While the world churned

Well, it actually turned too, but the dynamism of this planet is enthralling. Here’s a summary of what’s happening around the world recently that immediately comes to my pop-culturish, politically churlish and sportingly bent mind.

1. No Paris for Parsis
Actually, no Paris for any Indians living in India. Paris Hilton’s debut album was to be promoted with a video for the song ‘Stars are blind’. But it has been banned in India for being too racy. India, rejoice. You have been saved. There is no escaping Paris ‘That's hot’ Hilton here, but this is a blessing in disguise. You don’t have to hear Paris sing. Your tragedy is to keep watching Rakhi Sawant. By the way, I have seen the banned video and Rakhi Sawant might just beat Paris Hilton hands down in raciness. Perhaps, someone on the censor board dislikes Paris Hilton for all the right reasons too.

2. Pluto planet na rahaa
Pluto has been demoted. From the big boys club to the dwarfs ensemble. The emasculated little fellow is now going to be called a dwarf planet. There are several thrills people are getting out of this. One friend referred to the event with the exclamation: “Now there is no planet left discovered by an American”. Imagine what this changes: navagrahas are ashtagrahas now. The ninth rock from the sun has rocked the third rock from the sun

3. North by North-West
Brown is the color of paranoia, especially if it happens to be on your skin. Perhaps the terrorists have already won. One plane diversion a week is a victory for the schism driving scum. A Northwest flight to Mumbai was diverted back to Amsterdam on suspicious behavior by some passengers. The passengers were Indians and were treated very badly. The Dutch government has issued an apology. Not a good time to be a brown man. Pertinent question raised by someone in an article I read someplace: “What if the twelve people were Europeans?”. Really, what if?

4. Are we there yet?
The South African cricket team ran home. There’s no other way to describe it. Perhaps the previous point and this one is tied in. What is it about teams like NZ, Aus, England and SA and their willingness to take the first flight home even when a firecracker is burst? This particular exit pissed me off no end. LTTE has not targeted foreigners, the SA team was given presidential level of security, the other two teams were willing to stay back. I am sorry, but they are wrong. The game has been skewed for the past century, with the sub-contintental teams and management has always suffered from an inferiority complex. They are ever willing to listen to their colonial masters, bend over backwards, allowed to be treated as some sort of undecipherable threat that they will always be vary about. This has to change. We control the game today. I may dislike Dalmiya for a lot of reasons, but I like the fact that he has brought about the balance of power. Penalize SA, don’t bring them to the subcontinent henceforth. Let them learn a lesson on being a decent cricketing citizen. For they are not.

5. Hair-rising issue
While I am sufficiently upset, let me go all the way. This post is turning out to be a comment on the clash of civilizations. This example perhaps the most fitting. Darrell ‘no-ball’ Hair, the man who declared that the Pakistanis had tampered the ball without providing adequate proof, the man who deliberately handled the situation harshly even though he could have done otherwise, has finally told ICC: give me $500k and I shall leave. Brilliant. This episode was a classic case of rant no. 4 showing up in a repressed sub-continental team. When the two W’s invented the reverse swing in the early 90’s, they were labeled cheats. The fact that they were from a sub-contintental team and the accusations came from the fair-skinned masters gave it legitimacy. A decade down the line, nothing has changed. Maybe the Pakistanis did actually tamper the ball. But they have been labeled guilty even without a trial. In the minds of people. Inzi over-reacted, yes. But what caused the over-reaction? The pent up feeling of being run down and being targeted because of past history. Perhaps both Inzi and Hair will be punished. Perhaps Hair did what he had to do. But my sympathies cannot lie with him. There’s too much history to reckon with. Mike Denness anyone?

Ok, agitated rant over. Taking deep breaths. Ok, here’s a moderate level rant to finish it off.

6. Yun hota to kya hota
Naseerudin Shah is a fine actor. Given. What he has is an attitude problem where he keeps blasting Bollywood produce. All the time. He still acts in it, but keeps calling it crap. What next? He gets a chance to prove that he can make the ‘non-trash’ by directing a movie himself. So he makes Yun Hota to Kya Hota. A movie technique about strangers in a common situation: tried before. The treatment is fair, and I wouldn’t call this movie crap, I like it in parts. But then I am just a poor Bollywood movie fanatic. My tolerance is much higher than Mr. Shah. Back to the movie: this is a plot that he has mangled so badly that the script writer has an open letter on his website to Naseer asking him to take his name off because the script is no longer his. Read here. Sorry Naseer bhai, walk the line, or keep your comments in check. You did act in movies like Daava and Takkar.

Finally. Done. Zen-like work shall follow.

Aahista Aahista

Yesterday, I heard one of my all time favorite ghazals after a while. This is a ghazal sung by Jagjit Singh and written by Ameer Minai. Jagjit Singh sang this in his album called ‘Unforgettables’, which he released with Chitra Singh in the year 1975. This was the first album that broke away from the traditional mould and used modern instruments in conjunction with traditional instruments, something that would become part of Jagjit’s style over the years. In my opinion, this is the among the best ghazal albums that Jagjit has come up with (others like A Sound Affair and Milestone would also qualify). Jagjit elevates the lyrics to a different level by his rendition. You can find it here. The rhythm of the song, the slight hint of echo in the recording and the simplicity of the lyrics adds to its brilliance. Enough said, here are the lyrics

Sarakti jaaye hain rukh se naqaab aahista aahista
Nikalta aa raha hai aaftaab aahista aahista
[rukh=face, naqaab=veil, aaftaab=sun]

Jawaan hone lage jab woh to humse kar liya parda
Hayaa yaklakht aaee aur shabaab aahista aahista
[hayaa=shyness, yaklakht = suddenly, shabaab=youth]

Shab-e-furqat ka jaaga hoon faristhon ab to sone do
Kabhi fursat mein kar lena hisaab aahista aahista
[furqat=separation]

Woh bedardi se sar kaate 'ameer' aur main kahoon unse
Huzoor aahista aahista janaab aahista aahista

Distress of Prices

I live in far far away land. Tucked in the northwest corner of the United States of America, I cling onto my "roots" (refer SD's treatise on postmodernism for details) in the most obvious ways. I play cricket with other Indians, watch Hindi movies, the occasional TV serials, ponder on my five-year plan(for that, refer to my theorem). At the end of the day, the biggest and brightest and most earnest connection is food. My wife is an excellent cook and does wonders in the kitchen conjuring delicious Indian dishes along with other cuisines. The raw material is duly supplied by the Indian grocery store. Its probably ironic that working for a company that is often accused of monopoly, I feel a similar passion towards the Indian store. As Gabbar would ask: "kitne aadmi the?" to which hi dutiful sidekick would have to reply "dus hazaar". "Aur Indian stores kitni?". "Sardar, ek". "Bahut na insaafi hai".

Gabbar's empathy is to be expected. Contending with their huge profit margins, buying ketchups and later realizing that their expiry date is October 2003, never finding the same product twice, buying vegetables staler than the jokes on Mind of Mencia, Gabbar knows a thing or two about tyranny when he sees it. The last straw hit me in the face very recently. There is a shortage of daal in this country owing to the banning of the exports of daal by the Indian government. Fair enough, if the justification is to curtail inflation in India. Far-fetched, but the concern of Indians should be considered before those of NRIs. I am ok with that. What I am not ok with is two aunties in the said Indian store ganging up to inquire whether I read news about India and know about the daal shortage. On the first day of the rationing that they passed onto the consumers, they put up some pink colored posters with instructions printed in font size 10 and put them up next to the daal counter on the store. The limit, it seems is four pounds per family. I didn't read it. It wasn't readable, it didn't catch my attention. Darn it, they should have something more prominent if they want customers to pay heed. Ever seen how many such posters they stick in Indian stores? Then the aunties chastise me for bringing more than four pounds. I inquired about the limit and was asked about my knowledge of current affairs in India. Respectfully restraining myself from uttering a dozen or so retorts in my mind, I dragged myself out of the store.

The incident still riles me up. If I need elderly chastising, there are legitimate reasons and people I can turn to. I feel like I am in line to get food in jail and the guy serving it is laughing the evil laugh. We are all prisoners here, of the Indian store's devise. Trapped, in prices, in monopoly, in substandard quality, in aunty-ly instincts, there is no escape. 'Jaayen to jaayen kahan?' 

Another one passes by

This is an easy post. Completed two years of this blog. This is for the faithfuls: the handful few who read and comment on the blog, and the others who read and tell me they follow my writings and the anonymous whose existence will be a mystery to me till they reveal themselves. Thank you. The words will keep coming and I will keep posting till you are around. When that stops, there's always the old diary one is meant to write in. Till the next post, so long and thanks for bearing the kitsch.

Runners Inc.

The three of them rushed towards me
A hurling mass of metal and body
I slowed down and watched in amazement
Mother, pram, dog
Burning up the sidewalk
In an undecipherable order
A mind-boggling conundrum
Who's running whom?

*******************************************************

There he sees it
Right past the bend
Just across the hill
Water, precious water

The limbs get strength
And the will awakens
As he rushes towards it
The mid-point of his marathon

*******************************************************

Sweat trickles to his shoulder
A smile breaks on his face
He watches people run past him
And wonders, why do they bother?
Then bites into his hamburger

*******************************************************

One small step for man
Doesn't count for much on the pedometer

For Whom The Ringer Tolls

"I hate Ashish", she said, extracting another cringing expression from her mother. “All of 21 and no control over her tongue”, add her father with a cluck at the end for added measure. Mr. Prashant Dandekar had an amazing ability to comment on everything without contributing anything. He also managed to do that with the least amount of perturbation. His glasses perched low on his nose, his eyes fixed on the editorial of the Times of India, his universe seemingly perfect. His contribution to his life’s and wife’s troubles were wry comments, and if luck assisted, dry wit. Karuna Dandekar had no shortage of wit. Life’s hardships had set her up for failure and she responded to failure with alarmingly smart cynicism. She always likened her marriage to a blockbuster Hindi movie: it could be bad and still have a silver jubilee. In the middle of all this was their lone star (or black hole, as she called herself), their only child, Anoushka. Fire and water, wind and stillness, all rolled into one. Her smile could turn into a frown momentarily, a happy laughter followed by uncontrollable rage, Anoushka was a very volatile person emotionally. In the midst of the million emotions she felt, love came and overwhelmingly swept her off her feet one day. Actually, it was the torrential downpour that reigned on Bombay that forced Anoushka to be stranded on the road when all moving transport had come to a halt. With her cell phone batteries dead, her knight in shining armor came with his own shining blade, the new silver colored sleek Razr phone. She got through to her worried parents and spent the evening in the foyer of an apartment complex waiting for the waters to subside and chatting to no end with Ashish. Oh yes, the same Ashish she has declared she hates at the start of this story. Who is Ashish, you ask? He is our guy next door, if you had a two storeyed bungalow in JVPD Scheme with three cars, three servants and three dogs next door. Born, literally with a silver spoon, Ashish never had to struggle and was not apologetic about it. Like many rich kids who need a degree for degree’s sake and end up doing a B.A. or a B.Com, Ashish chose to do an engineering degree. Stuck in a storm with his Santro half submerged, Ashish noticed the a frowning yet beautiful face of a girl all but ready to break something in frustration soaking in the rain on that troubled day. The gizmo-freak walked up to her and offered her the new phone he had acquired, fresh of the market; grey market that is. As he watched her punch her home number into the phone and speak with her parents, he was filled with the overwhelming feeling that fills all hearts young and tender when spring goes away and rains bring forth droplets of hope and joy and promise: anger. A car went by and splashed a bucketful of water on all three of them, Ashish, Anoushka and the Razr phone. After muttering the requisite curses and finding their way to an apartment complex where they stepped in the foyer of an apartment wing, they exchanged introductions. Anoushka was too carried away in love to bother hiding it. Her eyes, her hands, her heart all betrayed her as she reached for the one that had taken over her entire self. They say love happens in an instance, and Anoushka barely needed a nanosecond to be convinced. Her life had changed in that moment forever. She looked at Ashish and spelt her heart’s wishes to him without hesitation, a trademark Anoushka moment where instinct led the way. Ashish smiled first, and in moments the smile had grown to a wide laughter that spilt over the narrow confines of their shelter. Undecipherable in the laughter were a nod and a muffled ‘Yes’ from the man who never thought life would surprise him thus.

"I hate Ashish", she said, as her mother took her cringing expression towards the door. The door bell had rung twice and Karuna Dandekar took towards it, a helpless mother on a rescue mission. Ashish was waiting on the other side, pacing two steps to his side, restless in anticipation. He had thought long and hard about it, and had decided that he would not pawn his life this way. He valued his independence above all else. A relationship would cost him dear. He would lose his friends, family, everyone he ever knew. Never again would he speak with them. Never again would he sit in an airport and play games and stare at the good looking women passing by. Never again would he be able to wake up on time. Never again would he be able to stand among his friends as equal. No, this had to be ended. This was it. Karuna Dandekar opened the door and asked Ashish in. It was a moment seeped in tension. Everyone knew why Ashish had come. Everyone knew what was going to happen, yet, the pretense of civility was maintained. It was maintained by all but Anoushka, who was too heart-broken to bother with niceties. Her world had come crashing down in one week flat. The classic rich versus poor gap had come in between. She thought this happened only in movies, yet there she was, sitting in Prashant Dandekar’s house, retired school teacher, wondering why such trivialities should affect the grand scheme of things. She walked up slowly to Ashish, tears and temper in check. She had determined that if she had to do it, she’d do it with dignity. She wouldn’t give anyone the opportunity of feeling pity for her. “Ashish, I know why you have come. I know the time is up. I know we agreed to try this for a week and then decide what the future looks like. I cannot complain about the happiness I have got. It has far exceeded anything I had expected. But I guess expecting this to last was unreasonable. I know I can’t keep what my heart wants forever and I can’t keep anything that doesn’t belong to me. You are free to go, and we shall never talk again”. Ashish looked in her eyes, steeled his heart and slid his hands in his pockets. In a brief moment when he reached for Anoushka’s hand, he remembered the moment she had put her heart’s wish to him. In that brief moment, his heart melted, his resolve wilted and he decided to relent. The passion in her eyes did the trick. He didn’t want to break Anoushka’s heart, didn’t want to separate her from the one thing she clearly valued above everything else. A few words later, he turned around and walked out of the apartment, staring at Anoushka’s decrepit T610 mobile phone. Behind the doors, Anoushka was crying tears of joy. She held the one true love of her life in her hand, never to be parted again. Hers to keep, forever: her Razr phone.

P.S.> I keep hearing a lot about kids in India getting new phones every year or so. This story was inspired by that need. I have had two cell phones in my six year stay in this country. I must be unfashionable.
P.P.S> As you might have guessed, I own a decrepit T610 phone. If Razr isn’t exactly state of the art anymore, my apologies. My knowledge about cell phones is minimal. If it dials a number and lets me speak, it is generally good enough for me

Blood

Blood suffers as only blood can
Flowing through clogged arteries
Surfacing on a cut
To be washed away

Blood travels as only blood can
From your head to toe
Coursing, cursing, living
Ultimate, dried away

Blood splatters as only blood can
From struggling smiling bodies
In the air of terror
On mangled train doors

Blood rises as only blood can
In a city that can never sleep again
In a common man's breast
In protest to utter: Enough

Life's a stretch

Feeling stretched?

This one's for the environmentalists out here. Photograph taken in 'Hip-hop Hollywood', as the kind billboard behind reminds me. How do you take a bad idea and extend it to make it 'badder'. Badder rhymes with Hummer, doesn't it? Wonder what rhymes with stretch hummer!

P.S> Substantial posts coming up. Blame the absence from the blog on visiting parents. Seeing this country and myself anew through their eyes is a learning experience. For once, I am being a good student.

Bring your Alibhais

So goes Hotel California somewhere in the middle of its (oc)cult lyrics. I was reading a discussion board some place where they were discussing what the lyrics mean to you. A common theme in people's explanations dealt with drugs. For eg.

"Some dance to remember, some dance to forget."
(People use drugs to remember, others to forget.)

"We are all just prisoners here, of our own device."
(Drugs are initially taken by choice but quickly become addictive.)

Cut focus to India and Hotel California may well be Hotel Calicut or some such rhyming place. Alibhai, our fictional drug dealer, must be cursing Rahul Mahajan. Suddenly, there is a big focus on the 'partying' crowd and the snort club, as India Today calls it. Imagine if there would be a public uproar and people can't do their favorite brand of drugs anymore. Where would Alibhai go? How will he afford his shanty in Alibag?

Several reams of press have been devoted to the reasons behind Rahul Mahajan's drug orgy. Does it matter frankly? Be it stress or depression or plain pleasure as the reason behind his step, if he got caught with a rolled up paper stuck up his nose digging into white powder, he has every reason to be in trouble. My heart doesn't go out to the Rahul Mahajans of the world. If having money gives you the license to throw responsibility out the window, then I am glad that not all those who have that license exercise it. Speaking of license, wait till someone decides to make a movie on the Pramod Mahajan's death and Rahul's self-destruct mode. Its just a matter of time. While on Bollywood, the only brand of drugs that was smuggled and used extensively in the early 80's movies was brown sugar. I can't help but grin every time I see brown sugar in my trip to Starbucks for my trusted latte. Oops, I am self-destructing with caffeine :-)

Wired for Weird

Got tagged by Aparna to come up with six weird things about myself, so going along with it. Skipping the tagging part though. Here goes the list of weirdness that I can come up with (including a bonus one at the end)

· I like to cross lanes without stepping on the lane markers (this will be familiar to those who have driven in the US). It interrupts the smoothness of my drive :-)
· I remember the lyrics of each song of a movie that I am going to watch in the theater so I can sing it out loud. I always do.
· I like to get a sense of deja vu when I visit a place a second time round, especially if that place is one I am unlikely to visit regularly. For eg. a spot en route to Crater lake, a random STD/ISD call booth en route to Sion. And yes, I like smiling at the little triumph of having made that connection
· Punctuality is (I wish it still were, but it used to be) an obsession. I used to reach before time on most places, and prided myself on readjusting my time accurately to accomodate traffic delays in Bombay.
· I was superstitious of about it raining every year on my birthday. If it didn't happen (and I can't recall a single year in India that it didn't), it probably wouldn't be a good year. Given that my birthday is in July, it would almost always happen in Bombay. There would at least be a very small drizzle. If I go by what happens in the US, I have been having six bad years in a row :-)
· Oh, and taking a cue from Aparna, here's an interesting one. My board exams: physics I paper. At the fag end of the two hour time, I went up to the supervisor to get a supplement sheet. When I got back, my main paper was missing!!!! Turns out I forgot to put a weight on it and it had flown. I traced my eyes upto the window. There it was, hanging gingerly on the grill, just a few inches between it flying out and my entire career down the drain. I just smiled, took ten steps to the window, took the paper, sat down and finished what I was doing. Result was 39/40 and the weirdness was that I didn't panic.
· I have vivid and detailed memories of the cricket matches I have played. With my brother in Surat in summer vacations, to my school games to the current matches I play in Seattle. I remember specific shots I have played, wickets I have taken, catches I have caught (and dropped), my scores and how I got out. While on the subject, I am always playing shadow cricket in the house (you know, no bat, no ball, no ground, no players ... just actions)

Death Knell

The procession streamed out
Men bound by a collective sorrow
Some lashed out in anger
Some slouched their shoulders having abandoned
The will to talk, the will to reason

Could it be perhaps that
life had been altered thus?
The sun would join in protest
The stars would turn off their lights

Could it be perhaps that
Apocalypse has come soon?
The world shattering to pieces
Shaken to its core
By the following five seconds of mayhem?

The middle of three wooden sticks
With two twigs completing a perfect house
Shattered by a vicious demon hurling
A cannonball of leather
And dashing thus, the hopes of a nation?

Revverie

The city deconstructed and reconstructed itself around his bike. It was as if he was flowing through a viscous fluid, cutting a straight line across the forces that were trying to hold him back. They ultimately lost, those silly molecules. Rearranging themselves around him, they paid obeisance by shaping a green outline around his form. The lights danced celebrating his speed, the life in those molecules turned around to look at their hero as if watching a ticker parade.

This was his day. He was Iceman and Maverick rolled into one. Beneath his helmet, the wind whispered the secrets of the stratosphere to him. Iron and steel and fuel were needed to be privy to those words. The common people, who trudged at the speed of snails could never aspire to that knowledge. Not everyone can have a conversation with the wind. The wind will hear you, if you can talk at its frequency.

Today he reached it. He found that perfect pitch, that audible tone. Thrust into that realm by the engine of his Kawasaki, he felt nature coming together to fill in his loneliness. An invisible hand guided his progress out of the city. Beyond the mundane, beyond the static, beyond the teeming masses. He watched the world move around him, rotating in its own turmoil, as he felt an odd sense of detachment creep in. At 180 miles per hour, he found stillness.

P.S> A colleague of mine recently bought a bike. This was inspired by his acquisition. I never had a bike and probably never will. That shouldn’t stop me from writing about it, should it?
P.P.S> I beat the bridge.

Life's A Sneeze

Oh ignominy, oh humiliation
A sorry little sight to behold
Of all conspiracies to bring me down
The one that worked is common cold?

P.S> I have contracted the popular sore throat, body ache, fever, cold 'viral' going around, and its irritating to the core. Especially when the 5 mile beat-the-bridge race is due this Sunday.
P.P.S> Given that the thought process is too blocked to allow creative writing, I'll just wait for the mucus to settle.

A Writer As A Muse

An orphaned idea
Clothed with words
A look of confused confidence
I search for a title

Puns lined up
Witticisms ready to launch
Twist after twist itching away
A touch that will elicit a tear
A lyric waiting to flow
Am I trapped in my own clichés?

The joy of creation
And the art of savoring it
Is heightened when consumed
And consumed it is
As I watch the words disappear
The backspace key leaves no traces

I reread it for the fortieth time
And smile to myself in disbelief
And appreciation for the chord it touches
Oh this is the perfect poem
Why of why wasn’t it written by me!

Five lines
Twelve words
One image
An audience captured
A poet triumphs

I am a Cling-on

With the immigration debate heating up in the country, being labeled an alien has never rung more truly in the United States. Given that Uncle Sam thinks I am an alien, and Uncle Sam is always right, what kind of an alien must I be? Should I own to up my actual entity and risk my green card process being damaged? I might as well.

With due apologies to all Star Trek fans, I am a Cling-on. Cling-ons are a rare species (or rarified when it comes to hair). Characterized by their ability to hold on to things they hold dear, cling-ons walk among humans in an indistinguishable fashion. Why, you may meet me and think I am an ordinary software engineer who did his engineering in India and a Masters in the US. One among the millions. Its just a guise, but the government is smarter than I thought. Its after us, and I might as well reveal the faces behind the masks.

Cling-ons are characterized by these traits and their tendency to hold on to them.
· Old memories
· Junk food
· Movies, everything from Ramsay to Ramu
· Loyalties to sportspersons
· Refusal to work
· Bad hand-writing
· Cricket
· Music

The list goes on, but I must take time out to reveal the main secret. The blog too has been a masquerade. The blog is used to reach other cling-ons in hiding. Are you one? If not, what kind of alien are you? If yes, what do you hold onto? Come out with your answers and trek with the stars.

All Things Considered

One of the books that I am currently reading is ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma. I picked up the book in India solely because it was recommended to me by someone and the fact that it was cheap. The thrill of buying a book at the Four Bungalows traffic signal for about a third of the cost of the original book while sitting in a rickshaw waiting for light to go green is unique. Hey, don’t blame me. I compensated by buying a hard bound copy of ‘Maximum City’. While I am not exactly wasting away in a mid-life crisis, I could completely identify with the talk of utilizing the potential that the author touched upon. It is true (and I am feeling it more often nowadays than ever before) that we tap only a limited amount of our potential. Take writing for example. I have this blog, I have lovely readers and I like to write. And write I do, the unspoken word, in my mind. For every one article that you see on this site, there are ten that I have started and left incomplete in my imagination. Potential wasted, lots of it. If I look at my blog, the last two posts were written totally spur of the moment. I started typing without a clearly direction and five minutes later I had posted something on the site. While spontaneity is a good thing at times, there is no way my writing will go places (wouldn’t it be nice?) unless I have the discipline for it. I guess this is a lecture more for my own good than yours. Perhaps, writing this out and reading it on my own blog might prompt me to take action on my plans. While I am at it, do I really need a topic to write about? Why can’t I just jot down the few things on the top of my mind. So, here goes.

I don’t mix work with blogging pleasure. That was something I decided a while back and I have stuck to it largely. Here’s an exception. We released the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 yesterday. It has been a great product to work on and the results are rewarding. We are still a little while from releasing the final product, but this product does kick ass. If you are an XP user, you can give this a spin. You can find it here. If you are a Firefox user (for eg. a very close family member), I would definitely encourage you to try this. We are here to win you over. When you use it, do remember. My tears, sweat and seeds of carpal tunnel are all within the product.

Sachin Tendulkar turned 33. There hasn’t been a single sportsperson who has evoked such emotion in me as God has. I am among the worshipping hordes, and I don’t care if I am the last one left on the planet by the time he is done. Loyalty means not abandoning your hero when is suffering. I despise the ungrateful souls who do. You can have the dependability of Dravid or the vicious batting of Ponting or the flourish of Lara, but one shot, one cover drive, one cut, one flick is all it takes to feel the perfection. You need a sense of aesthetic to understand this. You just feel genius, you don’t dissect it. The straight drive six that he hit of Kasprowicz in Sharjah is beyond the realm of mortals. Today, while he struggles, I wait patiently, as do his other fans. It is weird but his failures become our failures, just as his successes were worn on our shoulders by us. God is testing us by being human, and we are just being the ordinary humans that we are.

As the controversy about the Harvard sophomore Kaavya Vishwanathan simmers, my question is fundamentally about the kind of novel she is writing. What is chic-lit? Is it chick-lit misspelt? Reading about her did open my eyes to a few things happening out there. People spend upto $30,000 on agencies that prep your application for the Ivy league schools. That’s incredible. I guess merit can get you only as far. On the controversy itself: what was she thinking? Copy and say sorry? How can you expect people not to notice? By sheer probability someone is bound to notice, right? Unless she didn’t expect anyone to read her book. Things they don’t teach at Harvard, eh? I guess I am being a little harsh. Perhaps, it was unintentional all along. I haven’t read either book (or will be reading it) to decide. Will wait for the media to tell me how this story goes.

The music scene this year has been very bad. Barring RDB, there has been no album worth its salt. I heard Fanaa and I was a tad disappointed. Given that this was supposed to be Jatin-Lalit’s last work together and it was a Chopra production with Aamir-Kajol, I was expecting a scintillating score. Perhaps, my expectations laid me down. Don’t get wrong. The songs are still melodious, but not all. ‘Chaand Sifarish’ is good, but as a friend suggested, Udit would have been a better choice as a singer. ‘Dekho Na’ and ‘Mere Haath’ will grow over time, but that’s about it. Likeable, but not extraordinary. In the meanwhile, ‘Himess’ comes up with the irritating ‘A-a-aashiqui mein meri...' from China Town. My friend who just returned from India said that you can only hear Himesh wherever you go. He has managed to come up with a consistent string of hits, so I guess that’s bound to happen. One song you can like: ‘Bambai Nagariya’ by Bhappi Da from ‘Taxi no. 9211’. He has sung it superbly in his inimitable style.

Oh well. Enough for now. Will try and come up with a longer short story soon. I tend to finish mine in a paragraph. Till that happens, enjoy the five minute outbursts of creativity.

Betrayal of the muse

A fluttering letter on the desk
Edging to fly out
Held together by the will
Of an ugly letter-head

A heart of stone
Chipped at the sides
And black as the night
Barely holds his weak resolve

He pauses, looks down and pulls the paper
And tears it as the stone falls down
The heart breaks into a million pieces
His tenth attempt at a poetry submission

Hook, Line and Stinker

"I am out of change", pleaded our protagonist and decided to disembark ten miles before his stop. The driver gave little of the sympathy he himself got and got ready to close the doors
like everyone did on him. "Here, take this", cooed our mellifluous heroine. Quarters quivered in her hand like the smile on her lips. Gladly, he paid the driver. And then repaid, with a frown for the driver and a smile for the girl, followed by a solemn promise to return the money. She smiled again and fell on him as the driver braked hard, perhaps in revenge? To pay his first installment, he turned on the charm offensive. Blushing, smiling, entrenched: the girl seemed to have given her heart for a few quarters. Ten miles came too soon. He got off the bus waving his hand at our exiting heroine. She gave him a smile that made his heart skip. He smiled and looked again at the paper with her number. And then, she made his heart skip again. Twice in two seconds. His hands fumbled as he searched his pockets for his missing wallet.

MaraThorn

Men were born to run. Actually chase. I am being very gender specific here. We are good at it. We chase skirts, sarees, remarkably, all of feminine couture that humanity has conjured thus far. It seems we need a sense of purpose. Put us in a shopping mall in an effort to buy something that has not yet been spelt out clearly and we are lost. We tire in a short time, headaches spring up out of nowhere, feet ache and the body simply sends signals that are so apparent it can get the owner in trouble. Put us on a golf course and we can spend all day walking around trying to put tiny balls into eighteen tiny pockets on a vast lush green pasture.

Nonetheless, I digress. I am not delving deep into generalizations. Back to the point of the post, if there is one. Men were born to run. Someone needed to have knocked that into my head early. My gym philosophy has been blogged about before. Treadmills are difficult creatures to tread. By virtue of excuses that no one really asked for, I would escape the boredom of stepping in the same place repeated number of times. But the sense of purpose finally appeared. I am training for Beat The Bridge. I’ll be participating for the 5 mile run. The beating the bridge part is interesting. There is a draw bridge 20 minutes from the start of the race. You have to finish that distance within twenty minutes or else the bridge is drawn and you are out of the race. That’s the first challenge. The second is completing the other three miles.

My wife and I started training for this a month back. Given that my running was limited to 0.6 miles (0.2 walk+0.6 run+0.2 walk) before, it was fun to build up in small increments. Of course, the presence of a more committed spouse serves as good motivation. Last Saturday, I managed to run 5 miles at a stretch. It was a thrilling achievement. The lazy bones in my body tell me, once is enough, let’s try it again on the day of the race in May J Of course, that’s not a great idea. Turns out peaking so soon is not a great idea either. You should apparently build up to that distance.

Nonetheless, this is a great idea for anyone looking to induce a degree of regularity in their gyming and like me, look for a really good reason to maintain that rhythm, you should look to something like this. Of course, there’s the marathon or MaraThorn as I would like to call it. It’s an insurmountable length. A big challenge. A couple of friends are training for the half marathon, a mere matter of 13 miles while some others will run the full 26 mile stretch. As my paining knees (yes, something wrong with my technique) and generally exhausted body feel after five miles, the other eight or twenty-one seem a stretch. Not that I am planning on running either of the two. But hey, a month back, had someone told me I’d be running five miles, all eight kilometers (or close) within fifty minutes, I’d have told him to go take a hike. Or a run.

Telegram for my readers

Consumed by work. Exorcism underway. Promise great reads shortly.