petty bullshit :)

so much light around,
i was searching for darkness
i knew at the bottom, who didnt
but i couldnt find it, the light is dazzling me

my friends told me, they cant see a thing
they saw omens, they heard voices
i smiled and couldnt believe it
my heart wept when i smiled

do i deserve this light of ignorance
i know i wont pay for it
but i feel guilty to enjoy this happiness
my head droop in shame, indulgent in petty bullshit

da new day

da declaration
(friday : in the bus, me rambling incessantly without any support from roomie)
me: monday is a new day, from monday onwards, i am going to be more orderly, me will reach office every day before 9. Will work properly.
roomie: hmmm.
me: no buddy, its going to be new, brand new.
roomie: hmmm.

da oracle
(sunday : evening in the bus, mama calls)
mama: did you lose your mobile, i rang up a while before and someone else picked up.
me: no, i had it all the time.
mama: may be i dialed the wrong number.

da preparation
(sunday: night, preparations for monday, i set alarm in mobile for 7, and two reminders at 7:05 and 7:30)
me: foolproof.

da new day
(monday: morning 7:30)
me: what happened to my alarms. roomie, did you switch it off, roomie, give me my cell.
roomie: brrr.
me: roomie, where did you hide my purse.
roomie: brrr.
me: roomie, roomie, roomie.
roomie(the tank with 6 pegs inside, not a morning person): brrr.
me: where's your mobile, let me ping mine.
roomie(jumps up): i don't see it.
( roomie runs around the room searching for something).
roomie: good yaar, they got my purse but they didn't steal my cigarettes.
roomie: hey even my matches are safe.
me: i know, even if they took it, i know you have hidden reserves :). hey good thing that you didn't lock the door yesterday.
roomie: shit.
me: new day indeed :).

ps: thanks to robbers for not stealing my pc and my movie dvds(in which case i would have hunted you down and crushed your balls), thanks to the kind neighbor's who lend us money to get to the office.

down by law

Venue : Collective Chaos
Movie : Down by law (Jim Jarmusch)
The theatre was really funny, a small hall with foldable(but good) chairs kept at different levels. Dark, and a little scary :). The movies are projected by a dvd projecter on a small screen, pretty neat setup. Later my friend told me about the first time he came there, when they without realizing got in through the wrong entrance and were met with a big crowd. Guys and girls who couldnt find seats were lying down on the front part, the gap between the gallery and the screen and enjoying the movie, and they joined them. Exactly matching a dream of mine. That dream was much more cooler, with all the people lying down and watching the movies.
The movie started off with dark scenes (and it was b&w), and i was kinda getting an impression that its going to be a serious movie. Two of the protogonists(Jack and zack) were having bad luck, as in they had nasty friends. Both lands in jail. From here onwards, there were some lighter moments and lots of people were laughing behind me. I was thinking all the time, hey this is a serious movie, what will the director say if they found you laughing at such small things. It all changed when roberto benigni came into the same cell shared by our heroes. Both the guys kept staring at benigni, and benigni was fidgeting uncomfortable under the stare attack, and nowhere else to go. At one point, he dramatically takes out his notebook and with his italian accent says " If looks could kill i would be dead". The whole bunch of us lost our control, and from that point i realized, we are watching a nice comedy and not a serious movie :). Dim wit that i am.
The movie was very funny and nice, particularly after that. They wander around in a swampy area, which looked great in b&w. Also worth remembering was the woman who worked with Jack(incidentaly a pimp) in b&w, pretty and pretty much nude :).

zombies talking

Deados connected by the dead lines
Or Nerves made of copper wire, or even of nothing,
Talk about zombies, or see them here

Grievous tales pour out in silence,
Tales of loss, loss of words,
I can see his face, drawn and pale, and

I feel the death, for we are connected.

Let go, planning to say that to myself very often from now.

day dreaming

Every time i am going for a change, i have this whole bunch of dreams. That's what's so cool about changes. This time, i have this visions of having a better social life, meeting a lot of old friends, and concentrating more on my work :). And the change is new job in new city. Today i was reading Harry potter and suddenly i found one more dream that can be useful, get back to the classroom. I never had a great time in college or schools, but i absolutely enjoy sitting in class rooms. Its so peaceful. So i was thinking i will find like minded friends and pay a teacher to treat us like students :). When the initial enthusiasm wore off, i settled on joining some classes which are already available. Literature class comes to mind, but i am not sure whether they are open for anybody. More practical one is learning a new language, then we are absolutely ignorant students, at the mercy of the teacher.

good stings

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4855682.stm

ariyallur

Will tell how and why I reached tanjore later, and how I had a nice time there. This is about my exit from tanjore, to chennai, where I was to meet bala. The travel plan was all figured out, the last night, and I just had to remember the place name, from which I could get a fast train to chennai, the title of the blog. I got into the right bus, early morning, enjoyed the nice ride watching dilapidated but nice temples, pretty paddy fields, and cute school kids. Some water bodies with water lilies were giving me added kick. After getting down from the bus, I had to cover a distance like 500 m on foot to reach the station. I was deftly navigating that route, which is a single road, to the station, asking directional queries in highly poor tamil, to every nice person on the road. The road is narrow, with shops and few houses at the sides, some of these houses were pretty similar to the shops with a short veranda, and at one moment quite unexpectedly as I was passing one of those houses, a pretty lady, dressed traditionally, darted out partially of the door. Partially in the sense , her feet were still inside, and she was spreading the fumes of incense sticks to the air outside. She saw me and with a little disgusted face got back inside and closed the door. Not the best thing for her to see in the morning :). But seeing her made me quite happy.

The station was a nice place and I just fell in love with it. The long platform, mostly open surrounded by pleasant landscape. I enjoyed waiting there. The train journey was also nice, even though there were no seats available and I was sitting on the floor:). I was scribbling little posts on a paper with sketch pens:) and mentally thanking the people of the reserved compartment for not kicking me out.

ways to eat a water melon

- make thin slices, and eat them carefully, making sure that the flesh does not touch your face, but just goes inside your mouth, very unromantic.
- make big slices, with wide bottom, bite in, let the flesh touch your cheek, let it caress your upper lips, very sensual.
- take one hemisphere of the water melon as such, and hug it, keep it close to your heart. use a knife which is not very sharp to cut out pieces from it, and slowly eat them, very intimate.
really, to learn such things you should have time with you, like me :)

the shutdown, interviews, memory loss and rain

the little firm in which i was working closed down, one fine morning. we were given a few hours to leave the office. our personal cds were confiscated and scanned for company data, we were frisked when we left the office. i was not sad about any of this. i was a little sad that, all the work we did was going nowhere, and later another day, i was really angry when i found that i lost some of my personal data that the company was supposed to restore to me, some body deleted all the data that were kept as zip files. my friend used to share tit bits from her life with me, like photos, writings and all over the messenger, and i used to store them. the loss of that collection made me sad.
interviews are fun, mostly. like the one today, in which the interviewer was a really learned fellow. he asked a technical question, which i answered wrong, and using a series of other questions proved to me that i had all the knowledge to answer the first question, but i was not thinking enough:). and there was this guy who tried to ridicule my work, just on the basis of some small questions. i don't have a great memory, which puts me in some trouble when these guys go for the specifics. but i know how good some of these work were, and felt a little irritated, that he was treating them as silly. but i kept my cool.
less memory has its good sides also, like yesterday. after a week a hot climate, it suddenly started raining. i started walking home with an umbrella, and it was a refreshing experience. all the rain and lightning. it was as if i was walking in the rain for first time.

dreams holy

neo is dressed like an arabi. we decided to walk the way from airport to neo's house. its arranged like velodrome, with green shrubs in the sides, sand after that and patches of water. we walked and walked until we reached a big entrance, like a fort entrance, with a closed door. neo climbed up along the side and went to the other side through a litle window. the other side was a space between two similar walls which formed the sides of the closed door. i followed neos lead, and reached the inner space. neo scaled the other wall also and i heard the tribal cry out of seeing his land. i fainted inside the small space due to lack of oxygen. neo the tribal chief of his land, with the help of his shingidis(sidekicks) pulls me out using an assortment of ropes. my senses comes back to me.
we were given a warm welcome at neo's house. i took my toothbrush and went for brushing near the pretty pond i saw on the way. the panchayat officer came out of nowhere and dragged me to his office. he asked for my entry permits. he charged me of breaking the lands rules. he asked for bribes. a group of people barged in demanding election id cards. i was roughed up by the group, i saw my papers flying out of my hand into the thick group and then to nowhere. i woke up in despair.

spending and us

I read about the effect of spending on america's economy in some reports few months ago. Has been fascinated by that ever since. The point conveyed is that, americans spend a good part of what they earn and that helps the economy to thrive well. The money keeps moving, and does not end up as savings of stingy people :). How good are we in spending. I don't know that, but they say we are a little stingy. I am more interested in the way we spend. Those decisions can be taken in three ways. One, we go for the best things we can afford. That's a good one and the most natural one, but here we should be ready to invest some thoughts to find out the real best buys. We should not be just guided by the ad money pumped in or the brand names. Two, our hearts guide us. A good example is we may buy from a shop which has served us for long, even though we know that we will get better things from a new shop. This ones got a nice charm, but could be frustrating sometimes. Good for the people who are not picky, and ardently followed by people who cant break bonds of loyalty, and who are kind hearted. Kind heart comes in situation like, we buy stuff from the shop which is losing to the competition due to poor service. The third one is interesting. Politically correct shopping. If i am a commie, i chose a shop run by co-operative rather than a monopolistic shop chain. If i am desi vadi, i go for the locally made tv, instead of a sony. Somebody boycotts some products saying that the manufacturers are not treating their employees well. The third one is fun actually :). I am mostly into second category, and am moving to the first. But i make a bad first type, since i am not good at judging products. Ideally, everyone should filter the options using his third group laws, use a little heart and be a top of the class first group follower. Also spend a lot.

buns missed

Saw the prequel of "Wayward Cloud", titled "what time is it there". Liked it and will blog about it. In both the movies the hero shows his buns(while heroine is pretty decently dressed). And funny thing, today morning in hyderabad times i see that Aamir khan rejected the role offered by Tsai ming-liang in his movie after wayward cloud. So girls, you missed a possible chance to watch Aamir's buns :)
I remember the last time i told a girl about missed buns, and got a very hard stare in return :).

dowry woes

My friend is getting married. I have been shopping with him for lot of stuff for the past few weeks, since he is bad with the local language(hindi), and there is a lot of shopping to be done for the new house. At one point when we were shopping for the house, i learned that money for all these things is going to come from the brides house. I think of that as weird, and insulting. But its so ingrained in his society, that if he refuses the offer, the brides family will take that as an insult. Hes also not very happy with this, not because hes finding it insulting or weird, but as he has to be a little conservative with his purchases when someone else is going to get the bill. I hope that some of these guys take strong positions and break these funny customs.

female infanticide/foeticide

The bad news, and also some rays of hope. The study done by Lancet journal, is being challenged by some groups now, including IMA. They say that the report does not take into consideration, the judgment passed by SC, banning sex selective abortions. IMA(which can and is trying to make a difference by asking the doctors to stop being aids in foeticide) may say stuff like that out of the air, while Lancet, a reputed medical journal, did their homework, by analyzing the fertility figures of 6 million people, to make this report. The researchers say that the girl deficit does not vary according to religion, which is an interesting find, as i had this belief that, muslims who see children as gifts of god, can be counted out. Also it seems that the practice is more rampant among the more prosperous people(study says educated). Like this report from ndtv talks about poor female sex ratio in mandya and maddur which are very prosperous areas in Karnataka. It pains me specially, since i am emotionally attached to mandya, just from the impression that it gives when i pass that town every time i go home by bus. Nice old world buildings, girl students roaming around in cycles, more clean than other towns in the route etc... I will turn my face away the next time.

I remember seeing the movie, Mathrubhoomi- A nation without women, about the future of places where women are being selectively killed, and the incidents depicted in there like one in which, the only woman in the area is chained in the cattle shed, so that she wont escape doesn't look like the future any more. Check the news. They talk about a girl being sold as a bride and kept in chains when she tried to escape.

The rays of hope is linked to news about some religious leaders campaigning to spread awareness against female foeticide. I think it may work good in rural areas, and for the urban we have the soap opera, atmajaa. Nice efforts i should say.

La Seperation

This is one movie, at the end of which i lead the applause. I knew the crowd is not going to applaud, and i thought the movie deserved one. With right timing i started clapping and voila the crowd joined in a short but loud round of clapping.

The movie starts with Pierre the guy telling us about his decision to film his few month old kids activities, like a diary and we see the kid through the guys camera eyes. I liked Pierre, middle aged but handsome, riding a motor bike in paris, cool looks, and his real good acting in the role. I couldn't imagine the actor out of the role. We move forward to see that Pierre is having problems with Anne. He know that from the fact that she has stopped quarrelling with him any more, and is rejecting his emotional advances. Later in a scene we see that Pierre has some little irritable habits like expecting silly things from Anne, and shouting at her if shes no sport for that. We see that when he asks her to manage a kite when they go for a vacation. We see that the little issues has grown into big ones when Anne announces that shes in love with some one else.

Pierre is devastated. The movie mostly follows Pierre and Anne comes in only when Pierre talks to her. The cold hearted way in which Anne announces that shes in love with someone was kinda shocking. She says that the other guy listens to her more, but we don't see why Pierre is not listening to her. Then there are these tussles with words and little actions like a Pierre pushing off Anne when Anne sends their little kid off to her mothers place and uninformed Pierre runs around mad looking for him. The tussles with words, were so craftily shown, that we see the tension mounting, with each one insinuating the other, but we are not able to find fault in anyone's side. But as i said, the movie was with Pierre, I never felt anything for Anne. Since they are not married legally Anne can keep the baby totally to herself, and this news devastates Pierre. We see this scene where Pierre walks to Annes mothers house and watches his kid through their mail door. Its touching. And I wondered whether paris is a pretty village or a big city. At the end we see Pierre deciding to leave the house, and let Anne and the kid stay there. The only condition is that Annes lover should not come to the house and take Pierres position for the kid. And interestingly Anne says that her affair is over. I don't know what she was expecting, but Pierre walks away, and we see him walking down the road as a less sane fellow, confused about the directions.

Pierre towards the end shows quite too much sanity, as he worries less about his lost love, but more about his dreams to be a nice father to his lovely kid. Like why should he cry for the woman who rejected his love.

Article on what american invasion is doing to womens rights in Iraq. Dirty war shows a dirty face every day after the war.

Lone monkeys first day of the year

        Driving range. Bored and irritated me waiting for my chance to try the H. A girl taking nasty long time to understand the H. And just before my chance comes, the gas cylinder runs out. And it seems there is no alternate petrol reserve also. I watch the instructor and some support person, trying to suck out petrol out of the cars rubber tubes using their mouths. They try and try until the battery runs out. The inner me trying to tell the outer me, that things are still not bad, as i could watch the nice looking tiled buildings around. As the last resort we all started pushing the vehicle to a good speed and putting it on gear to start it. We all felt the spirit of the kekexili patrol men as we raced the very heavy maruthi 800 to an explosive speed :) just to hear the thud response. Atlast someone finds out that even when the petrol tank is full, no fuel is coming out of the tank outlet.
        I started thinking how good the year is going to be if it started like this. Walking away i see this huge collection of plants on sale. For better luck i bought a nice little plant with big white flower.
        Me wandering around like a lone monkey, looking for a polythene cover to hold the plant properly. I found a chinese restaurant instead. The waiter was a tall fellow, with a tight stomach, and very prominent ass, and he had a very sharp nose, the image fitting waiters picturized in old mallu literary magazines. I took the clue, and searched for the total image. The restaurant was a display of my future. Me with a chubby girlfriend on one table. Me with wife and two kids in two other tables(options are pretty wife and two very sweet looking girls with pony tails and ugly wife with a nasty boy and a sweet girl). Me and my wife with my son and his wife at another table(that was a nice picture). Very old me and my very old wife with a sweet grandson in another table(not a very happy picture). I felt my happiness reserves going down in moments, offcourse, when your whole life is flashing in front of you. I wished i had a gadget with which i can take some happiness from a friend. And surprisingly found the exact gadget in my pocket. 5 minutes and happiness back to full. Fried noodles and wanton chicken came in very big bowls. The noodles scalded my hungry tongue. In between i saw the bunch of hot girls(notice the one with big breasts wearing the red top) moving into the picture, but since all the tables were occupied, the bloody waiter ruthlessly expelled them. I couldnt handle it anymore, i stopped eating, packed the leftovers, got an extra cover to pack my flower pot, paid the bill and ran out like the lone monkey.

brave examples

You must have read about this incident, the bodo girl students assaulted by a bunch of nasty haryana police men in a train, leading to a clash between the bodo students association and them. The incident was tragic, as three young guys lost their lives, but i could see it only in heroic lights. Guys gave their lives to protect their girls' honor. One of the killed guy was a friend to the group of girls. Right time to ask yourself, whether you will give your life to protect the honor of a woman. Apart from that think of the magnitude of response. The girls getting attacked, the students association and local people also reacting in such a short time period to stop the train and attack the nasty policemen. One of the reasons helping such strong reaction against the police men would be the human rights violations perpetrated by the security forces in the state, especially the bodo parts for long period of time.
I felt that the incident should have got more media coverage since the attackers were armed police men and according to whatever news i could get, they are still not arrested.The bodoland activists are not that interested in staying in india, they want their independence. But the question is do we want them. I sure do, and i think we do, though we tease them by calling them chinkis. And we can only prove it by showing interest in their issues
When i was doing my graduation, we had these guys from nagaland, manipur and arunachal pradesh in the hostel. I(and most of the guys) used to like those guys, and also had my closest friend lestor, sharing a room with the cool nagaland guy, bishal. So it was like my second room. Occassionally, i used to get negative vibes from these guys, since they like keeping to their group, but i never could think of hating them, since they were basically sweet. The guy called Agoom had this catapult and could hit a moving bird, also he would cook the bird and eat it :). I didn't get a chance to taste it but lestor told me it was good. Also i still keep the dream of going to nagaland or assam once, it must be something good, great mountains, climate and the pretty girls offcourse.

dead dreams and the comatose ones

That was my thought yesterday. Even composed a hideous poem on that. It would have been a sad thought, but i no longer feel that way about such things. I thought of the simple dreams that gives me joy all the time, and i see them dying in my mind, systematically, instead of getting full filled. I know there are a huge number of them, but the worst part is that the dead are easily forgotten. The movie wayward cloud, kinda touched me in the inside, since it brought back the memories of a dead dream and another one which is on the way to death, in a comma. Dead cannnot be revived but the ones in comma like the second one gets alive in such situations. I came out of the theatre so happy because of that, while the other people were kinda disturbed by the climax scenes.