when gtalk gets to your nerves and you can't ignore it.

Life sure is not pleasant when you live among people gazillion times brilliant. For example, you dont get the jokes that are being cracked. Far from judging whether they are clever or not.

One of my acquaintances has a gtalk status message that goes:
"Higher Inflation!! Not an issue ..Go for Money Market Funds!!!"

What - What does it even mean? Is it sassy? funny? witty? Why is it making me feel like an earthworm? Why should I be going to Money Market Funds instead of eating overpriced Kadlekai? Will you stop being on my gtalk list if I ask what Money Market Funds are?

I rather prefer status messages like: "@home". No frills attached.

The Oh-Not-So Happening (or Shyamalan, Where Art Thou?)

Been to The Happening (TH) yesterday at Inox. There were two things worse than the movie-

1. Garuda Mall loos. The House Keeping staff there seem to have a brilliant strategy. They start cleaning all loos of all floors at the SAME freaking time. So you can imagine. This bunch of n women and girls goes to the loo in the 4th floor, realises its under maintenance and runs down to the loo in the below floor. By the time the bunch reaches 3rd floor, the number is 2n. By the time we are hurrying towards the ground floor loo, we are 16n in number. And that one's under maintenance as well. This is the 3rd time this is happening to me at Garuda Mall. Mr.Garudachar, where art thou?

2. Inox Sandwiches. What. What. What are those veg sandwiches made of? Agreed I was eating in the dark while watching a Shyamalan movie, but all my 5 senses put together couldn't sense anything other than : cabbage. I mean, who makes an only-cabbage or predominantly-cabbage sandwich? (except for cabbage sandwich-makers, of course.)

Coming to this movie- I loved the initial scenes where people are killing themselves- jumping off buildings, hanging, shooting, etc etc. But the story as a whole was tuss pataki (Cracker that did not crack). None of the characters came out strong. Except for the lead teacher guy and the small girl.

The story line was so damn predictable. For example, that lonely ajji talks only one sane, but out-of-context line about there being a secret communication tunnel. This is SO intentionally inserted, that you know well in advance that tunnel would come into play soon. What jass.

Funnily, the most impressive part of the movie was the titles. The clouds moving, the music, the imagery was very effective. But the movie story falls thud after some 15-20 min. To the makers' credit - cinematography was good as usual, the music fairly good and the morbid death scenes were quite good now and then.

I haven't watched Lady in The Water or whatever. But this is the least good among all other Shyamalans. I don't know if it was his joke that he should play the role of that inconsequential caller ( Leo or someone) with only his voice heard. A sure heartbreak for people like me who think he is hot+talented. No Shyamalan. No Shyamalanesque art.

Again, Manoj Night Shyamalan, where art thou?

(PS: Lou has this whole blog running; radical but interesting idea, I must say.)

Bol Rediff Bol

{The above is my first hand at a Hindi title for a post. It might not be original or distantly funny, but there it is! (sob) I am living up to those slogans we used to write on blackboard with 'color chalk's on the occasions of Hindi Saptah in School. Hindi Hindustan Ki Dil Hai. Or was it Delhi Hindustan Ki Dil Hai? Anyway, this is absolute digression from the topic at hand.}

AC Neilson recently conducted a nation-wide survey on What Are Indians Doing Right NOW? The shocking results were summarized in the following chart:




As the chart clearly portrays, Indians have finally arrived at the ultimate sure-shot entertainment and knowledge sharing tool- Rediff.com. Not really Rediff, so to speak, but its comment space. Years ago, I started reading Rediff articles, then i started smiling through the articles and comments, now i eagerly directly skip to the comment section without glancing at the article in question.

Why is it such a ready-to-eat entertainment for a soul bruised from everyday life? What is it in Rediff comment spaces that soothes your nerves and puts them on happy wavelengths? Here's the answer. Here's why Rediff Therapy is getting so hip with the hip people and fast replacing Retail Therapy.

Nope, not making fun of anybody's English here. There is nothing funny in one whole nation of people being compelled to become experts at a non-phonetic foreign tongue. I am only presenting a few snapshots of the rediff comment space : only a small drop of a vast ocean. I strongly suggest that the reader click on the images for greater text clarity.

1. Free Career Advice

The rediff users keep giving free career counseling and advice to each other. Consider this:



This discussion is on an article that is about the SRK Vs AB tussle that might or might not exist. There is the first one- DS who has written a painfully long comment on the article. 'U' gives him the valuable advice "go back to work. don't waste your time. ok". Hmm. Humanitarian.

2. Free Sex Advice

There's this article on some dood called Harman- on whether he is good, as good as or better than Hrithik. There are, naturally, commentators who support both the sides and those who support neighter.

But there is one sweet person who is very concerned with Priyanka (Chopra) 's love-life. Presumably so because she's acted with both of them? Anyway, Mr. Soft-heart expresses his concern thus.

goes: "Best of luck priyanka. Have you got plan B? Chinese vibrators are far inferior to the desi stuff".

Sweet guy. Not very patriotic though.

3. Free Novels

Some readers just write their hearts out. Probably Gita Teacher's 1000 words essay mood hasn't left them yet. The below comment is on an article about Kareena's rise to stardom. There is one commentator - the first one- who was so overcome with emotion, that he wrote this:


Very, er, academic.

(I would've loved to publish the whole of his comment, but unlike the good Rediff.com, blasted Blogger.com gives me only a limited space. Damn it. )

4. Free Linguistic Advice:

Since we are proud and clever people, there have to be linguistic jabs. Here's this article on Saif and Rani appearing on some SRK show sometime. So, well, there is a certain Mr. Dasgupta who writes something about how Saif's behavior wasn't appropriate and a certain Mr. Sing reacts thus:


The Singh says:
"oye.. what is this new species?? a hip bengali??
when did "dis" happen "dude"?
;)
babu moshai.. i "thot" bengali's take pride in being "english" what has gone wrong here ..ehh?"

Very insightful. But did you insert the "oye" by mistake, Mr.Singh? Balle Balle. No? okay.

5. Free Content Analysis

This is a comment on some comment which was on an article based on Sarkar Raj. It is self-expalnatory:

"Please don't write bull." . Couldn't have put it better myself.

6. Free one-Man Show:

There are some omniscient readers who write 9 out of 11 comments on a board. Here's a sample. This is also the comment board of that article on SRK, Saif and Kareena.

This one reader wrties three comments back to back to back. The titles are "this is film industry couples", "shahrukh make this show worst" and "gay pair".

An impressively wide coverage of topics.

7. Free Sarcasm

This is the comment space on an article that gave a not-very-flattering review to Dasavataram. There are indeed reader's who passionately defended both sides. One series of acid comments goes thus:

There are two readers, say A & B.
A passes a remark on B saying, "this movie is highly intelligent - for ppl below IQ of 40". After a protest from B, A gain says "was that english?". Ouch. Acid.

How precise and clever of you, dear Mr.A.

8. Free Friends:

Finally, you could look out for readers who are ready to make friends with anybody of the same or opposite gender. Even at the cost of typing and irrelevant comment. This again from that Hrithik Harman post:

Here, Reader 1 types out a heavily (intended to be) sarcastic comment on a burning issue.
Reader 2 reacts: "Hiiiiiiiiiii"

I knew it- brainlessness was always a turn-on.

So, even if this post is shamelessly long, it is shamelessly short of the amount of entertainment that rediff comment space offers. So next time your boss' on phone, log in to rediff and soothe your nerves while he yells away to death.

A Visitor - I

From afar, I assumed it was yetanother bee. But no, this is a longer, sleeker cousin. On closer examination revealed tiger-striped wings. In the nick-of-time when I was about to catch it by it's wings, I noticed it also possessed a sting. Ahem.

Being someone who grew up reading Poornachandra Tejaswi's fascinating, inquisitive and humorous literature, I notice a non-human visitor in our premises only too soon. It is only natural, that a large part of my childhood was spent in conversing with non-human visitors, non-human neighbours, non-human friends and their friends' friends.

Anyway, for the past one week, I have been noticing him/her in my room:



Six-legged, body-toned, sting-ed, insects aren't really rare, you see. But what has been striking me about this one is its pattern of appearance. I have always seen a pair. (I am assuming it's the same pair every night.) I have seen them ONLY in the night, by the way. One of them sits on my mosquito net and the other one on the adjacent wall near my pillows (the above picture is the wall-lover's).

I have spent half of mornings searching for them in my room in the day light, the garden right outside my room, the mango tree, the neem tree and all others. No sign. I tried looking it up in the meagre collection of arthropod-books we have. No clue. None whatsoever.

So, after a week of intrepid perusal, I have accepted them. I say a casual 'Hey' to them as I get into the bed. And when I wake up int he morning, I know they are gone and will be back in the night. Probably.

A year ago, I was superstitious enough to think that might be some sort of omen from the Soul of The Universe. But now I am less stupid; I know this is aliens trying to communicate with me. Am now just trying to figure out what.

Trapped In My Face Paint

"You look just like Indira Gandhi now. Really. Same nose, same chin, same hair. Just like her. Very smart" the mother said.

"But the point is, I don't want to look like Mrs. G!" I grumbled to the mirror.

"See, this looks cute. Like an innocent school kid".

"Except I am not an innocent school kid".

"You are innocent."

"..." (I let the statement hang)

"Hehe. But this hair cut is hehe."

"I know! I know!"

"You know what- Now you are not Chethana, you are Chetan. Not a darling daughter, a dear son. Hehehe."

"Amma- never mind."

***

Oh, dear reader, you are demanding that essential thing to all good stories called Flashback. Ha. So here it goes:

Eight months ago, dear ol' Paddy (you might be interested in an elaborate description of him here) glanced down sadly at a blood test report (whose diagnostic fees was reimbursed by the Govt of India to Padre). He had discovered that my biological self was shamefully deficient in two somethings he called Iodine and Iron.

"This is mosa (cheating). I thought you had gained weight while staying there- so have become healthy. No No. (shake of head). This weight is not a healthy plump. This is iodine-low blowing up. Poor child. Che. "

"Hmm" I said.

Not in my wildest dreams had I dreamt what this implied, dear reader. I thought this is just one more of those deficiency ramblings of a loving doctor. No! This was a warning bell I ignored. I have an in-built knack for ignoring warning bells and getting serious about trial drills. Lets return to the story.

3 months ago, I started noticing that:
1. my hair looked like it was dyed brown in a punk rock way.
2. falling down as though they were all learning some kind of special parachuting techniques.

2 months ago I dropped back home to stay with the parents. They gasped at my skull.

"That's it." Madre declared. "No more fooling around. Doctor. Beautician. Today!"

I shivered under the iron resolution. The doc wrote an elaborate vitamin diet prescription. The beautician point-blank refused to touch my hair.

"No madam, if I cut her hair now, she will look like a boy. See, no new hair. Let the new hair grow at least for some months."

Madre considered 2 months as 'some months'. So back to the cut-lady we went. She patiently explained some rocket science principles of hair-cutting and declared she will give suitable healthy-looking hair cut. I just trusted our Lord.

So, it is after the masterful hair-style that Madre said:

"You look just like Indira Gandhi now. Really. Same nose, same chin, same hair. Just like her. Very smart"

***

I woke up today morning, looked at the mirror first thing and shrieked.

What is it, I wonder, that connects us so deeply to our gender? Is it about social acceptance? Is it vanity? My gender, to tell the truth, is just a part of my biological self. Like a scar on the skin. Yet I am so bound by its identity, that any flaw in it makes me mentally ill. I cannot accept to feel like me and look like some moron. Isn't the feeling of me being me enough, why do I have to look like me too? And why am I unhappy about something that is so brittle that it will all go away in a few months and come back in next few months?

Or am I simply like a certain Ms.Rai, who travels the world trapped in her own face paint?

May be we all differ in the face paints. But the trapping, certainly, is universal.

Karnataka's Gaddhi and My Unsolicited Opinions

The last time I talked politics was on the voting day for the first round of Karnataka's Assembly Elections here. The results are out long back. This post is long due.

Now that BhaJaPa has successfully opened an account in the South (The South of Vindhyas - as journalists think is the fancy way of referring to it), our love Yeddy has constantly employed three actions. We will index them as:

1. Hallu-kisi-ing. (Hallu = Teeth, Kisi = open wide). - understandably to display overwhelming happiness that dignified smiles do not justify.

2. V-Finger showing - assuming that V is a sign of victory. Our Bengaluru street children will snigger if you show them the 'V' finger ; our dictionaries use that as a symbol for a certain biological release action.

3. Mysore (Maisur) Petaa wearing. - natural attempt at identifying with Kannada culture.

I am what the neo-rightist dudes will label as 'pseudo-secularist'. Never been too much in love with our hindutva-saving-contract-obtained friends. But this time's Karnataka elections came as a mild surprise me. I have to make note of them here.

Firstly, our saffron pals de-saffronised themselves quite a lot. I did not hear anything about a certain Rama Mandir, no mention of Italian Descents, no reference to 'Foreign Hands' and certainly no importance to Dutta Peeta.

This is weird, self thought. They are actually battling for the government on real governance issues!

The other major party - our dear ol' INC leaders were busy playing inky-pinky-ponky to decide who'll be presented as the prospective CM. Sadly, the number of inky-pinky-ponkers was so high, by the time they finished inky-pinky-ponking, elections were over. So now they have whole 5 yrs to evolve into more complicated forms of ink-pinky-ponkisms.

So, BhaJPa won hands down- for a great number of reasons clearly beyond the scope of this post. What is within the scope of this article is to explore what this signifies to us as the Most Honourable Their Excellencies citizens.

Does this mean that one of the two major national parties is aligning itself more to center than to right? Now that the not-a-fundamentalist-thank-you model worked in Karnataka, will it be used even more effectively in the hovering 2009 elections?

If it is that way, then good. We have one left-centrist gang, and will have one bunch of right-centrist Charlies. That should be fun. That is more like the legendary Amreeka type. It is but natural dear reader, consider the below:

1. our grannies are talking about low-carb diets.
2. our children know what an 'elevator' is, but blink when you say 'lift'.
3. our fathers have office 'skedules', not 'schedules' .

On the same lines of logic, our politicians are naturally getting more American. They are centrists but are differentiated by either left-leaning or right-leaning. They have stopped campaigning alone- they bring their wife/daughter along to wave in general directions.

So who knows, may be in one of the near-future elections, I might have only two options on the ballot paper. I will think for a minute on whether I am for or against abortion. And then I will beep. Thank you very much.

If You Thought You Had Taken It All Away

... Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the
promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue
sky? ...

... The flames are all gone, but the pain lingers on.

Goodbye, blue sky-
Goodbye, blue sky.

My home is close to the National Highway 7 which is now the International Airport Road. 13 years ago, when father and mother brought me to show our new home- I stared wide-eyed at the lines of May flower trees (Gulmohar) along the NH. Stood in a line like soldiers. Blazing red they stood, with May Flowers fully bloomed, as though on fire. Soldiers on fire.

It is gone now. The road is four-lane. No Trees, No flowers, No May.

Even to this day, when I dream, I dream traveling on that old road- it is a narrow lane, filled with blazing red May Flower trees. Laughing in my dreams they are, like a dead grandfather. My mind just doesn't register any road-widening bull crap.

I will not remember these new barren roads. I refuse to die with impressions of dusty, tarry, sooty roads with honking horns and choking lungs. I will laugh at those claims of development (oh, really?). We were right how we were, sailing boats in monsoon fields after school where Supermarkets now stand. Stealing giant guavas from groves where apartments now reside.

Oh, go on. Kill my world for raising your stock prices. I will show my children on Adobe Photoshop version 9.8 the precise green-red shade of a new-born mango leaf.

PS: You can kiss my ass.

No Country For Old Papers

In my part of the world, the word 'paper' can assume multiple meanings based on the person and time of the day.

If its my old man saying "paper takond baare" ("bring the paper, I say") while he's in the process of seating himself on the sofa early morning, it indeed means 'newspaper' or The Daily.

If its the Madre herself yelling "Chetu, paper takan' baa" ("Chethana, bring the paper, I say") from the kitchen in a pleasant evening, it simply means paper for pakoda purposes.

If it is the bro grumbling "Chetu, paper kode" ("Chethana, give a paper, dude"), at any time of the day, it demands that I take a blank white foolscap sheet for him to sketch DragonballZ (or some similar-sounding weird name) characters on them.

The whole point of giving this background is to clarify that this post is about the first kind of 'paper'. Not the cartoon-drawing kind, not the pakoda kind and definitely not the loo kind.

I grew up discovering that early morning news papers were that perfect insulation between sleep and daily chores; so mornings would find my huddled on the sofa (half-squiggling, half-sitting) paper in hand (half-held, half-fallen) and reading it (half-eyes closed, half-open (d'oh!)). It took me many years to start absorbing the contents of what was printed on them.

After a couple of more years, I started noticing that our papers did not remain the same. It was Deccan Herald (DH) first, then got shifted to The Hindu, which made way for the Indian Express, which was later ditched for The Times of India (TOI), which after a very short while made way for DH again. So the mixture continued. Evidently, Madre and Padre weren't happy with any of them. Why, became eventually evident too.

Apparently, there was something very itchy about all of them. Each one of them were itchy in a different way. The itchiness was so characteristic, even by simply reading the paper piece in which the local grocer packed kadalekai (groundnuts), I could say "Ha! DH". As though the specific kind of itchiness was a part of their identity.

I know how unscientific the previous paragraph was. Pliss allow self to explain one-by-one:

DH : Even after years and years of heralding the Deccan plateau and plates after plates of their employees yenjooing Masala Dosas in MG Road's Coffee House, DH still has not discovered Nirvana. It is still on its quest to find out what it actually thinks of what. May be some Maisur Masala Dosas can help, instead of the regular ones.

IE : Privileged to have one of Bengaluru's most confusing traffic junctions named after it, IE, for some reason, chooses to not belong to Bengaluru et al. Unlike DH, IE has discovered solutions to all the problems that plague the world. Namely: Sonia Gandhi and/or INC. Whatay vision, I say!

TH: The 3rd greatest sure-shot giveaway of Southies (after filter coffee and coconut oil), TH has been rendering yeoman service to the readers since 1243 B.C. N Ram's cretivity is at its peak especially when it has to fuel some Cauvery (previously (Late) Veerappan) heat. Queen Victoriamma wanted to descend upon TH office and bless them with her August Presence, but realised that she was dead long ago. He throws the issue into greater relief here and there.

TOI: TOI, toy, ah what can I talk about you?!
you are the only one to advice me on
whether Hrithik's one child is due,
Priyanka's favorite bra is pink or blue,
Jolie kissed only Pitt or the whole crew,
'borrow' from Hollywood magazines gossip few
Now and Then touch upon that boring thing called Real World
and print some News : old or new.


What is the use of all this rambling? To help Kariamma and Mangamma decide which is the best Indian Anglo Daily to pack their Kadalekai in.

(PS: Click on the picture if greater text visibility is desired.)