Page 3 Live

Turned on the news to check on what happened post the Hyd blasts. What do I see? Salman Khan meeting Katrina in this jail, Sanjay Dutt making chairs/tables in that jail, Saif's ex-girl Rosa on the set of some cooking show, SRK talking about Chak De India, etc etc. Ok this is news, but what about REAL news?
30 min of one news bulletin is split 70 - 30 in favour of bollywood, which leaves less than ten min to talk about what impacts regular people across the country.
My dad tells me that many years ago they used to screen short news programmes in cinema theatres before the movie began. Seems like that's happening on the news channels now.

Choices by Autorickshaw

Bombay, Aug 11.

Bombay auto guy: Let's take the other route, this one's too congested.

Me: Let's stick to this route. This is the one I know.

Bombay auto guy: Look at the traffic ! (pointing to a lane in the distance going the other way.) The other route will be freer.

Me: But.....

Bombay auto guy (zooming down the "other" route): It'll be muuuch quicker.

*Bumper-to-bumper traffic*

Me: Well....there's so much traffic here.

Bombay auto guy: Yes, there's too much traffic all over Bombay.

Me: But you said this route will be free of traffic.

Bombay auto guy: Yes, this route is freer.

Me: But it's not.

Bombay auto guy: Yes, there's too much traffic all over Bombay.

Me: You said this route will be free.

Bombay auto guy: Yes, this route is free.

Me: But there's traffic.

Bombay auto guy: Yes, very bad traffic all over Bombay.

Me: But.........oh what the heck!!

Same to same?

Don't you think she looks like me?

Excuse me, I want to make a complaint.

Apart from Nausea by Sartre, and a couple of abortive attempts at reading Kafka, I stayed far away from existential literature. No particular reason - I guess I didn't get angst-ridden till I was in my mid twenties, and by that time I decided that I might as well escape into something pleasant if I must read.

Not sure what struck me after ten years, but found myself looking up Kierkegaard the other day. I loved something I found - this is spoken by a character in Repetition:

How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?

I'm not this grumbly yet, but I so hear this guy!

sometimes there's nothing to say

Pisces, and addicted.

The Pisces has an addictive personality - that's what all the sun/moon/star sign people say. I read on a Web site, "If you're a Pisces, you've probably already heard that you share a sign and an addictive personality --with Liz Taylor, Liza Minelli and Kurt Cobain."
We all know what happened to Kurt Cobain; and I'm past his age, so I will not worry about him.
Liza Minelli, I think, is quite ugly, so we'll leave her aside.

Liz Taylor. Hmmm. Here's an interesting woman. Known more for her husbands than for her acting. Is she addicted to wedding ceremonies? Did you know that she didn't divorce all her husbands. She was actually widowed once. Anyway, I digress. Let's figure out what I have in common with Liz T. It's not the husbands for sure. It isn't the awards for acting - she's won 28 awards, including one called Hasty Pudding’s Woman of the Year Award.

Maybe it's the bad back. She's broken her back five times. I haven't broken mine (knock on wood). Well not physically anyway. But I have a weak back, prone to aching and creaking! Perhaps I'll break it sometime in the future. But after reading the above article, I consider myself forewarned. Will watch my back. (Aaargh. The worst pun ever!)

But here are some addictions of my own: Sims, bournvita and cold milk, and poy sian (thai version of vicks inhaler). I'm glad I don't have people addictions. That would be dangerous.

But you know what, tish tosh! I'm happy!

Updates. And a new story.

First the updates:
I found Sims 2! I found Sims 2! I found Sims 2! I found Sims 2! I found Sims 2! I found Sims 2!

The bloody bat came back!! It flew in again, the ass!! This time I wasn't watching a program on vampires, but it still scared the bejeezus out of me and I dropped my food on the sofa. I promise. One tandoori chicken leg and a whole lot of yoghurt. Bloody fool bat!

New story:
Was in Chennai for a wedding and decided to treat myself to a pedicure the day before the event. Sat in a humongous chair specially built for the purpose - quite uncomfortable, but whatever. Next to me was a swarthy, skinny, mustachioed dude getting a pedicure too. I sniffed in disdain and looked away. But he proved to be quite an interesting character. His phone kept ringing, and the ringtone was a husky female voice going "Hello-o. Hello-oo?" I figured this was reserved for one particular person cos I heard other ringtones too. But that's not all. One time he answers, listens, and says "This is Prince Charles." I'm like WHATTTTT? But I give him the benefit of the doubt and think that it's some Thing he's referring to. But at the end of the conversation he goes "I am Prince Charles." I'm like WHATTTTT all over again. And I look at him and think NO WAY DUDE! But he is. He is Prince Charles.

Sim-ply Tragic

Hunted high and low for the PC version of Sims 2 and it's not available anywhere in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Cal. Hell it isn't available in New York either - had a friend look up some stores for me.

What am I going to do? I can't play the version I have on the old computer at home cos the computer is so old that it freaks out if I perform more than 3 mouse clicks a minute. I can't install it on the laptop cos the original CD is cracked from explosive over-use and the one I can use to play is an expansion CD from which the game can't be installed.

To think of all those times I picked up the Sims 2 CD at the store and stroked it lovingly and put it back cos I thought i should indulge in more constructive pastimes! If I knew that there would come a stage where the blasted thing would be out of stock, I'd have bought 2!

Well too late for all that now. I am bereft forever. Nothing I say will convince you of the sincere and deep grief I feel at being unable to lose myself in a virtual world where I control everything.

Perception vs Truth

I feel frustrated when I cannot make another person see my point of view when I'm upset about something. And so irritated by the end of it cos not only am I upset with the "thing" in the first place, but now I can't get the other person to see why. And that's as irritating. Things that are so clear to me (in my head) just don't look the same to the other person. I can't explain cos my feelings are based on a series of hunches, deductions, gut-feel...GRRRRRRRRRRRR
Words fail me at the most important times and I am left fuming at the "thing" and at myself and at life in general.

Was reminded of the movie, Life of David Gayle, where Kevin Spacey says that there are no truths, only perceptions. How true this is. everyone's perception is their reality, which can't really be called a general truth can it? Is there any such thing as individual truth? Something being true for me but not for someone else. Something being real to me but not to someone else? My answer to these questions is Yes. Was also reminded of a spiritual teacher saying that only that which is permanent is true. @#$%^&* What the hell is permanent? Nothing physical for sure! Then? Then? THEN?

Sigh.

The loudest scream

NatGeo has the best programmes. Was watching one on vampires last night. Since I missed the first part, I'm unsure of whether the extended canines were fake or real. But these people drink blood. They actually do. And they procure their supply not by hunting down some innocent (but voluptuous) maiden - rather, by going to the local butcher store. OK I made that last bit up, but come on, how else? I heard one shiny haired, pasty faced, long toothed drac say that vampires who attack people for blood should be locked up. So my guess that this guy goes to Cutts the butcher may not be way off the mark.

So I was curled up on the sofa with a cushion to hide behind if necessary, listening to the hoarsely whispered descriptions of the dead undead when a huge bat flew into my living room! I swear it did. I screeeeeeaaaamed! Oh my god I have never been so spooked. I thought it had come to get me, and did I mention that the bloody thing (pun unintended) was HUGE?! I was so worried the stupid ass bat would hit the fan and be torn into bits and splatter all over me! I somehow managed to switch the fan off and run into the bedroom when it flew to the other end of the hall. But not before I heard the husband say very calmly "Relax." Relax! Relax he says! He who runs from flying cockroaches a fraction of the size of the bat the size of a cow tells me to relax! Hmph!

Thankfully the stupid bat flew out pretty soon. Dumb ass!

My building is a wild place. First mosquitoes, now bats! If the pests get any larger I'm moving out.

Btw, the husband always says that he doesn't think the flat has positive energy. The previous tenants moved out in 4 months, but we were told they wanted to go back to Delhi cos the dude wanted his old job back. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe a moth terrorised them!

Grrrrr

A list of things that totally piss me off!

Minor
1. People saying "cope up" and "I think so that..."
2. No spoons at the snack counter when they have idli and sambar at the office cafeteria
3. People not listening when you give them directions
4. Movie tickets not available on weekends unless you've booked two years in advance
5. No Earl Grey tea at Barista

Major
1. People chomping when they eat
2. People not returning phonecalls when they say they will
3. People commenting repeatedly on things you can't change about yourself
4. Bad customer service
6. Bangalore auto drivers

The Lighthouse Effect

I love lighthouses. I love how they stand out from everything around, and how at night they are visible from miles away.
I looked up some lighthouse symbolism, and most of what I pulled said lighthouses symbolise safety. Well, that's kind of obvious isn't it? I thought I'd find something more subtle and mysterious. Somehow when I look at a lighthouse or a picture of one, it conveys not only strength and reassurance, but also a sense of loneliness, and at a more subtle level, the unmistakeability of loneliness.
Well, I have a remedy for that....
Lighthouse lovers of the world, unite.

Wings at Rest

So it all came to pass. The blue fairy put away her wings, never to be taken out except to be admired.

Life carried on as usual. Night followed day; shadows became longer.

The blue fairy watched from her window.

Help

Just moved house and I need a sofa. Someone find me the one in the picture please.

Also the lamp, and the coffee table and the French windows and view outside.

:-)

A long, long time ago

Remember Aesop? He's the old guy who had a story about everything. Quite a self-righteous fellow, if you ask me. Well, I was reminded of him today cos someone very close tried to tell me something using allegory. OK you're thinking fable, allegory, not the same thing...I know, but that's not the point. Stop digressing.

So this person used a story about some old school friend feeling some old feeling about some old incident that seemed terribly close to what's going on in my life, and I'm thinking hey wait a minute! Are you trying to tell me something? Apparently so, though the body in question wouldn't admit to it. So why the story, I muse. Would I not have been receptive if it had come more directly? Would I have become the problem-solving adult and tried to "fix" something that wasn't really broken? I'm not sure. But the important thing is that I understood what was being conveyed in the guise of an anecdote, and the story-teller was satisfied with my responses.

No prizes for guessing what kind of stories my protagonist grew up on.

Eine kleine nacht musik

Tell me - if you can - what the following lines mean:

Hallow hallow chick test

Hallow chick test

Chick tessst

That's what I heard 150 decibels loud for five whole minutes outside my house this evening.

Each line was punctuated with a tararam on the african drums.

At the end of the chick tessst, an entire troupe of musicians perched atop a rickety, but carpeted, stage burst into thunderous .... music?

There was a singing duo that belted out local hits at the top of their voice, broadcast to the whole neighbourhood via loudspeaker lest u miss a note.
There were cheers, speeches, crackers, planes overhead, barking dogs, screaming kids, tooting horns.....OH MY GOD, STOP!!! I'LL GO DEAF!!!!

They stopped in three hours.

The chairs were piled up into vans, the carpets rolled and carried away, the mikes taken down.

Peace at last.

It's 11.30 pm - I think I'll turn in.

Oh.

The lights just went out.

Thinking astrologically

Alright, I admit it. I subscribe to free online horoscope thingies. I even read them everyday, sometimes at the end of the day to see what my day was like. Most times it's crap, but sometimes it's just plain CRAP. Like today's (which I read at 11.39 pm btw) which says "If you try to do things on your own when Pluto is around, it can backfire." Why am I besieged by visions of Mickey's dog suffering a terrible bout of flatulence?

Then there's another one that said I shouldn't flash cash extravagantly today. Well, they should have told me sooner - I just bought two pairs of shoes; but I used my card to pay for them. I don't think that counts.

I'm not sure why I continue to read this stuff. For amusement perhaps? Or am I hoping for a miracle? "Everything you touch today will turn to gold." Or perhaps it's plain escapism. Just for a minute. I've turned it into a fine art - so subtle, I hardly notice any more.

Look What's Talking

I was in Hyderabad last weekend and was lucky to have the opportunity to attend a reading of the Vagina Monolgues. I am very sophisticated and can use the V word in mixed company. I am so matter of fact when it comes to discussing the anatomy that I don't even blink when someone tells me my eyeballs change colour to match my clothes.

I wish I had been this urbane when my long-ago marwari boss asked the australian consultant whether there would be a lot of laying in the gym; or when the self-same fellow asked if I wanted to travel with my other part (he meant to say better half). I must confess I nearly had an aneurysm both times. I lost five years of my life.

But now things are different. Everytime Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal made us shout the word vagina, I added ten years to my age bank! I will live long and non sequitur.

Gutter Girls

When my sister and I were growing up, we had
ample opportunity to experience our dad's more multi-faceted nature. The bitter - and often violent - fights my sister and I would get into every 3 hours led the earnest parent down a whole gamut of emotions where he would go from negotiating to stern to cajoling and finally to complete and utter resignation (read fly off the handle!)

It was at one of these turbulent moments that my dad came up with the name that would haunt my sister and I for the rest of our lives. Gutter Girls. His exact words were "All the time you fight like gutter girls!" (Well, as exact as they can be in my memory more than twenty years after the fact.) I remember my sister and I both stopped mid-invective - we were so taken aback.

The name stuck - my sister and I made sure of that. We proudly told any one who'd listen and took great pleasure in using the term on each other whenever we found an opportunity.

Why I say it still haunts us is because this photo that you see here was saved on my sister's computer under the name, gutter girls.

Look at our angelic faces and answer me this. Do we look like gutter girls to you?

Of boys, books and Barbie

My three year old nephew has made friends with a little boy called Parthib. That's a pretty difficult name to pronounce at any age, right? So it isn't surprising that my nephew uses what is in his mind the closest possible alternative to address his equally young companion.

I remember the time I was working in an interior design firm in Calcutta, where a carpenter was dispatched to collect a book called Exclusiv Wohnen. Obviously this poor, barely literate man could not remember such a complicated name, and came asking for something that in Bengali translates to "19 in 21".

This is the essential nature of the human being. We take something that is unfamiliar, give it a context we can relate to, and hey presto! We have the Indian Barbie. A skinny, blond, blue-eyed doll recoloured to look like....well, Liz Hurley in a sari.

How did I come here from names of people and books? I dunno. Seemed to make sense to me when I started.

Anyway, my nephew calls his friend Rapid.

To kiss a tadpole

I don't claim to know much about animals, but I can hold my own in a quiz if need be. And I owe a lot of whatever I know to the books of Gerald Durrel. I'm sure many of you've read the most wonderful My Family and Other Animals. I even stole the title for one of my Hyd updates way back when I used to write them.
I'm currently reading one of his books and came across a most interesting piece of animal trivia. There is such a thing as a Paradoxical Frog. It is a type of frog that is born a tadpole that instead of increasing in size as it grows older, works the other way around. The size of the tadpole is about 6" in length, and the body is the size of a large hen's egg. As it grows older, the tadpole shrinks till it becomes a medium-sized frog. Isn't it amazing?
I love Gerald Durrel!

Whump!

Every so often, on this little race of life, you stumble and fall flat on your face. There's not much you can do except get up, spit the dirt out of your mouth, dust yourself off, and start running again. I wonder if my college mates will remember where I'm quoting the next line from..
"It's a long time we'll be with the two of us crying."

Movie weekend

Hrithik is to drooool for - I loved him in the bandanna.
Abhishek looked way too ugly in the last scene. But early in the movie, he's shown a series of clips of the robberies committed by the elusive "A" and recognizes a pattern within seconds and predicts the date and location of the next crime.
Aishwarya, like, what's up with her? I never thought the day would come when I thought Bipasha had more substance. If Abhishek marries her I will be totally convinced that he's a jackass! As if the hairband wasn't bad enough!!

On the other hand, there's Casino Royale. There's a chip in Bond's arm that he didn't know was there. Not as smart as our Abhishek, is he? But fills out a suit to perfection. :-)

A Series of Unfortunate Events, or There's a Ghost in My Machine Part II

It's just so true that nothing will ever convince me otherwise - the ghost in the air-travel system loves to jimmy up my life! My flight from Hyd to Blr was three hours late cos the plane was late taking off from foggy Delhi. Why the flight I want to take between two practically neighbouring cities at one end of the country must be impacted by the weather in a city at the other end is just beyond me! The only logical explanation is - yes, you said it - the ghost in the machine!
Nevertheless, there were quite a few weird and noteworthy things that I happened to observe while I was idling away in the departure lounge:
1. A guy sat reading a Lonely Planet book on Malaysia with it laid out on his knees and him hunched over, his nose about a foot from the page.
2. A guy sitting across from me calling a a number on his cell saying that he's received a missed call on it, and who's speaking please, till he notices his friend gesticulating wildly to him from the other end of the hall signalling that it was he who had called.
3. The same two guys jumping up at the security check announcement and rushing to the boarding gate!
4. Air Deccan, Hyd, announcing that its flight to Hyderabad was ready for departure, and two minutes later amending Hyderabad to Ahmedabad.

I must carry a book in my purse the next time I travel no matter how stuffed it already is!

The New Seer

Listen up, people. Don't - I repeat - DON'T head straight for the astrology section in bookstores or on the street, looking for your future in 2007. That's all rubbish. All lies. Are you going to let some stranger on a money-spinning trip tell you that your future will comprise exactly the same events as the future of millions of people who share the same zodiac sign? No of course not! You know better than that. You know that only the most qualified person can give you customized and accurate astrological predictions. You know that only a true spiritualist who is in touch with the truth of the cosmos can show you even a glimpse of what your future holds. Yes, you already know that.
So what are you waiting for? Send a blank cheque for made out in my name to my home address. True knowledge about your future is priceless.