Better Half or the Better One?

They call it the better half, they call it the significant half. I have a problem with it. I'm not a half, neither is it. "It" - because, it can be a she or a he. I don't want to offend anyone. Now, if it is also offensive, then it better not be.

I haven't lived with anyone ever, but since the unforeseen catastrophe of colliding planets, I have been asked to live with my other one. The other one, as we know comes from Mars, and I come from Venus, apparently, but I feel like the other way around.

The other one exhibits some special characterstics, which have not been seen other other ones, like cleanliness. He is fanatic about it. I, being from a planet, that no one visits, am not so bothered about it. But the other one, Yes, oh my god! Anticipating those god foresaken visitors from Earth, who never come, wants everything to be spick and span.

The other one is also particular about time. Wants to go to the daily dungeon of destruction, on time. Me, on the other hand, work on a lazy evaluation process. Will not move until it is absolutely necassary.

The other one is also a little OCD, I'm ADD.

Its strange how species from different planets, are made to stay together. But come to think of it, do species of the same planet, get along? What if both are OCD? They will fight about the color of their curtains, the whole day.  What if both are ADD? Before you know it, they'll be living in a garbage dump.

Anyway, coming back to the other one and I. We have a plebiscite. While performing mundane duties of self-nourishment, we have a line of control. The other one and I do not interfere in each other's culinary chemistry experiments. The other one is a perfectionist, every time, his  experiments give same results - a deterministic approach, but I on the other hand, is always a probabilistic specimen - sometimes, ones, sometimes zeros, but mostly in between. The other one, also never says no to any experiment of mine, though I have to admit, I do disrupt his activities when I have a dislike.

The other one and I, have one thing in common. Adventure.He likes doing it. I just like word.
Before the planets collided, I told him the same, but the other one misunderstood, and look where we are.

Living with the other one, has taught me a lot about the other planet's culture, However, Its probably
the other one who seems to have learnt a lot more than I. The other one has to, if the other one, wants peace.

Be Indian, Do Western

Since the last time I wrote, there have been significant changes in my life. Like I have started preferring any font other than blogger default, I have acquired significant taste in UI design which was making me hate how this blog looked so I changed it, and also, I got married.

Anyway, my rant today will have nothing to do with any of those topics (Boy! Am I loving this font!) I am breaking my blog-fast due to an immensely important event that happened recently.

Yesterday, I went to the mall. Yes, the same place where every Bangalorean goes to brush, bathe, eat, shit, and sleep every weekend. Since, we are on this topic, let me show you through this illustration below, the conversation that happens in every IT ridden household lying within 50km of Bangalore's radius. Can anyone actually point out to me where Bangalore's center lies? I hear its called Whitefield nowadays.

If you're wondering, I did pick up this meme-skill when I went on the Blog-fast. Thank you.

Anyway, my point of contention today is none of the above. When I was there, someone called. No not any of my f(r)iends, I have none left. It was nature. 

Since it was a sunday, and as pointed earlier, every one out of one and a half bangaloreans were there (The halves were left at home, with either moms or MILs), a huge queue had resulted in the holy abode. The call was stern, and being an Indian, my primary instinct was to jugaadify myself to the front. Of course, being un-talented also falls into the equation, and I could get no further. 

I peeped amidst the heaving bellies, and the heavy bottoms to find light at the end of the tunnel. There were seemingly four doors at the end of the queue which no one wanted to enter. It was a pre-republic day miracle. I rushed to the front to see what's happening, and there in bold letters, it was written, the two words that makes any modest appetite-d Indian lady's every bone, back and bladder shudder -  INDIAN STYLE

No one, I mean no one wanted to enter it, but I did. Women looked at me like "Mein baith ke tatti nahi karti" was engraved on my forehead. It was brutal. Once I completed my duties, I ran from the judging stares and resumed my thoughts.  

Why wouldn't people want to go there? WHY?

There can be 3 reasons:

• They are westerners disguised as Indians
• They are struck by an osteoarthritis epidemic (Apparently, even teens were affected)
• They watched the Govt. of India sponsored wash-united.org's video on open defecation 

I go with the third option. Yes, like everything else that's happening, it's definitely the government's fault. Look at the ad (0:22 to 0:24) where a guy who definitely looks IT, defecating by SQUATTING abominably. Of course, we shouldn't do that. We promote Swacch Bharath, so we'll SIT and Shit.

My god! What have I done? So un-patriotic of me. I used the Indian style. Please accept this public apology.

Happy Republic Day! Be Indian, Do Western.

On a completely unrelated side note: Here's a health tip - http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/06/01/benefits-squats.aspx

Running Late - The only kind of running I'm good at

So I thought I could run. I mean not run away from all the work that I have. I can do that. I'm doing it right now. But I actually thought I could run. So when there was a 5k marathon, and people all around the place were registering for it, I thought why not? I started practicing three months early, I downloaded Runkeeper,  I strolled on the treadmill, I frolicked in Lalbagh. I mean I really tried hard. I even bought a pair of running shorts.

It all started one crazy day when I had too much on my plate and whatever people said to me was going over the head. Does it happen to you? I think so. I can understand the mindset of people who read my posts. We are all the same. Confused, bored to death, and having attention deficit disorders. So anyway, where was I? Yeah, crazy day. So on this crazy day, somebody says to me. Hey..there's a 5K marathon..Everyone's going. Why don't you come? I do this thing where I involuntarily nod when I am not listening and people keep talking. I did just that. OVER! It was too late. My name was registered. And then bam! I couldn't do nothing about it. So I thought I'd practice. That's when I downloaded Runkeeper. You should download it too. It's a good app. I mean if you actually run. If you are like me, it just drains out your battery and you don't realise until you are stuck in the rain and can't call anyone to come pick you up. Yeah, this is what I went through.

Anyway I did all I could. I put all my heart into practicing. Heart, yes. Head, yes. Legs, No. Big Bum. Hell no. But still, I tried. I ran at a pace that would put any Kenyan to shame. I mean, fat kenyans. I told myself, I'm only like seven times slower than Usain Bolt. That's a good thing right?

The fateful day arrived and my name was called. Not my name exactly, they just blew the whistle. I
exaggerate things, so bear with me. With my head and butt in two opposite trajectories, I started running. My slightly overweight friend(I'm being polite here) with whom I had made an agreement to walk with me started running. Backstabbed! Still, I held my head high. Everyone overtook me. I was not disappointed. I was thinking of the hare and tortoise story. Didn't we learn Slow and steady wins the race? Apparently not.

So I ran. I ran like the wind. There was no wind. I ran and I ran, and I was breathless. I was tired. I was close to a heartburn. And yet, I didn't give up. I had read about runner's spirit somewhere. Is this what it is, I thought. I was glad. I was ecstatic. My whole body was pleading me to give up, but my mind said otherwise.  I turned around like Milkha did in Olympics to see where I was. And there I was, a measly hundred metre away from the line. I couldn't give up now. I was only 4900 metres away. That's when I realised. I said to myself. It was enlightenment. I told myself. Fuck the rest. I am going to walk.

And then it was glorious. I walked in the 5K run which seemed like a marathon to me

Only two people behind me.

One asthmatic aunty. Whoever said diseases are bad for one's morale. She sure boosted mine.
Another babe in a velvet jacket. Thank god for the jacket, she kept me company.

That's when I decided that running 'late' for things is the only running I'm good at.

Photo credits: http://www.ithoughttheysaidrum.com/category/training/

To write or not to write?

I shudder at the thought of having to type a few words these days.

The high point of this whole quarter's writing has been an official mail I composed late yesterday night. That is when I realized my writing has gone from manageable to garbage-disposable. In a paragraph of six sentences, I must have used the word 'Just' just sixteen times which was okay until I realised that I used 'Basically' twice in a seven word sentence. So basically, it was a wake up call in the midst of sleep-reading the crap I had written. (Wait. Did I do that again?) It made me realise what I was missing. The frantic finger-hops on the keyboard, the hurried reading, the publishing and republishing of the blog just because of twenty spelling errors, thirty unnecessary commas and countless omissions of prepositions and conjunctions. The crazy cycle has been missed.

Its not like I was not trying. I did. I swear. I have at least five unpublished drafts. Okay, I agree two of them are blank, and one of them is akin to a digital signal. But still, I tried. I even published a few spam comments, so that I'd be inspired by their relentless encouragement. There was one that said, "Hey I loved your informative post. I was wondering if you'd like to buy bathroom accessories since your writing clearly reflects the lack of their existence in your life". Now, I do admit I sometimes skip a bath or two over the weekends but humiliating me publicly, it was just too unbearable. I had to do some snooping and before you go jumping all over the place pinching your nose, let me tell clarify  this was under a post I had written eliciting the finer nuances of 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' and I had put up a Shahrukh Khan image. ( Even I didn't know about his bathing habits till then, Shocking, isn't it? ) Now do you know why the comment sprung up? I think that ought to put you in your place. So anyway, there was  not much enthusiasm forthcoming due to such insanely relevant comments. I didn't know what to do, I still don't.

Then I thought that maybe this is what they call 'A Writer's Block', and I'd read for a while, but between stealing temple junk and running away from vampire-like monsters, I couldn't spare much time. I didn't even read the newspaper. I neither knew that there was a massive flood that happened in Bangladesh, nor about the Maoist attack on some politicians. Now don't start brandishing me if I know that Srinivasan guy is not quitting BCCI. Its just that I get Times Of India at home. You see it screams out all the news that's worthy of being made into a Bollywood movie in the near future while holding back all the other unwanted stuff. It screams, trust me, and there's also some shrill cat-weeping like background music that accompanies it.  It seems they are following what is called a 'Ram Gopal Varma' news model. Anyway, it is unrelated to my writing which was what I was writing about.

This not-writing thing. It is really driving me crazy. I do shudder at the thought of typing a few words these days. Or maybe it is just the AC. Who knows?

Hell, Thy name is Whitefield

Once on a bright, sunny, jobless afternoon in  my erstwhile place of vocation, a young boy filled with posthumous enthusiasm told me something that I'll never forget. With a look of betrayal in his eyes and defeat in his voice, he told me, "You know? When I attended this job interview in Delhi, They told me the office was located in Whitefield, Bangalore. Suddenly, this song started playing in my head, Fields of Gold.  At that moment, I knew I had to be here. Do you know that song?" He asked me. I just nodded faintly remembering the Sting song was loaded in the wrong format in music player, the one that never played. "Anyway,", he continued, "I had a vision of this wonderful place with European facades and a lot of greenery. Do you know what I think now?" I knew. I had been thinking the same thing since I had landed there two whole years before he came. I looked at him, patted his back and asked him to kindly shut the fuck up and eat his lunch.

As human beings, we have this eternal urge to be stupid. We think we can do anything and we are heroes and things happen for a reason. I read somewhere that the reason most things happen is because we are so incorrigibly stupid. Imagine the catastrophe if this were true. Guess what, it is. Ask anyone who travels to Whitefield. Because, there is no reason on Earth that would compel a sane, "almost living" being to make this choice. And yet, we choose it. And we cry and cry and cry.

We cry a little when we look out into the vast expanse of the road. Except that it is not a road, but the rooftops of all the contraptions that were made to move. We just cry a little then. We cry some more when an overweight, insensitive buttock wants to make our right thigh its resting place. And then, slowly one little teardrop starts drifting from the left eye when the bus driver wants to play the latest melodious song that Uppi dada has danced to. Don't get me wrong. We are strong. We just cry a little when things like this happen. And some insufferable hours later, thanks to the one of the greatest revolutions of all times, the Earth's rotation, and Indian labor laws, we are "free" to go home. Only some of us, mind you. Anyway, with hope in our eyes and a sprint in our steps, we drag ourselves to the bus, and then...then, the same things that happened in the morning, they happen all over again with the addition of a throbbing headache.Still, we stay strong. Because we believe in Kelly Clarkson when she says what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, even though we know its killing us, a little. By the way, we play that song on our player, just to drown out Uppi dada's song. That's how the headache started in the first place. Both the songs, I mean.

And finally, we reach home. Almost at the same time when the earth is contemplating another rotation. We try to sleep and we have dreams, dreams that are a contrived combination of weekend movies and idle hallucinations, We dream of our Managers as Gabbars, and somewhere their faint spineless voices whispering.. "yaha se pachas  pachas kos door Bangalore me jab Software Engineer raat ko rota hai to maa kahti hai beta soja ..soja nahi to subah ho jayega, phir se whitefield jana hoga" and thats when we cry a river, just like Justin Timberlake asked us to.

Oh you people, you laugh. You heartless, soulless people. You laugh like Mogambo whilst I sit here on my cushionless seat, and pushbackless headrest, massage my knee, and pretend to sleep.

Yours (Almost) Dead-ly,
A Sad Little Software Engineer

PS: This post is dedicated to my friend Priya. Even though she is not a software engineer, she is of the kind that pretends to protect them. What a joke, I tell her.
To my brother Karthik and his stomach that has increased its circumference by atleast 10 cm in the past year.
And also to all my friends, who cry with them.
And to me for, once upon a time I was one of them too.

Office and a little Blah

I'm totally totally dazed. Its three in the afternoon and all I can do is stare at the screen expecting it to explode anytime. If that happens, I'll call it the most eventful workday in almost 290 days now. Don't ask me what I did 290 days ago, I'm pretty sure I was sitting in front of another computer screen waiting for it to turn into a genie or something.

It amazes me how I can do this every single day. Just sit, and do something which in the entire scheme of the universe is just a bloody waste of energy. What do I do? Some idealists may say, I'm helping a business understand their shortcomings. Let me tell you one thing, the only shorts or comings I know are the ones that can never be used in the same sentence. So much for helping others! Its all just a scam. All I know is that, I have a laptop and an unblocked internet connection, and yet, I cease to be amazed by this intriguing web of interlinked shit. Maybe I'm growing old, who knows? or maybe I just need a holiday.

You know? Even holidays in between weeks are spoiled by this mind numbing everyday romp. When I do take a rare off day, I keep thinking what should I do when I don't have a computer screen to stare at? Has it ever happened to you or is it just me? So, I stare at the TV. I'm also used to just nodding my head at every airbag that talks to me, and I follow the same principle at home. My mother is not amused when I don't turn off the stove like I agreed to. If I had a penny for all the things I'd done after nodding my head to, I'd have like 3 pennies, so its not my fault.

I know I haven't been updating my blog from a long time now, and I'll tell you precisely why. One guy I was talking to last week told me that he will never change his profile picture on facebook, as it had got 200 odd likes, and he's scared that his new picture wont get any. Maybe, that's why even I'm not writing. Some social acceptance phobia or something, who knows? I know this has nothing to do with what I was talking about, but I'm dazed, I already told.

Speaking of Facebook, I have an amazing 3G connection on my phone. Idea. I pay for 3g, It shows 2G symbol on screen, and I get half G speed. Truly an amazing Idea. So anyway, I'm now staring at the mobile screen right now, waiting for some inane pic to load. Incredibly busy. So go now.

Of Rapes, New Year Resolutions and My Behavior

Last year was for experimentation. What did I experiment with? That's so last year. I forgot.

Well, this year, I'm thinking I'll keep it for working on my behavior and changing my life according to the whims of our politicians' kin, near and far. I have been hearing a lot of sensible advice coming in from stalwarts like the President's son himself, I think I need to pay some heed. I mean, after all, its the sons of Presidents, grandsons of MPs, maid servants of MLAs, and well whaddaya know sometimes, the politicians themselves who are the knowledge banks of this country. Anyway, I have decided I'm gonna listen to them.

Like all other intelligent people in this country, I came to the conclusion that it was the woman's fault. How dare she go sauntering out in the middle of the night when she was supposed to be holed up in her house, preferably hidden inside a cupboard, locked safely and the key hidden under her father/husband/driver's pillow. I have heard from responsible sources, that that's the safest place to hide all your things. Instead of that, she goes strutting around town. How dare she? I, for one, have emptied a cupboard in my house, Ala Harry Potter.

On the other hand, I read something about babies being molested. Well, lets just say, we'll get drawers under the cupboards.

So, then I got thinking what if I wanted to go out? Like, for indispensable reasons like say, some male member of my family urgently needs a laxative, I mean I can't ignore him, can I? I got thinking, and I called up the recently formed, "Society for the safety of women, painted/dented/plastered/tattooed/untattooed/cow worshipping....." Actually, the name took up half my telephone directory. For all those who don't know what a telephone directory means, It's the book that gets you the highest amount of money from your Raddiwala. For other explanations, try googling. Anyway, I called them up, and this is the conversation I had with them,

"Hello, is this the "Society for the safety of painted/plastered...""

"Actually, we like to call ourselves The Sissies"

"But that doesn't make sense"

"We are not here to make sense, we are here to safeguard"

"Okay..Listen I have a problem. One of the male members of my family has come down with a bad case of tummy telebellies. So I need to go out and buy some gelusil, can you please tell me the dress code?"

"Oh my god! Okay okay, the safety of males is our utmost priority. Wear a 20 yard saree"

"What? How shall I wear it?"

"Ask Mummy"

"But my Mummy wears a 6 yard saree!"

"Not your Mummy, silly! The Egyptian Mummy"

He hung up laughing. I think it was Austin Powers who answered the call.

So, I tied up my 20 yard saree after taking a crash course on "Fashion tips from Cleopatra's Corpse", and went jumping towards the medical shop. Are you picturing the sack race now? You'd better. It was 12 'o clock in the night, and I didn't have a male counterpart with me. Yet, I felt confident, I had listened to every insanely sensible soul in the country, even though I couldn't follow much of what Arnab Goswami was yelling, but still, there was a quiet confidence in me. The air was peaceful, the environment eerie, and in the horizon, I could predictably see a gang of rapists. I wanted to say hi to them, since you know there's nothing to provoke them anymore. I used my own amazing brain and gave some extra touches, wore my grandfather's MGR glasses on so that they won't be aroused by my eyes. They looked right out of a B-grade Bollywood movie, I just hopped on past. They were wickedly laughing, and suddenly they stopped. It was all silent again, the air was peaceful, the environment eerie, and in the horizon, I think I could hear somebody scream, "Bhooth! Bhooth!!" and then they all ran away. Well, so their advice does work, doesn't it? Lets all wear our Bandaid Mummy Sarees and pretend to be Bhooths to escape rape, molestation, eve-teasing, clear vision, and suntanning. What an ingenious idea! That ought to teach 'em a lesson.

Anyway, this story just took away from my original topic. My plans for the New Year. Like I said, this year I'm just gonna work on my behavior. Looks like, its working.

And my dog's diarrhoea? it can just wait.

DISCLAIMER:  Some may think I'm poking fun at one of the most heinous crimes in the recent past, some may think that I'm poking fun at all the misogynistic politicians of this country. Well, all I can say is if you are smart enough, you'll know which one is right.

Kab Tak Hai Jaan?

So people have raved and ranted about Jab tak hai Jaan. They watched, some laughed, some cried, some laughed hysterically at their own plight while some cried hard in despair. And I was the one who sat between them and was trying to teleport the hour hand on my watch. Can you blame me? I was sitting in the second row and looking at Shahrukh Khan's god-knows-when-you-last-brushed-me teeth staring down right at me. It was a tobacco stained nightmare.

Anyway don't ask me what happened in the beginning because I was deliberately ten minutes late to the theatre. Excuse me, if I thought that snacking was a better option than watching Shahrukh show off his first name on his army tag. So I take my overpriced popcorn and strut into the hall. Apparently it doesn't seem like I missed much, and also, I didn't catch much after that what with my constant involuntary eye rolling. I think I saw the ceiling more than the movie. All I remember in the first half is Shahrukh Khan aka Samar, give   guitar lessons without using his left hand. Chords?? Who the f needs them? I'm Shahrukh, I'm 25 and I can do anything! London, London, Dhandhan. Anyway the song sounded a lot like "Bulla ki Jaana" and before I could scream bloody plagiarism, my mummy reminded me that this song was also sung by Rabbi Shergill, Okay, so should I forgive him for that? She said ya, and went on to explain that "If Yash Chopra can mash up his own movies and come up with this Kayam Churn of a movie called Jab tak hai Jaan which not only took his Jaan and is in the process of taking ours, what is Rabbi's mistake? Bulla, Challa whatever! Shut up and Listen", she commanded. I wailed but then suddenly I saw Katrina (Meera, is it?) and Samar make a saudha of a lifetime, He'd teach her to sing Punjabi songs and she'd teach him english and I was suddenly engrossed in the suspense of a lifetime, Will they actually teach each other anything? will they discover wild secrets and try to blackmail each other? will they, wont they? After a half an hour of unwanted engagement ceremonies to royally forgotten Rogers, 50 yr birthday parties to 60 yr old Anupam Khers, suddenly planted bike rides to eloped mommy's and drunkard fat ass step daddy's house (Did anyone notice Kirron Kher's voice conveniently change to Neetu Kapoor's facade? Strange) while all the time listening to my mommy's comment, "Where's roger? Why isn't she going out with him? Roger Roger Roger!" in full hindi serial style. (I'm pretty sure even Roger's mother wasn't worried about Roger as much as my mother was ) After all this, I learn that all this bloody thing was a flash back and now this Samar is in the army and there is another character-in-hot-pants waiting to chew my brains out, Anushka Sharma as Yuck-heera. (I told you I missed the first part, go read Taran Adarsh's review if you are interested in the story. BTW, does anyone know how much Bollywood pays him to write all that crap?)

I think around this time, interval happened. Or was it later? My mind's just gone blank. I think its retrograde amnesia. I think its stuck at exactly ten minutes before watching that movie. Maybe I should ask somebody to pretend like the movie never happened. May be if I see my mother's face, that may trigger my memory.. Nah, I just saw her. Hey wait, there's a laptop in front of me, that reminds me of the screen, and voila! that reminds me of the movie, exactly the same way in which a backpack on a train reminded Samar with his unheralded X-ray vision to tell us the exact details of the bomb inside. Man, I remember everything now. If only, I had a male Katrina Kaif waiting for me.(If you are waiting for me and you look like Hritik Roshan, leave a comment below and wink, wink!) Okay, so this Meera is waiting for him, but before that, did I mention that there is a sugar-overdosed Akeera who goes to the Army to make a documentary about the "Man who cannot die, but can bore others to death" and get this, while the guy, Samar is busy deactivating the bomb upon which her lame documentary is based, she listens to the Ipod pointing her camera at some hillbillies who've come on the sets just to make it look fuller. Yeah, now I remember everything. She then sings some songs in her chaddies with her newly found Army buddies and makes a Discovery channel director cry after seeing this sorry ass documentary (I think she was worried about the future of the channel)
 and finally we get to know that the only reason she was in the movie, apart from obvious perks like enlightening us about the ingenious ways of Samar, the bombman+electrician
(Sorry, electronics genius!), was to make him come to London for a senseless reason so that he meets with the fateful accident which MAY (I'm stressing on may) make the movie come to an end. Apparently, not! Here comes another half an hour of kindergarten kisses, primary school love scenes and sad excuse of a Samar's kitchen. So, after going through all this and getting banged on the head by a tortured toddler in the backseat, I expect the story/drama/saga/charade  nothingness to be over in London, but No! this is a Yash Chopra movie, We have lots of money to spare and lots of taxes of evade so lets go back to Ladakh/Leh/wherever they have enough time to come up with a minimum of two ready-to-diffuse-bombs-for-Samar per day. So finally, this Katrina she comes to her senses, realises that people have to be sent home atleast now, and she heads to this bomb place and the bomb guy Samar retires and I doubt if they live happily ever after. I mean, with so many people cursing, I really don't know. Anyway, I ran out of the theatre as fast as I could.

By the way, did I mention the protagonist of this movie? Its Sir Jesus. Why? Go and watch. I shouldn't be the only sufferer

WARNING: You may get a serious case of Inferiority complex after listening to the achievements of the characters. Just remember that you were dumb enough to pay almost 200 bucks to watch this movie, that ought to make you feel worse! Wait, I think that came out wrong.

The Remote Control Wars

I haven't been writing this blog for a long time now. Whenever I start to write, I feel like I have lost my mojo. But of late, I have started thinking that I never had any to begin with, so why fear?

As I sit amidst intolerable high pitched cracker sounds, I cannot help but write about our favorite pastime in this festive season. You guessed it right, watching TV. Not crackers. Whenever a clueless soul like me is thrown the Top 1 ice-breaker/awkward situation filler question, "What are your hobbies?", right from preschool interviews to psychiatric sessions for sadists, the only answer we can come up with is, "Watching TV", followed by a lengthy pause, before adding some non-existent uber cool sounding antic like piano, or playwriting or skiing or cooking (Usually it means that we watch TV shows based on these things). It is one of the purest forms of entertainment where physically you are where you want to be, lying dead on the huge sofa, but mentally in the farthest corners of the world, some incomprehensible places like the sets of a vampish house of a faceless, relationless, meaningless family of more than hundred people spanning at least five generations headed by a deathless Baa, or some, more understandable like the congruous belly of a blue whale.

Watching TV, though always has been the ultimate giver of joy, comes with its own set of obstacles, just like those that keep Yash Chopra's lovers apart. Things like idiotic relatives, untimely powercuts, useless examinations, and most importantly, irritating siblings always will try and separate us, me and the TV. Is it the same with you? When we were younger, my brother and I never watched the same programs. Thankfully, my parents were prudent enough to get cable TV since its inception (We felt cricket commentary is better than drab dinner conversations), so there was always the tussle between Star TV and MTV, before that MTV and cartoon network and so on. When I first started watching Roadies/Friends/even Full house, my brother used to call out to my mother and complain that I'm watching some "BAD" things on TV. Now whenever he watches the same shows, I just laugh at him while he ignores me royally. But we had our rules, the remote belonged to the person who takes it first immediately after coming back from school, and it belongs to them until the point when they put it down, even accidentally. Such stringent clauses had made me carry the remote to unsightly places ranging from my neighborhood grocery shop, to the toilet.

And I'm pretty sure we were not the only psycho siblings to behave that way. I had a friend who did not have a remote control, instead they had another creative system. They had placed a chair in front of the TV. Whoever sits on the chair first, gets to control the TV and the rest are doomed to watch whatever the power hungry chairperson is watching. Wicked, it was.

Today, as I sat next to my brother while watching one of our two TVs, I was reminded of how we used to fight all the time for such silly things. Nowadays, we usually watch the same channel, and today the remote was in his hand. Everything was peaceful till the time he tried to change the channel during the ad break, I commanded him not to. You see, the remote was with me before I went to get a glass of water. We have revised the rules these days, and hence, the remote still belonged to me. Some things don't change, no matter how many TVs you buy or how many cellphones you fiddle with while NOT watching it or how old you grow.

Happy Diwali Everyone! Hope this Diwali brings you enough entertainment programs to keep you hooked! :)

PS: And ya, please keep the noise down, I'm trying to watch something here.

Conversations that "Lift" you up

The lift is a weird place. You stay there not longer than, say 3 minutes, i.e if either the building has a lot of floors, or the lift is broken. Usually, its because of both. Anyway, it comes in between conversations. You are talking in the lobby, in the middle of the most animated conversation ever. You are telling your friend about the insanest thing you ever heard. You just finished saying, "You know what my childhood neighbour's aunt's brother......" and then suddenly here is the lift. It opens and there is usually atleast one person more than its maximum weight capacity, and yet the liftman graciously lets you and your friend in. Now, the cycle just breaks. And so you go, and start whispering into her ear "You know what my childhood neighbour's aunt's brother......" and then the aunty in front of you, turns back and gives you a look that suggests, "Can you see this rock of a baby I'm carrying? If I could, I'd just pound you with it." You know she is hormonal and all, so you just forget it, and start counting the number of floors still to go. 

Then in the next floor, enters Manager uncle. And you thank your stars, because pregnant/slightly overweight aunty leaves. You again start in the same style, "You know whaaaaaaaaaaaaat". But wait, Manager uncle has to stop you midway. See his crony who is stuck to his butt has propped up to hear the great Manager's 007 type escapades around the world. So the hero in spotlight starts, "You know my fyavorite place is the Switzerland cow shed. I stayed there once when I had gone onsite for an assignment. My god! The weather, the cows, the smell. Just so amazing. And, also the treehouse they accaamadated me in my recent visit to the States." You cringe your nose at the "Larn English Ascent in 20 days" style of speaking, as the Headweight in shining armor, goes on with his story. "You asking me about India? Myan, I don't know much. I hyaven't stepped outside Bangalore" You are just about to lose it when another floor arrives. Manager boy doesn't get down, and this time a group of freshers arrive.

Now you just can't control and you have to tell her the story. You are crammed between three fat bench boys and two in-the-making-Bipasha's when you decide to try again "You knowwwww". That's when the freshers realise they didn't mark their attendance. All hell breaks loose. They remove their collective phones from their pockets and start calling up their friends asking them to mark proxy. Then the whole lift starts dancing to the tunes of "Chikni Chameli", "Sheela ki Jawani", "Burfi Murfi" and a paraphrenalia of shrill songs when suddenly they realise they called each other up. Ahem. So again, Madness. They start using the lift buttons as their personal mobile phones and tap every button on the board. Exactly at this moment, the first drop of tear just starts to drip down your left eye, but thankfully the liftman throws them out. You feel the atmosphere thinning. And yet, you have two more floors to go.

Well, this unfortunate floor also hosts the cafeteria and hence, there is another large stuffed-to-the-throat crew arriving, and you almost gasp for breath in the midst of the overbearing aromas, and with the last of the will that you can muster you just blurt out, "You know what my childhood neighbour's aunt's brother eloped with my milkman". Now, everybody just stops and looks at you because they obviously only heard, "Elope with my milkman", and they just stare and stare, and that's when you realise your friend got out of the lift two floors ago.

Now, for me the ordeal ended with this. But wait, it gets worse if you are a guy.

Two and a half movies - Mine!

Its been a long time. I need to make fun of somebody or something just to make me feel better. Its not that big a problem. I just watched Raaz 3 recently and Boy! Wasn't it scary!. For Bollywood's future. If Hindi cinema goes the same way, soon A grade movies will be B grade, C grade will be D grade and let me go ahead and recite the alphabet for you. I have never watched a horror movie in my life. I used to get scared listening to Aahat's theme music, and I was literally ROFLing in Raaz 3 initially. After a point, I simply wanted to ROF so that I could avoid watching Bipasha basu's awful dance moves. Who choreographed the movie? Usain Bolt's personal trainer?? And What's with Emraan Hashmi doing Karate with a ghost?? It was really scary.

A week passed, I forgot and forgave the movie like I always do. I'm a saint. Then came Barfi. Every damn ant was praising it on FB. Barfi is the best movie ever. Barfi is magical and shit like that. I thought what the hell and went to watch it. So, I was sitting in the theatre with my ultra large tub of overpriced damp popcorn on my lap, waiting to be blown away just like my fashionably chubby schoolmate Lakku Lakshmibai gasped on FB. It blew me away, she said. I figured it would literally take a lot to blow her away, and I'd be relatively easy. Oh! I was excited. Maybe it'd be another Dil Chahta Hai. I had waited ten years. Ten long years. I needed to be blown away. Please Bollywood, I thought. The movie started. And it ended. And I was right there. I just can't point out what's wrong with the movie. Yes Ranbir has acted well, Priyanka not so much, and Ileana looks like a dream. But can we make a movie out of a hundred perfect moments? Hmmm, Don't think so. I already know who's carrying home this year overrated filmfare award for best actor Male. Its Bipasha Basu for Raaz 3. So better luck next time, Ranbir.

Anyway, in the long hiatus I had taken from blogging, I made a short film. Since I make fun of every movie I watch, I give you guys the pleasure of ripping my movie apart. Go ahead.

PS: Pleease be kind, Please, please, I beg you..I'm crying, I swear

The Vacation that wasn't

It all started with an inception.

The idea was simple. A vacation, My mother and me. Seemed uncomplicated, didn't overplan, went to the same place we always go. My aunt's house, in Hassan, the great Devegowda's home turf.

Everything seemed simple, we packed our bags, hurtled into a Volvo, just in the nick of time. It all seemed so perfect. Even the three hours of watching an intolerable Puneet Rajkumar movie, didn't spoil my spirit. I was looking out of the window, with a smile on my face thinking of the my relaxed days in the huge expanse of their garden,

"Too much dust not there, I hope, construction and all happening know", my mom remarked. "Aiyo, Garden only not there now. So sad!" (Transliterating)

Oh shit, they tore down their garden! One down! hmm.. but still, I could lay down in one of their rooms and write away the story that's been haunting me for one whole week, I thought. Ahh! Peace, here I come.

We reached Hassan in three hours straight. I started recollecting the shady past when we used to travel for more than four and a half hours in the damn jatka gaadi type buses.  An auto dropped us to the place that'd be my getaway this quarter. I put down my bags and ran into the loo. When I was doing my business, I heard the sound of approaching anklets. I remembered the scene from the movie Chandramukhi when the ghost/heroine walks wearing anklets and scares the shit out of people. (Oh you didn't get scared? Don't overact now.) I laughed at my stupidity as I lifted the mug and poured the water, when I heard ambiguous noises, like gagagoogoo and other unmentionables. Oh! It must be Chintu, I thought. My eighteen month nephew, who I had gloriously forgotten in all my excitement. I hadn't seen him in six months. I jumped up and opened the door.

Too bad I didn't know, when I opened that door, I closed one more. The door to my peace.

Gagagoogoo continued the whole next day, coupled with, "thop thop thop thop thop", which literally means soap. The kid plays with thop the whole day, and expects you to play thop-thop with him. To put it lightly, I went mad. I told my mom that we were leaving the next day. And here I am, typing away on my laptop, at HOME, when I was supposed to be relaxing in my aunt's lawn!

Kids! I hate them.

I always thought I could tolerate kids, atleast others' kids, since they'd leave eventually. But I was the guest here, so I did the right thing. You know there's a saying, "Fish and guests stink in three days", but here it was the opposite, one of our hosts, my nephew started stinking in one hour, soosoosoosoo, he shouted, as he poured away on the carpet. That was the breaking point. I made it clear to my mom, I couldn't tolerate it a minute longer and dragged her off to a movie.

I came back to my cousin proudly narrating a story of how Chintu bit the dog's ear. I needed a good night's sleep to get over it.

I woke up the next day, today, that is, to Chintu's bangs on my loo door. I was sleepwalking till then. I avoided thinking of the next five hours we were going to spend there. My mom and I decided to go for a walk, and obviously Chintu had to join,to prevent him from creating a mini ruckus. He went inside the room, and came back looking like Junior Rajinikanth. He wore his yellow tweety cap, and multicolored sunglasses, and I couldn't help but laugh. I imagined the walk to be another looming catastrophe what with Rowdy Rathore-in-the-making accompanying us, but he just baffled me. He walked without making one small sound. Poor thing, I thought I was too hard on him. I bought him a "thop" to make up for all my nastiness. He was happier than, I think, even Aishwarya Rai was when she won that Miss World title of hers. All for a small Vim Bar.

But that didn't change anything on the peace front. It was too little, too late. I couldn't read anything, leave alone write. Chintu won in the end. He had his vacation in his own home, at my cost. He even used me as a bed to have his afternoon nap. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. God knows when I'll take my next vacation..Orei Chintu, enduku!

Lesson to be learnt: Approaching anklets always mean impending horror. How many B-grade horror movies have you watched! Still, you don't seem to understand. I guess my story will teach you a lesson.

So the next time, you hear the chiming chal chal chal of anklets, run far far away. It may be a Mohini Bhootha, Worse! It may be your eighteen month old nephew!

PS: If my cousin reads this, I will be dead. Please pray for my safety

Bol Bachchan - A horrifically tragic movie

Do not watch this movie. Period.

I implore you, I plead you, I warn you. Hell, I beg you in the name of humanity.

Okay, if you say your brain is slowly degenerating due to which you'll ignore my warning and still you want to watch it, Please read this tragic story before you go ahead.


If you are planning to laugh your guts out while watching Bol Bachchan, please carry a good joke book, or download a jokes app into your phone and keep reading it without paying heed to the horror unfolding on screen. No, you wont?  I'm telling you the movie will only make you cringe, make you wanna tighten your fists so hard that a clot will form in your nerve which will travel to your temples and explode there, your ears will resound and cause a shrieking headache. It took  twelve hours and a nutritious meal to rid myself of this ordeal. I do not want anyone else to undergo the same. Survivor's guilt, I'm helping you.

And so here I am, I will revisit the horror only to help someone in need. I know there are many hopeful victims, with stars in their eyes, and a smile on their innocent faces as they turn the newspaper and think, "3 and a half stars?..Hmmm, let me book tickets". This is for all of you.

The farce* starts with Asin delivering a dialogue, and the in the next minute you get to know that she is an art director for some benaami movie, upon which you start thinking, "Why the fuck was an art director delivering a dialogue??" Let me tell you, please stop thinking at this moment. I didn't do it, and look where I am! Anyway, the farce* continues, it takes more than fifteen minutes to actually make a layman and an einstein both wonder if its going to be a tragedy or an emotional drama or an action farce, but not even in the dark corners of your mind does the word comedy loom, and lo!

So coming back to the point, Muslim brother-sister duo, Abhishek and Asin end up in Ranakpur, and due to some unfathomably ridiculous circumstances have to pretend that they are Hindu, and in a stroke of genius, TV actor Krishna who should take my sincere advice should give up (over) acting altogether, tells squirrel brained Ajay Devgan that Abhishek's name is Abhishek Bachchan, and hence, the title. By the way, the farce unfolds with a farcical title track which seems like all three actors are having seizures in sherwanis and are stuck at "Bol Bachchan bol bachchan bol bachchan...".

It continues, you lose track of the number of Judwaa bhais and moms and doodhwalas, that you almost miss the entry of Prachi Desai in some weird pajamas, but five minutes later, you realise that the only reason she is in the movie is to promote the same weird pajamas, and try to make it a fashion statement, as your next seat waali says, "Wow! Don't her pajamas look good". I don't think she has as much screen time, as much blog-time I have given her. So, lets keep her aside.

The villain is a bloody fool, trying to kidnap Devgan's sis Prachi for no apparent reason. He can kill her at any goddamn time, for all we care. But no, he has to call up Ajay and inform him like a good bollywood villain always does and speed off in a new volvo bus. But behold, Ajay and Abhishek overtake him in a jiffy, take a U-turn and miraculously an engineering marvel in the form of a triangular nameplate appears, which is angled exactly to cause the jeep to slide in a trajectory that hits the glass of the bus, not high so that the jeep flies off never to be seen, not too low that it crunches below the bus wheels, but exactly at the centre of the glass. My god! If only the engineer had studied his heights and dimensions chapter properly, he wouldn't have to be assisting such shit movies.

All I can say is, Poor movie hall. I mean to play this movie, over and over again. Its just not fair, which in Ajay's world mean "Kaala". The movie hall would, if the movie hall could, shrink itself into oblivion like a black hole, and spew out this movie instead of absorbing it, with such force that it would travel miles and miles faster than the speed of light in the underground web of gutters and bathroom pipes and flush out with the greatest speed ever from the smelly confines of Rohit Shetty's potty, at the exact moment during which he crouches on it. And using the same physics of the jeep-bus collision, he is also propelled into Mars or any other speck on the universe that supports absolutely NO movie making infrastructure. Dude Rohit, just get lost. First Golmaal 1,2, 3 and now this? Die, Man, DIE!!

I have left out major horrendous details like the way Ajay Devgan says, "A brother in need is a sister indeed" and a gay Abhishek saying "Nadhindhinna". That Nadhindina, it still makes me shudder. Its for your own good, trust me. You want the details??!! You can't handle the details!

Mere Pitaji kaha kehte hai, "Don't desire something you haven't earned". I didn't listen to him and jumped like a jackass when I got free tickets to watch this movie. Now, I can't go back and erase the past, can I?

But as Abhishek Bachchan puts it, which may have been added as an afterthought for making this lame excuse of a movie, "Galti ki nahi jaati hai, but ho jaati hai!"

PS: It seems like Rohit wants the phrase "Bol Bachchan" to become a hot phrase. He keeps shoving it in our faces. Rohit, do you say "Inki Pinky Ponky, father had a donkey??" No?? Then even we won't say Bol Bachchan kardiya, its more embarrassing.

*FARCE= MOVIE

To Holly Wood, With Love

Recently I made a new penpal in America. I know some of you don't even know what penpals mean, but I guess you have google to explain. Here's a copy of the first letter I posted.

Dear Holly Wood,

I hope you are doing well. I know you have been awfully busy trying to come up with all sorts of movies, and I understood from your last letter that you are feeling extraordinarily stressed out with superhuman expectations. Hmm, I don't know how that feels. Why don't you shut down for sometime?

Anyway, I was flicking channels two days ago, and the movie "Signs" was playing. The scene had a TV showing news and a shot saying "Bangalore" cropped up. I can't congratulate you enough on the spot on realistic portrayal of my city you have given. Bravo!

Since you are so interested in my life. I thought I'll explain to you a few nuances of Indian life. So grab yourself a beer, lie down on your sofa and place this on your potbelly. Its a looong letter.

I wake up everyday, wear my Kachche saree, fight with my Dad who is an orthodox villian, and go to office on a Bullock cart in a filthy road, on which there are atleast ten cows, fifteen hawkers, twenty pigeons, rainbow colored hoardings, enough sunlight to make a thousand papads in two hours.

I come from a long line of snake charmer male ancestors and tightrope walking female ancestors, and a monkey eating, skeleton garland flaunting Great grandfather, you know the same guy Indiana Jones was ranting about, but sadly these days my family is increasingly orienting itself towards selling your friends toilet paper and helping your illiterate aunts and uncles how to restart computers. My cousins Guttu, Pintu, Chotu and Ritu work in a call centre, because their families are so big that cannot fit into their thatched roofed homes, and they are the only earning members.

Speaking of family, I also have an uncle who wears a turban, and an aunt who covers her head with a saree. I have relatives in the US who have grocery stores in Springfield, and are called "Apu" for convenience. And I have to stress on the fact that they have a dozen kids, because you know that's what we do, that's why our land is so over populated and these kids also have to spell very well, because you see the next spelling bee is just around the corner, and of course, that's the only sport we are encouraged to participate in.

My relatives indulge in garish weddings which are definitely not tastefully done, and most often, I wear a loose uncoordinated Salwar Kameez, and dress up my face like some idiot. We also break into impromptu jigs at any time of the day, owing to our overt inspiration by "Baallywood" movies.


We are all decently brown, not so fair that someone mistakes us for Americans and so dark that people think we are African. I know how you play your foolish tricks and try to replace us with Brazilians, but except Bipasha Basu and Mallika Sherawat, none of us are quite okay with that. Try Chinese next time.

I also most certainly have a 'Guru' as apparently you think every Indian has a Guru. This Guru wears orange clothes, and keeps saying "Aum" very often and is acrobatically creative, so as to call all his monkey stunts various "Asanas". This Guru has a huge Ashram on the outskirts of the city, but going by the looks of "Bangalore", he has enough unploughed land in the heart of the city itself. Anyway, the point is this Ashram, where we all gather with our fellow westerners and pray in a cornucopia of ways hoping for world peace, whilst we throw in our money into one of the volunteers's gunny bags, is my second home.

We also read a lot. Ah Yes, you guessed it right! Kamasutra. It is the only book that we all read, write, practice and use as makeshift pillows. What the hell are Mahabharata, and Ramayana, they are just ripped off from the Game of thrones! But Kamasutra, its definitely a book found on every Indian bookshelf.

I also have a weird accent, that sometimes compete with the Amazonian tribal accent for the funniest accent in the planet, that somewhat sounds like what comes out of Ajit's mouth when he suffers from loose motions. He won't be able to say Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabert then, he'd just say Raabert, you know more "fluidly".That's exactly how I speak


Now I'm a little thirsty. You know, I drink water from filthy wells of the neighbourhood, due to which I get cholera, and the best location to suffer from diseases is either Mumbai or Calcutta, because of Dharavi and Mother Teresa precisely in that order. If I go there I'd be treated by one of your amazing "Hulk"y doctors, but I should do it soon, before the Black widow takes him back.

Better make sure you write to me by next week, because you know, its time for my yearly vacation to Taj Mahal, and I try to spend most of the year there, so that it is convenient for you to know which country on Planet Earth you are talking about.

Now I'm going mad trying to grasp my own ridiculous personality. You see, its tiring living in a country where temperature is always hovering above 45 degrees.

I have to go now, Holly. You know I use open toilets, and I need to outrun all the other kids with the pumped up shits, so I'd better run, better run!

Heeheeheehee (No, I don't giggle like the lame girl that appeared on David Letterman, You do!)

B'bye!

PS:  Anyway, Holly Wood just give it up. You cannot capture the essence of an Indian in your atrocious typecasts. No not because we are so exotically different, its just because you are too lazy to care and a few among us, like Anil Kapoor and Mallika, are too pumped up to notice.

So just give up. We already have Bollywood, and TV soaps who clearly paint out our lives in the most insane ways possible, we don't need you.

The family that calls together, stays together

Needless to say, I come from a crazy family. An ultra-paranoid Dad, a comically funny mom, and an eternally disinterested brother. I'm sure most families are crazy, even though we are taught from time immemorial to look at and love our families more seriously and solemnly than Manmohan singh's unchanging expression. But lets face it, everyone is crazy in his or her own way, and hence a family, whichever it is, is collectively bonkers.

Along with my own nuclear nincompoops, my extended family is made of specimens who can put the family in Arrested Development to shame. I have a 55 year old uncle who thinks he is a dude and every girl is giving him come-hither looks, I have an aunt who has rediscovered haircuts at 60, I have cousins who have tried to sell their bikes to mango vendors in the pursuit of god-knows-what, cousins who have got married at 17 and are right now, one step away from being grandmoms at 40, cousins who have flunked 10th grade and say they are doing M.Com to whichever lucky soul that pops the inevitable question, a grandmom who is on the eternal train from one place to another and gives us an STD call once a month. So basically, everyone is a nut case.

This family of mine also has an obsession. Marriage. No one, and I mean not even a louse on my nephew's head, cares if you are an IITian, Salman Khan or even if you are Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself, unless you are married. And they are not even sexist. Men and women are treated alike if they are not married by the "old" age of 23.

Their single handed, doubtless trust in the occasion of a marriage is astounding. Whether they care about the institution is another question. I mean, who cares whether the bride and groom like each other or not, In my family, we all just want to wear our Kanjeevaram sarees, and diamond necklaces and strut around in the reception.

We also have one more hobby. A pretty jobless one.

My mom's siblings have a habit of calling each other up atleast five times a day. Every single time, they talk for atleast a half hour. I don't know what they talk, as soon as the phone sings or rings or whatever, I'm away from there faster than roadrunner, their talks are intolerable. You see, my four uncles have their shops on the same road, and everyday is like a TV serial for them. But because, thankfully, TV9 is not in the business of relaying family affairs, its left to the humble abode of Idea. And since, they haven't yet woken up to the advanced concept of conference calls, they need to call up everyone and repeat it.

So this is the essential formula,

Let us consider there is one fresh gossip that sibling one has got to know.

Total no. of siblings =7

Let us assume one sibling has to tell this to atleast three siblings.

Also assuming, my mom is one of the first ones to know. So, call no.1
Now, she has to call another one and relay it. Call no.2
Then, in between she gets a call from another one who presumes she doesn't know about it. Call no.3
Now, she has to discuss about it with both her sisters. Call no.4 and 5
Then, one sibling offers an entire different story. Everyone go into a frenzy and the circle repeats, and the rest of us who are with the fateful sibling at home or park or movie theatre, wherever the hell this drama is going on, are eating/pulling their hair out in frustration.

Whenever Abhishek Bachchan says, "What an Idea, sirji", All I want to do is kick his nuts so hard that he skyrockets all Idea call rates to finance his nut-reconstruction surgery. I mean, what is the point of weird happy family offers, that's driving individual families insane.

Yes, I have a mental family, but as my mom puts it, "Poor K uncle, you know what happened Kee, it seems blah blah blah blah blah blah". All I can say is she articulated it well, but unfortunately Seinfeld was articulating things better and I got carried away.

Wait! I have another one. As those kids from the psycho Khichdi family say, "Bade log, Bade log!"

An average Bangalorean

An average Bangalorean is a photographer, a writer, a filmmaker, a UPSC aspirant, a guitarist, a marathon runner, a chef extraordinaire. An average Bangalorean is also a software engineer.

An average Bangalorean is a Tamilian, a Telguite, a Bengali, a Bihari, or Assamese. Hell, he may actually be from Bangalore. He is not a stickler for his culture. He doesn't know his culture. He isn't hung up on his leaders or his heroes. His heroes are spread all over. He can accept either Rajinikant or Amitabh Bachchan as his hero, and has no qualms with replacing Rajkumar with them. An average Bangalorean is an amphibian. 

He sits at a table filled with people from different states fighting over a cup of tea or the effectiveness of this year's union budget. He knows nothing about it. That doesn't stop him from pitching in. An average Bangalorean thinks he is a smart ass. 

He slogs everyday for something he doesn't give a shit about, while passionately dreaming in the night about all the things he had to do, he should've done, he could do, he would do, he wouldnt do and he will definitely do in the near future.

He is a thinker, a believer, an analyser, he has the whole world in front of him, he is spoilt for choice, and yet paralysed by fear of the unknown. He is scared of something he cannot name, scared of losing unnecassary things that he has in abundance now.

He passed out of one of the thousand engineering colleges in Bangalore and ended up in one of the ten thousand IT companies that claim to be in Bangalore. He stays in Bangalore, and is immune to motion sickness. It is the law of the land.

An average Bangalorean cannot tell you the current season. He knows that the weather is as unpredictable as his life is predictable. He calls it irony.

An average Bangalorean has fallen in love once, and failed. Failed miserably. Once bitten, twice tried, thrice given up and finally, resigned to the parental choice. He meets prospective life partners every weekend, has coffee with them, mumbles incoherent things and runs away from there like his pants are on fire. He isn't ready. Or Is he? Or is he just waiting for someone's approval? Is he waiting for the push that has always been there?

An Average Bangalorean is always on the edge of a cliff. He has made a house there and refuses to leave. He always greets his friends with the same question, "When are you escaping from this dreaded hellhole?" and the average Bangalorean always retorts with the same answer, "Very soon, my friend, very soon". How can he leave the house that he took so much pains to build? He'd rather stay.

An average Bangalorean is a software engineer. 

Thank god I'm above average. I'm a senior software engineer.



PS: This is fictitious post. Both the Average Bangalorean and the above average one are imaginary, and so is the implied promotion. :) Enjoy!

The Generation Gap

Every time an old song plays on TV, my Dad will be ready with the same monologue that has been echoing in my house since time immemorial. He starts off with, "What a great song! Those days..." and he closes his eyes as though he's going into a state of semi-enlightenment and continues,"Those were the days, golden days..I watched this movie in Shivaji theatre. It was so moving, so good. See Sharmila Tagore, She looks so beautiful". My eyes were transfixed on the beehive. Did you just ask "What Beehive?" then, you must be from my father's generation. Please ignore my comment.

Then he gives a break till the song is over and now comes the much awaited salvo, "These days, I don't know what songs they come up with. They are absolutely meaningless". He changes the channel and he stops at MTV, scrutinises the songs, looks sadly at us like we are some unfortunate urchins starved of the wonderful culture that his generation had.

Every generation is the same I guess. I'm sure when the TV made its first appearance on the hall table, my grandmother would have looked at it, fretted and disgustingly told my dad that listening to the the radio was a lost art. It was something his generation would never understand, even though reception in the radio was a result of a thousand agile karate chops sensible enough not to break it, but make it play. It was a skill, something that my father's generation would never understand.

This tradition can be traced back to early men, I guess. The earlier men would have sulked at the sight of a wheel. They would have gasped, "gujumb gujumb gujumba" which roughly translates into, "Oh my god! Do we now have to rely on this nonsensical shapeless things for god knows what! By the way, why was this invented in the first place? Shoes ought to have come before this. These bare feet, killing me, I tell you!"

Who knows apes would have frowned at the "missing link character" who was suddenly developing something that centuries later was called a backbone. "Tch tch, see how these youngsters act, trying to stand up with their front limbs, no respect at all!". Imagine if that hadn't happened, I would have been on some tree plucking berries and my ears alternatively. Thank god for the missing link! I can't imagine how the granny apes would have reacted to the opposable thumb. Lets not go there.

I don't think any generation will be free of this curse. Every day I get a mail saying you are a 90's kid if you watched Shaktimaan, if you read Chacha chowdary, if you played lagori, if you pooped on the road, and other convoluted cornucopia of things. What if you haven't? I know many people who have the gall to ask if Chacha chowdary is my actual chacha! But they are 90's kids! I know their birthdays.

So today I want to make a resolution to never comment on my next generation, no matter how much they rot in facebook, live their lives out of potato chip packets, the amount of pocket money they get that equals my monthly salary, the way they strut in front of cafes in skimpy clothes, the unfortunate souls who'll never know what a single screen theatre would look like, who may think that Shaktimaan is a character from Ramayan which is a bloody gaming extravaganza like counter-strike, I mean if they know counterstrike that is.

Wait! Did I just break my resolution?

Ah well!

Mamata's marriage bureau and its consequences

Along with your mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, brother, brother's friend, neighbour, neighbour's dog, and the nightwatchman, guess who else has joined the menacing matrimonial advice bandwagon (MMAB, pronounciation: Imagine how Laloo Prasad says mob, Maaaaaaab), it is your chief minister.

Are you asking "Whaaaat the f"? Rolling your eyes while yawning?

If so, go and read today's newspaper. Oh you don't get it at home? Not even the newspaper that makes you smart?? No wonder, you are reading my blog

Anyway, here is the link: Mamata's marriage bureau

Okay you are not a Bengali, so you think you are spared? You are so wrong. Apparently, according to my un-unreliable sources two negatives make a positive, the move has inspired people across the country. So in a few days now, you'll have to take the lawful permission from the lawless topboss of the state before you even plan to get hitched. The horoscope, along with gotra, rashi, pashi, and other fishy things also will have the CM permission, as a requirement.

So in future, this is how a pre-meet-up matrimonial talk will happen:

Moms will call up each other.

"Our children's horoscopes matched..But I have one more doubt, before we formally meet"

"Yes, please don't hesitate"

"Are you? Are you?...."

"Yes, please go on"

"Are you leftist?"

"Ya..why?"

"Nahiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii..yeh shaaaaaaaaadi nahi hosakti hai!!"

Why do we need this advice, pray tell me? Already it is so difficult to find decent guys with decent quantity of hair-on-the-head in this world. Ask my parents, if you want proof. And now, we have to go behind people's political affiliations!

Wait a minute. Maybe this will replace the old caste system, since they are going so out of style, now politics may become the new caste. That Mamtadi, she is a pioneer, I tell you. What brahmin, gowda, baniya! So ancient. From now on, it'll be BJP, Congress, JDS, BSP, AIADMK etc etc.

Sometime in the near future, you will see two aunties wearing saffron salwar kameezs, parking their cars in middle of a crowded street. That's where they park their cars usually, the intention is to block the road, sometimes leisurely throw a carpet on it, get a mike and make senseless talk. That's one of the commandments of this wonderful caste.

They catch hold of a lone young loser passing by, and interrogate him,

"Are you BJP?"

Before he can rip off his orange shirt and show his cool lotus tatoo on the chest, they go on,

"Even I'm BJP, we are so sacred. I love my country, I wear khakhi shorts and do unwanted exercises, I usually crave older men, men at the brink of death, and befriend women on the brink of insanity. I cannot stand congressors Yes, its a lame name, just like the congressors. They think they are too sophisticated with all their faux foreign people and their dramas, So not hindu!..Hindutva ki Jai!"

Then in another corner one sardar uncle and a suspicious looking man-child sipping tea from a road side stall and trying to make a life event out of it,

"Beta, Let us share tea with me"

"No mom told me not to give you anything"

"No Beta, You have to share it with me, I have to share the tea with the tea stall owner, the cleaner, the faggot at the end of this road, and the maggots on this table. You see Beta, we include anyone and everyone in our caste. That is our Dharam. We include them, we discuss with them, we let them sit on our heads and we let them dance away to glory. Arey Beta, don't you remember Mamtadi, she was the first nincompoop who celebrated a tenure long Durga puja on our heads, got away with it, and thats how our caste Congress came into existance?"

"No Mommy told me not to give you anything. Get away from you, you old man......Goooooooooooo, or else I'll tell on you"

"Noooo Please don't do that!!"

I don't even want to get down to the nuances of the hundred thousand other parties and what about independents. My god! This may increase the number of castes that are actually present now! As if that were possible!

And reservations! Oh my god! I never thought of that one!

And caste certificates!

What about caste based discriminations?! Who should we discriminate now, since everyone of us is more criminal than the other!

Mamata! What the hell are trying to get us all into!

PS: Though the comments on CPM and trinamool unholy marriages didn't come directly from the Mamata mouth, I'm taking creative liberty here. I hope I don't get thrown into prison like the sad professor.

Anatomy of an Indian TV serial

I'm thinking of making a TV serial.  Will that work? I'm pretty sure that most of you are mind fucked by all the shit that goes on in those serials, so maybe you wouldn't even want to watch mine. But believe me, I have grabbed hold of this amazing script, I'm telling you it'll blow your lungis off.

You'll come running back to read what happened next. This is by far, the most amazing thing that can ever happen to the Indian TV industry. I wish I could tie up with a TV network, and ask Jackie shroff/Govinda to sell my serial that is worth a gazillion bucks at a discounted rate of 42 Rs 25 Ps, but people I don't care for money. I am a generous soul. So here it is, unvieling to you, the mind blowing serial:

Kroorvati Ki Karva Chauth

If you think the title sucks, I'm open for suggestions*

*Conditions apply: Only if you are willing to finance my serial

Enter the good girl, Kanyeshwari always wears pale yellowish or peach nylon salwar kameezs, even when the sun is burning brighter than that damn tiger in the epic William Blake poem. She will not even give up the Salwar Kameez even when she treads the Mt.Everest. She loyally refuses to wear mountaineering gear and she tells the sherpa Memsingh Norway, that she'll use her dupatta as the rappelling rope. Her wonderful, amazing dupatta which usually saves her honor, this time it saves her life. This is the good girl people, she is the good girl. The one that never gives up her dupatta, the one that on the way to the summit, stops at the base camp which she redesigns as a durga mandir and she takes a bloody one hour to sing "Om Jai Jagdeesh Harey, Swami Jai Jagadeesh Hare" in between ads for all things ranging from maggi to harpic.

But wait, my serial has another character.

This heartrending bhakti geet causes her husband to drool a little, either named sujal, or prajwal or harbhajanwal I'm confused or whoever it is after the hundredth plastic surgery, and who's now in a coma because while he was getting his plastic surgery done, Rakhi sawant walked into the room demanding a breast lift procedure, and the doctor suffering from multiple muscular cramps after lifting her breasts a thousand times refuses point blank, she goes crazy and jumps on the doc. Sadly, our Harbhajanwal is in between. So this guy now is suffering from complications from Rakhi Sawant injury due to which he contracted a brain disorder and he's now paralysed from waist down. Don't you guys get it? Thats the reason the good girl is climbing Mt. Everest in the first place, to celebrate Karva Chauth from the highest point on Earth. What else can be more "Pavitr" than this?

But wait, Again you've to wait.

Waiting on top of Everest is our Bad girl, Kroorvati . She is wearing a black leather mini skirt, and eagerly awaiting the arrival of Kanyeshwari. She'll push her from there, of course. You see, both of them are fighting for the vegetable Harbhajanwal's affection. She has a snake running up her forehead, it's made of all crazy colors ranging from puky pink to vampish lavender. She was born with it, and the color depends on the day of the week or availability of cheap colors in the market. She is waiting patiently, during which time she gets lost in some of the most beautiful thoughts, Flashback. Two hundred and fifty episodes ago, Kroorvati trips good girl when she was going to the temple. Point to remember, good girl only leaves her house when she goes to the temple, and every single time bad girl also follows her, but no credit to the bad girl. Good girl falls, and there are cymbals in the background, as good girl lifts her head five dozen times to see what happened. Everyone is laughing, the whole world, her honor is at stake. She gets up. Now this is a critical moment, the exact moment at which I get to know if the new stock of glycerine that I got from China is working or not. Thankfully, it does. Tears roll down her eyes, and she runs in slow motion from the temple to her house. This point is a moral dilemma for the me, I want to show the entire run, from the temple to her house, I know there are people like my mom and grandmom in this world who would give up anything to watch the glorious run, but I am also aware of people like you who will curse me and my future generations till eternity with all the cusses you know and some which you don't, that I'm just not willing to take that risk. Finally, the cuss words win.

What happens next?

Will the Karva Chauth happen? Will Kroorvati kill Kanyeshwari? Will Harbhajanwal wake up from his coma?
Tune in to Star TV, Zee TV or any other damn TV and continue to watch any serial to know what happened.

Disclaimer: Resemblance to any person living or dead, is purely coincidental as the atrocious things explained above are physically, sensibly, and astonishingly impossible.

Kaamu, her vacation and Jeera soda

For all those fortunate souls who don't know Kaamu, she is my imaginary pet. Yes, you read that right. This information is enough for you to continue reading this scam of a post. However, if you still want to know about the cat-extraordinaire, go ahead and read these:
Of Therapists and Kamakshi, the cat
The cat and the bollywood bedtime story
All about cat poop and other catty crap

So Kaamu went on a long vacation with her gal pals to some catty beach resort somewhere in South Calungate. I was ecstatic about the catless week and made a hundred plans with myself. I wonder why my friends don't hang out with me anymore.

I was sprawled on the sofa with a half empty bottle of Bindu's fizzy jeera soda lying on the table. Its not mine, you losers. My granny suffers from gastritis, it is supposedly her "medication". The way she gulps it down reminds one of the pepsi ad, "Yeh dil maange more".  Anyway, I was midway through a movie marathon, somewhere between Aaj ka Naya Yalgaar and Veerta the Power. You must be unfamiliar with these classics. Let the lame-movie fanatic educate you. Behold, these are telugu movies dubbed in Hindi. You see, I have watched all dumbass movies in hindi as well as in telugu, so I'm mixing them now. 

Anyway, I'm lying there on the sofa, sneaking looks at the perversely tempting Jeera soda which would take care of the Rakhi sawant dance in my empty stomach till the queen-cook-cum-mom comes back from her kitty party (no cats allowed there), and guess what? In walks Kaamu, with a tan that would have caused the beefy John Abraham to shriek like a high school girl and frantically rub on her, his Garnier anti-tan shit cream that he's endorsing, and in wierd hippy clothes that even Sonam Kapoor would have thought twice before wearing. My taste in clothes must be rubbing off on her.

"Kaamu!! You are back. I thought you'd be gone for a week!"

"Yeah, I am..So what? Will you throw me out?"

"No, of course not. Why did you cut your trip short? Did you miss me?", I winked at her

She made a disgusting face which I ignored and continued my rant.

"Okay, before you answer that, listen to this. I had written a post about mad people and normal people and all sortsa people in my blog, and guess what people loved it. It got like insane number of hits..I mean I did indirectly mention about low page counts and how they can increase it and stuff like that, but still..."

"Of course, people are mad. They read your blog, don't they?"

"Shut up Kaamu, Why can't you be happy just this once?"


"Wow! Amazing! come lets celebrate..yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

"Okay, stop the overacting. Tell me why are you back early?"

"My wish"

"C'mon Kaamu..Tell me pleeeeeeeeeease!"

"Fuck off!"

"Okay don't tell"

I sit there and wait patiently for the matinee idol of a cat to open her mouth. I try whistling, "Mohabbat hai mirchi, mohabbat hai mirchi", the damn cat's favorite song, even though the bitch-cat is too damn proud to admit it. I try to teleport the Jeera soda into my mouth, so that it'll save me the embarrassment of the actual  physical act.Normally it works, this time it gave kai*. I'm actually selling a book about it, on amazon. Its called "How to teleport your granny's tasty gas medication into your stomach". Its cheap, 300 bucks only. Reading it will help you more than this dumb post will. It will also help me buy the jeera soda franchise

I try all sorts of dramas and a little dance too, which the cat ignored royally. Finally when I couldn't take it any longer, I yell.

"Damn you, you bloody cat. Just once in your life, gimme a straight answer. Why the fuck are you back from your fuckin' trip so early? Tell me, damn you, or else I'll make cat sambar out of you and feed it to Tommy. Understand?!!!"

The cat goes psycho at this. Have you ever seen a psycho cat? Man, its the worst thing ever. She jumped on me, scratched my damn face and blurted out.

"You foolish woman-child!! I never went on any fuckin trip, don't you understand??? I come whenever you want me to!! Bloody, I'm imaginary, you dimwit! Now shut your hole and pass me the soda!"

She gulped down the soda and went running into the loo.

I guess we'll never know why she came back early..


PS: *Someone "gave kai" means someone "gave hand". In simple words, they didn't keep their promises. Remember how your GF/BF promised you "saath janmon ka saath" and ditched you? They gave kai!