! Maybe I should try to replace someone at the Times job portal...

From the cup to the ocean

Who would have thought there would be a day when I would actually and seriously and soberly and pleadingly ask someone to marry me? Surely no one sensible who knows me. And yet, the day came. I popped the question and it flew straight to Hera. And when the answer didn't come quite flying back, I knew it by its absence. I had been denied my chance - my chance for many things - instead I was told that I had created this chance too late, and that the question should have flown by earlier. And I have to be content with the taste of shit in my mouth.

So what all chances did I lose? The chance to love for ever; the chance to hold her ever again; the chance to hear the melody of her voice say my name dripping with love; the chance to redeem myself in my own eyes and her's; the chance to heal both her and me; the chance to become myself once again; the chance to make her her again; the chance to change the course of this miserable planet; the chance at assured happiness in life; I think this list is endless, so I will zip it.

I was willing to sacrifice a lot, and I made my pitches as I sensed the delay in the expected answer. Aye, they certainly didn't fall on deaf ears, but she stood her ground. She had her reasons too and it doesn't matter whether they are good reasons or bad reasons so long as they are reasons. To each their own obviously.

So now, what next? I had planned a lot based on this, even though I half-expected her to say no. Hera, o my Venus, tempting as it may be, I cannot blame you. And despite everything, my love for you flows unabated, unrestrained. I can't get rid of this queasy feeling, like the bobbing head of a chicken that has just been made headless. And yet, I can't stop loving you.

Now it is but a matter of time before my life takes a drastic turn. I can't yet say if it will be for the better or worse, and that is something time will show me. For my part, since I have lost so many chances, I think I will leave the rest to chance.

The cup of sorrow runneth over

For someone who repeatedly and enthusiastically portrays the pursuit of happiness as the most important and perhaps the only purpose of life, almost to the point of libertarianism, I sure as hell am far from my lone self-appointed goal at the moment.

An account of personal sorrows and woes is, at best, useless gossip material, and hence will be excluded. Suffice to say that I have never before found myself in this extraordinary melting pot of so many different kinds of shit thrown together. Timing, like with most things, has a huge role to play here too. The sublimity and the profound depth of this bout of sadness has done one good thing though: it has given me a renewed will to pursue my goal, even if at a cost higher than I was previously willing to afford.

What was highly amusing though, is that two people who know me better than all else, and who hardly know each other, had something scarily similar to say about my woeful countenance. They both observed that it is in my very nature to be unhappy, and I have been that way for a few years now. Hera (she is still Hera, though my Zeus license has been revoked now) said that I keep finding something or the other to be unhappy about, and my father opined there is nothing that makes me happy for more than the blink of an eye.

Do they know more about me than I know about myself? Am I deluding myself by this rhetoric of the pursuit of happiness, when it is actually the blues I relentlessly chase? Have I been hypocritical all this time in dispensing random advice to friends? Is happiness truly the chief purpose of my life? Troubling questions all, but none of them would have arisen if it weren't for my present state of mind. So work on state of mind and the questions go away. Beautiful inversion of logical progress from A to B.

Either way, at least I still get amused easily. A sign on a traffic post here in Bangalore tells you happily: All jams are good for health except traffic jams.

The not-so-strange

Muntader al-Zaidi has found at least three imitators in four months since the journalist chucked his shoes at George Bush Jr; there was the German student hurling his footwear at the visiting Chinese PM Wen Jiabao in Cambridge who is awaiting his trial now, there was some unidentified Iranian who threw his shoes at his own President after Ahmedinejad's motorcade apparently hit some old guy in the crowd, and the latest is the Sardar journalist here in India lobbing his Reebok at the Home Minister.

What amuses me is the way all these four men did what essentially amounts to the same thing - chucking a shoe - and its consequence. The first was the bravest of the lot, and with all the luck of the brave, finds himself in prison for two years. The second was the stupider of the lot, considering he should have learnt a lesson or two from his predecessor about throwing things at visting heads of states. The third was the cleverest of the bunch, for he has remained forever unidentified in a country where it is perhaps best to remain that way. And then comes the Sardar, about whom all I can say is, well, he is the Sardar of the lot. I mean, come on! He had removed his shoe well before throwing it, and after missing his target sitting barely 10 feet away from him, he calmly sat back down almost like the shoe had been a part of his question for the Home Minister. And he got let off after some questioning. What kind of questions does one ask at a time like this? "Why did you sit down calmly?", "Why do you wear Reebok?" or maybe "How long is your turban?"

But strangeness is nothing new to the world. Take the case of Adam Leon, a Canadian student who stole an aeroplane and flew it in to United States and was chased by military aircraft for a few hours, before being forced to land because of running out of fuel. So why did he do it? Because he had been feeling depressed and figured this was a good way to go. You know, get shot down by a fighter jet. I mean, get a gun and shoot myself? How droll!

The ilk of Fritzls

They seem to have crawled out of the woodwork, or cellars, or the proverbial closet, whatever you may want to call it. But ever since Mr Fritzl had his incestuous barbarity exposed, cases of the sort seem to be a dime a dozen. There was the British man who did a tad worse than Fritzl (the fact that the British media covered that incident significantly lesser than the case of the Austrian has as many explanations as you care to come up with). And in the last couple of months I have been in India, I have already read of a few reports of some father or the other abusing the daughter, sometimes in active collusion with the mother, or even worse.

And today, I read about a mother in USA who drugged her 13-year old daughter so that her own 40-year old boyfriend could impregnate her own daughter. All because she herself couldn't have children anymore. Interesting.

Brutality notwithstanding, is it that incest has become more commonplace? Or is it that it has come to be more widely reported and publicised? Or has it become a lot more taboo than it was before and hence the increased aversion to it? I mean, Oedipus is as famous as they come, and if not, there exist counterparts in almost all mythologies. And in certain parts of the world, marriages within the family, albeit extended, is more the norm than the exception.

In the case of Fritzl, fellow Austrian Mr Freud would have certainly had a thing or two to say, and would have used it as an example of some theory or the other of his. You know, how it all somehow relates to some element of the id, or maybe even the ego. And how they triumphed over the super-ego, crushing the 'normal' morality that imposes itself on most peoples' instincts. But in the case of this North American mother, he might have to add or deduct a few analytical thoughts, seeing as it extends to the realm of maternity too, almost to seeing the girl-child as an extension of the womb (literally).

Ah, I wish someone would give me a stethoscope and the quintessential white coat and leave me in a room full of these real life people who make news every other day by defying what we call normal. I would happily plod along listening to their tales till they decide to lynch me. And oh, someone get it all on camera please. It will certainly make for excellent reality TV.

Living in the city

Nope, I am not referring to Bangalore, though since I have mentioned it now, I might as well touch upon it. Nice place, trees and lakes and breezy and civil. Strange autos, good buses. For the city that likes to tag itself the 'pub capital' of India, the pubs still all shut at 11pm. Of course, having been in London, that doesn't sound very strange but well, I have been in Delhi too. Not that I have yet had the chance to be in a pub here till closing time, but I am just talking, you know. In fact, I haven't visited any pub at all since I have begun living here. And that brings me to the city the post title refers to - domesticity.

Aye, it sits heavy on the shoulders, the mind, the balls, the heart, the soul, the everywhere. I feel my nomadic innards churn more and more every day that passes by encumbered in the chains of this domestic existence. It is not the intoxication I miss, lest some of you naively start thinking that way. I have learnt, rather harshly, that there exist different kinds of monotonies. You know, when you have a 9-5 job and little else in terms of having a life, there is a sense of monotony which is positively exhilarating compared to my current domestic regularity. Without going in to any more morbid detail, I will leave it at that.

As can perhaps be seen by my more than usual amount of output here on this space, I have time on my hands. A LOT of time. Yes, I have been told that I can and should use this plethora of time productively. You know, do something with it. Ideally, I would do something with it - roll it up in to a pellet and shoot boredom with it. But well, since I haven't mastered such temporal pyrotechnics yet, I will just confine myself to regular boring things like playing computer games endlessly and ocassionally staring out my window at the tots playing in the kids' play area of the building complex I live in or the middle aged men who like to think of themselves as the sporting kind by indulging in a tennis-ball based game of cricket on weekends.

Oh, I do have some work, in a sense. If things go as planned, I will soon be an educationist. Of course, it begs the short question - whose plan? Certainly not mine, I assure you. And for reasons this and that, I am a sort of half-willing part of the plan. As for the work itself, there is precious little to do right now, since we are past the planning stage and before the implementation stage. Limbo, I think they call it. And for those of you who have never had the privilege of visiting that surreal place, let me assure you, it is an experience that is more than just worth the wait, for it is the wait itself objectified.

So while I live in this city that for most people is the most normal and usual thing to do, I find myself stifled like a fly would under the falling foot of an elephant. Maybe, if I reduce myself to an ant, I will escape unhurt. Or maybe, the city will claim me as one of its own, and I will become another denizen in its vast sprawling underbelly, join fellow psychophants in their worrying about the right school for the kids, finding a maid and an interior designer, complaining about grocery prices and watching crap on TV over dinner with the family.

Amen.

Being a 'celeb'

An aside before I talk about the subject of the post. This is a quote from an AP report, "Benedict lamented what he called strains on the traditional African family, condemning sexual violence against women and chiding countries that have approved abortion." Quite something to say in the same breath, isn't it? I suppose his papal wisdom and devout faith blinds him to the fact that it is often sexual violence against women that leads to them seeking abortions. Or would the pope prefer the victimised women to spawn unwanted kids anyway, all for the sake of supposedly pleasing a supposed almighty? Anyway...

So you are watching the telly, pretty much any idiocy that the box is spewing out. Chances are, 9 of 10 times, the mug on the screen will belong to a 'good looking' person. Actors, singers, newsreaders, and a whole host of other morons, including the often-doctored vox populi. Well, at least some of them have at least a shred of some talent or the other to their name. Half the time, I don't even know why the hell some idiot's mug is pasted all over the idiot box, or even who the idiot in question is. Does that make me ignorant? Not unless the benchmark for ignorance was brought down to accommodate idiot losers who have little better to do than follow the lives of other idiots rather than mind their own businesses. But I suppose they don't mind much, let alone their own businesses, since they have very little mind so to speak.

For instance, who is Jade Goody? Well, she is no more, so the question becomes, who was Jade Goody? If you ask me - who the fuck cares? But seriously, who was she and why was she famous? Because she came on a reality TV show at some point, before which she was a dental nurse. And why was she chosen to be on that reality TV show? Fuck knows. What did she do on it? I'll tell you what - she said Cambridge was in London and on being told that it was actually in East Anglia, thought it was somewhere abroad. Such dazzling display of boundless information about her own country while on television earned her the title of a media personality. What exactly is a media personality then? Yep, you guesses it - a celebrity!

Anyway, so what is it that entitles someone to get their few seconds of fame by becoming, if nothing else, a media personality, whatever that is? And why do these so called celebrities set trends, be it a hairstyle, purity rings or even videos of sexual acts, and that, coming from some talentless brainless nitwits? And why is it that there are such few ugly faces on TV, unless being shown as freaks or some such? I don't think that the so-called ugly people have not a single talented bone in their bodies or that they are universally dumb too. I am sure they can act, they can sing and dance, they know their news, whatever the hell else. In fact, this is one form of discrimination I think is more rampant than most others put together and is perhaps also the most difficult to prove.

When it comes to females, this obsession to look a certain way, what is considered looking good, is almost comical. I mean, on the one hand, they talk of feminist emancipation and on the other, celebrate aesthetic conformation as an assertion of their emancipated femininity. Someone really ought to tell them what it means to be emancipated in the true sense of the word. But then again, I suppose it doesn't matter if I say these things, since after all, I am no celebrity.

Taliban in the Vatican?

The pope, on the papal plane while flying to Africa, repeated to reporters the old official stance of the Catholic church on the usage of condoms, which I am sure I don't need to repeat here. He also stressed that using condoms, in fact, increases the risk of spreading HIV. I suppose he must know a lot about these things, seeing as he has sex daily with all the nuns in the Vatican. Or is it with the choirboys? I forget, I made it a point to miss mass. Mr pope, just because you consider something incongruous with your interpretation of your religion does not make it a fact, much as you may tout the supposedly obvious link between faith and religion.

He has also been meeting Muslim leaders during his trip, a habitual practice I suppose he has inculcated ever since his gaffe in Germany a couple of years ago. Now, he says a lot about how all 'true' religions (he is leaving out things like Scientology I suspect, while I would say that religions are false and fake by definition... well, to each their own and all that) are essentially all the same, preaching the same message, blah blah.

I saw on the news today (though I freely admit, I don't trust most of the news on these Hindi language news channels which are beginning to get even worse than Fox but as entertaining as many Bollywood films) that terrorists from Taliban - who have taken over huge swathes of Afghanistan and Pakistan - have declared condoms un-Islamic. They say that Islam asks its followers to produce ever-more Muslim children. Do they actually say that? I don't know, and perhaps neither does the journalist who would like us to believe so.

But the edict, except the bit about producing more Muslim children, is similar to that of the pope, and eerily enough, comes around exactly the same time. Is that what the pope meant by 'true' religions preaching the same message? Of course, it is entirely possible that the news reports about the Taliban have only come around because the pope said what he did and then came along an enterprising journalist. Easy to accuse the demon of any atrocity, isn't it?

Either way, the next time a devout Christian falls victim to AIDS, I hope he goes ahead and sues the pope, saying "he told me not to use a condom..."

The nature of researches

There ought to be some kind of law governing the usage of the word 'research'. If the damn EU legislators can come out with the inane politically correct dictionary and handbook that recommends not using, among other things, 'Mrs' (apparently, it is sexist), why the hell not a law about using the word 'research'?

Anyway, it is also a free world apparently, and who am I to stop anyone from doing some research linking the use of mobile phones by parents to rashes caused to infants by their diapers (the infants', not the parents')? I mean, I couldn't stop Saddam's murder or even myself from being born, so how can I even begin trying to stop every Rahul (that name itself deserves to be stopped, for a start) and Neha (right there next to Rahul in the to be stopped list) from carrying out their fanciful researches, whether or not they have any bearing of any consequence on this apparently free world. For those not familiar with the over-abundance of the two names I just mentioned, just consider them my substitutes for John & Jane Doe.

Here is one such research. I suppose it is pretty obvious but I will still say it. Virgil Griffith is one smart smug arsehole. He has gone about it in a most research-like fashion (admittedly and precisely vague and incomplete) but I have a strong suspicion that he had the premise before he decided on the research, mainly as a means to justify his premise. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was done after he made a wager with some Timberlake fan, which to his own delightful surprise (and mine), he won.

What tickles me a lot too, is the usage of Facebook for yet another unexpected reason. And of course, how Facebook apparently reacted. Anyway, one should also mention to Mr Griffith another practice (certainly not the word in this case, far from it) that is quite in vogue with people, especially in places like colleges - pretence. Maybe dumb people just don't pretend as much!

Driving to the Deccan, part 2

When we were leaving the Konark Sun Temple and walking back to the parking lot, with the throngs walking back to their guided tour buses, my mother asked me our next stop. I told her we were going to see the picturesque Chilka Lake, and along with many species of birds, maybe even spot some dolphins. Just as I was telling her this, a man's voice immediately behind my left shoulder said these exact words - "आप झूठ क्यों बोल रहे हैं?", or "Why are you lying?". Despite the crowded space, I wondered why this voice was speaking at such proximity to my ear and turned to look at the speaker. And I was amused to realise that he was indeed addressing me. Turned out, he assumed that my mother and me were part of some guided tour group which was clearly not going to Chilka and he thought I was lying to my mom (he probably assumed we weren't mother-son either), perhaps in a bid to somehow swindle her. Well, at least his intentions were good. And as I laughed my way to the car, I was reassured to see that people still like poking their noses in the general business around them, whether it concerns them or not. Those who know me will know well how much it would have pleased me after the usual sterility of London.

Greatly amusing were also two usages of English, one of the word 'traffic' and the other of 'come in'. Across parts of Bengal and Orissa, most people we asked for directions would give us landmarks of 'traffic', like "turn left from the traffic" or "take right from the second traffic". Yes, they are referring to traffic light signals. It was almost at par with another usage in Orissa and even Andhra, where any traffic intersection, be it a three-way, four-way or seven-way, were all referred to as "four-junction". Not difficult to see how it could mislead someone, but I ain't complaining. And I came across "come in" at the rest house we stayed in at Puri, where the room service would knock on the door, and in the same breath, say "come in" and then walk right in! My folks, who didn't pay attention to this, couldn't understand why I cracked up each time room service came around.

We were on the street somewhere, I think getting back to the rest house from the Jagannath temple. So we got in to the car but could not move since a cow chose that very moment to shit, right on the car's bonnet at that. How do you even prevent something like that? I mean, even if I was angry instead of being busy laughing, it probably wouldn't have been prudent to chase away the cow in the middle of such an important act right outside one hell of an important temple which is bristling with, among others, 80-year old elephant women that I mentioned in my previous post. And I have a feeling, asking the cow politely wouldn't have worked.

At one place, driving from somewhere to somewhere else, my dad stopped to ask for directions. Had I noticed a second earlier the person he was going to ask, I would have asked my father to wait for a minute or so, since the person in question was standing on the side of the road in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, NOT to give us directions, but to take a piss. Anyway, since I noticed a second too late, my father was already asking him and he was telling us where to go and so we went. I could not help but look back to see if he went on to attend the call of nature in the wild, and lo! For as long as he was still in sight, which was a good 2-3 minutes, all he did was walk around with his hands thrust in his pockets! A sudden bout of modesty?

Oh, modesty. You know how young unmarried couples in India are still frowned upon in many places, for even something like holding hands and walking around, how such behaviour is considered entirely immodest. This mentality banishes such couples from public places in many parts of the country and Vizag was no exception. On Thotla Kunda, as we drove around the monastery, and then to the edge of the hill to contemplate the view that the monks of yore must have beheld, I saw the tell-tale signs. Bikes parked strategically, marking occupied spots that harbour couples come there to escape curious eyes and talkative mouths and social scrutiny. I also couldn't help laughing when some of them were visibly uncomfortable at my bringing out the camera. Probably thought I was either a pervert or potential blackmailer. Pity I didn't have time to be either.

Driving to the Deccan, part 1

The national highways, thanks to Vajpayee's Golden Quadrangle project, are actually quite cool. Even though you got to pay a toll every 70km or so, it is well worth the money. Except when you are driving through Orissa, where you wonder which moron is in-charge of the construction work and why the road keeps alternating sides abruptly. The state charges an Rs 800 "state entry" fee to boot. Like a monopolistic old diseased prostitute harassing some military platoon in a desert with no option but to pay. And even where the roads were proper 4-lanes, for some inexplicable reason, not just motorbikes but even trucks regularly came at us on the wrong side at full-speed. Thankfully, the weather was pleasant throughout.

Anyhow, Puri itself was quite nice. Pity I didn't get the chance to enjoy the famous beaches, my stomach chose those two days to revolt in style. However, I did visit the famous temple there, and even touched the statues of Jagannath and his consort and whoever else they have idolised in there. Had it not been for morbid curiosity, it was a bit much for my irreverent soul, especially the bits where I had to walk from the footwear stall to the temple, barefoot on the road which had everything from spittle to plastic waste to dung to whatever else you can imagine decorating the typical Indian small town street. Inside the temple however, the religious fervour hit me like a hammer on the head. Seriously, I am sure most of you have never been pushed by a frail 80-year old woman half your height with the force of a rampaging elephant in heat. More than the push, its the surprise that throws you across the room. Thankfully for me, there was no space in the room in question to be moved an inch anywhere, let alone be thrown across it. Anyway, I was glad to be out and be done, and I think my relieved face at the moment led my mom to mistakenly believe that I had just enjoyed myself. And three days later, I had to throw a royal fit to make her believe otherwise. The upshot: I kept my word and visited Tirupati with them and have now extricated myself from all future temple visits, unless my soul is stirred with religious awakening. Frankly, I had rather castrate myself.

The Konark Sun Temple though, now that is something to actually admire. The construction itself was bizarrely intelligent for its time, and the carvings spectacular. The informative guide gave two reasons for the multitude of erotic carvings. One, the association with fertility. Two, more importantly, 1200 male artisans working for 12 years without the permission to leave the compound. Anyway, read more about the temple's architecture if you can, interesting stuff.

Tirupati and Tirumala, what strange places. Entire towns come around solely on the basis of a temple that is probably THE richest religious body in the world. Their famous laddu is now being copyrighted, and I have to admit, it does taste quite good. Apparently, on especially auspicious days, devotees queue for more than 2-3 days to pay homage. We, with a special pass obtained from the head priest himself, on a most ordinary day, had to wait for about 4 hours. The arrangements to take care of the pilgrims though are rather extensive and impressive.

What intrigued me beyond comprehension about both these temples I went to is this: most people get to see the idols themselves from a distance of 25-30 metres, if not more, and for barely 3-4 seconds, if that. And yet, and yet there is the madness I mentioned in the example of the 80-year old frail elephant woman. I wonder how often kids get trampled there...

Vizag is a nice city, hills on one side, sea on the other. Clean too, and civil people, unlike most of north India. We drove to Borra caves, apparently the longest natural cave in the country. Quite breathtaking, at least to me. Sadly, I couldn't get on camera any of the huge bat colonies that make patches of the roof their home. Of course, someone managed to convert a stalagmite in a remote corner of the cave in to a Shivlingam and I was quite disappointed when I followed a stream of people to that corner without having first inquired what it was. Also visited a place called Thotla Konda in Vizag which turned out to be the site of a 2000 year old huge Buddhist monastery. On a hill overlooking the sea. Breathtaking view, those monks at least chose a good site.

Arrival, in brief

The previous post was started on January 16, which is when I wrote the first two paragraphs, but owing to various pressures and constraints, I found the keyboard again about 7 weeks later. After posting it, I realised that blogs (at least on this site) get published with the date you save the first draft for them. So effectively, you can publish something in the past! Interesting way to metaphorically screw around with time.

I am still writing about the past, one that starts after my arrival in India. This time around in India has felt very different from before, since I have hardly done any of the things I was used to doing while I lived here, I have visited hardly any places I used to visit, and I have "hung out" with very few of my old friends. The current experience of living here is far removed from the memory of doing the same in the past. But I shall get to that by and by.

So Delhi. Hot, even in January, though I suppose it is not true from an objective point of view. My body was perhaps still acclimatising or some such. AJ did his best to make it a bit like old times, like getting some ganja from some shanty (which was straight out of the really old times), smoked in a park, talked about music and computer games and blah. But meeting Stef (dude, no offence meant) in the middle of it, while nice in itself, definitely made the scene a bit surreal. My 'meeting' with Rajdeep Sardesai passed most uneventfully, as I had expected. Then, there was the proverbial saving grace in the form of Venus, whose plentiful familiar bosom I lost myself in for the next few days. Being a most unexpected luxury, it felt even better than ever. Ah, Venus sweet Venus, I worship thee and thy melodious body and thine divine carnality.

But as surely as small spurts of good things follow long stretches of bad ones, the small spurts in question fall back to the ground. I reached Calcutta, where surprisingly, a couple of friends were in town for a couple of days, so I did not absolutely die of boredom. Then, there was packing up the house to shift to Bangalore. The packers came, packed and took away the stuff and we left by car to drive about 2000 km. The journey, I will write about in a separate post. And once I reached Bangalore, we reach at my present life, which also will be revealed in a separate post. I know this is no un-put-downable thrilling novel, but if you are reading this, you probably will read the next post too anyway.

As for my observations about the country and how it has changed in the time I have been away... The cities have become more expensive and the young working people don't seem to mind, or even notice I suppose. The economic crisis has affected people insofar as they won't be getting their usual 30-70% hike this year, and some might even get a paycut. I have yet to meet anyone who has lost a job, though people are not risking quitting a job to find another. People in trains are thankfully still as talkative as I remember them, and onlookers on the street as curious and brazen. I also notice improved civic sense, but that may be because I have seen a whole different part of the country this time, and very little of the bits I know from before. In a nutshell, this country is still much the same, loud, noisy, chaotic, in your face, bursting with people, blah blah, and yet, there is a sense of betterment that doesn't lend itself easily to explanation. If I find the time and inclination to get all emotional about it, maybe I will dedicate it a post, though I have my doubts about that.

Oh, happy Holi.

Good bye... good riddance?

Ah, the sweet sensation of departures. Well, some departures. There had been a lot on my mind that I wanted to rant about, but owing to my imminent departure from this sterile country, I have been occupied with other matters. You know, closing accounts with friends, farewells at the bank, and brief goodbyes to luggage that falls outside the standard flight baggage allowance, and all the other usual affairs one has to settle when upping and going. So while I may yet write about some of those things that I meant to formerly talk about, it won't be in this post.

So, other than missed opportunities (whatever kind of opportunities they may have been), will I miss anything about this place? Perhaps, but nothing I can easily think of, so I will just wait for time to show me what I don't yet know. One thing I can say think of though, is people and things I did not get to know well enough

Am I looking forward to go back to India? I guess, but it is difficult to say so for certain, for more than one reason. For one, I will be jobless and will in all likelihood be living at home with my parents, something I haven't done in 18 years. For two, as a consequence, I will probably be helping my dad start a school, which is kind of difficult, considering I have no knowledge of and little interest in running any business. All the same, I am moving again (to Bangalore this time), and that is something I can't complain about. Plus, I will end up learning something new (setting up a school, running a business) and compared to some of the useless shit that jobs have taught me, this is infinitely better.

Anyway, back here in London, the weather is sucking as always. Sure as hell won't miss this. Good riddance too, to drunk shenanigans (others', not mine) that stop being funny quite early on in the evening. Political correctness, a welcome and eager goodbye! Unsmiling faces on public transport, up yours. Self-righteous useless rights activists, fuck you too.

Before this degenerates in to a abusive rant, I will stop and remember people like the bartender last night who was only too sad to see me leave, and gave me 2 bottles of wine as a present. No, not a place I frequent. It was the first (and obviously the last) time I had been there. Good fellow, good wine.

Adios Lund-on.