All this is quite meaningless, really

Over the past few weekends; myself, AJ and TA, the happening creatures that we are; have found out the perfect way to spend the weekend in a manner that is both productive and relaxing at the same time: We watch movies.

Now, we don’t have a Television at home yet (Subliminal Hint: Donate us one) so every Friday as the sun hides under the horizon, the three of us land at Shekar Video Library, 9th Block, Jayanagar. If that name looks interesting to you, well, it is. It seems nature has played the name “Shekhar” to all its permutations: I’ve met Shekars, Sekhars, Shekhars, Sekars and Seekarses. Okay, not the last one. But there are times in my usually hectic Bangalorean life that I look at the skies and wonder if this is just a normal vocabulary mess-up, or are there some vested interests that have consciously brought about these variations as a part of some grand plan of theirs. Personally, deep down, (17 inches to be precise) I think that they are all clandestine alien military, and they distinguish their ranks by the innocuous alterations in the position and frequency of H’s in their innocuous names. Smart ass aliens.

So, every weekend, we land up at our neighborhood alien video library, looking for movie VCD’s (Subliminal Hint #2: We don’t have a DVD player. Get us one.) from a list of movie titles that we painstakingly compile that very day, before our excursion. I feel that this process of compilation needs some elaboration. It is not just any compilation; it is a complicated multi-step process that has several input dependencies. Movies are rated within Genres based on several parameters (Such as; and this is just one of the parameters, by no means the most important one; the number and attractiveness of attractive women featured in the movie.) These ratings are then normalized across Genres based on the relative rankings of the genres; which is again a measure obtained by careful analysis of several parameters. (Such as; and this is just one of the parameters, by no means the most important one; the probability of having a good number of highly attractive women featured in the movies belonging to that genre.)

And that is where it begins. As we reach the place, all of a sudden, the milieu of that library (And probably that Shekar Alien’s super-psycho powers) change everything. As if under magical influence, we pick up a movie which is, hmm, what is a good, non-abusive way to tell this… a movie that we would miss if we were to sit down and choose a billion movies out of a billion and one. But we are standing when we are at Shekars’; and I’ve always found it fishy how his recommended movies are always without past-rental records. So anyways, we take the movies, we go home and watch them; and have a gala time; and just then when TA takes off his pants and swings it in the air (while having a gala time) and THE list falls out; at that exact moment in space-time continuum; all three of us generate the same collective brainwave that would mean in English: “Gwaat”. In brainwave-terms, it means that we forgot the list again.

And it is that exact moment when Shekar’s innocuous smiling face and his innocuous name with its innocuous placement of the H letter and our innocuous memory blackout flash across my head, and in that one moment of arguably brilliant insight, the now-obvious conclusion that follows through in my brain, is that TA needs to wear his pants.

Side note on name variations and misspellings: All across the world, and especially in India, there are many variations of names. Such variations are the cause of a level of confusion that arises while spelling some typical names. Such confusion and the consequent unintentional mistakes are the cause of much anguish for those who unfortunately happen to have such typical names. Every one of us treasures his or her name and would not like people to misspell or mispronounce it. I myself have a name that is easily misspelled as “Samir” instead of “Sameer”. This used to cause quite some frustration for me in the past. Fortunately, I have found a solution to the problem that is not only fulfilling for me as a person; but is also forward looking in the sense that it prevents people from repeating that mistake again. If you face a similar problem, I suggest you try this technique out: Whenever someone misspells your name, instead of rudely pointing it out there itself, just make a note in your personal diary; and then, whenever you find that the person has some time available and is ready for a frank dialogue; ask him for a few minutes of his time, take him someplace that is quiet and vacant enough, and kill him.

Side note on my roomies: I innocuously mispronounced their names.

What a shame

Q: Who would want to?
A: I wonder if those superman undies go with my Red-colored pants.
Questioner: For the sake of humanity's opthalmic well being, you need to die.
[ gunshot ]

The guardians of our way of life

This post is dedicated to Bangalore city’s Autowallahs. I have no doubt in saying that had it not been for Bangalore city's Autowallahs, Bangalore would have been a city without Autowallahs.

How is that important for us Bangaloreans, you ask? Well, for one, take the traffic situation. Do you think the half-drunk BMTC drivers, adrenaline injected pre-teens with bikes twice their size and the frequent collisions between these two are enough to ensure the blazing speeds of 5 km per hour or less that one can easily achieve on Bangalore’s major routes? Do you know how much tourism revenue would be lost if Tourists were to reach the airport on time and not miss their flights, and not miss them again, and again, until they realize that they need to be in a 50 meter radius of the Airport to reach on time? Do you understand the consequences of decreased sales of roadside handicrafts, if that were to happen? And, did you notice that the third sentence in this paragraph was 46 words long?

It would be an economical disaster. But do not let freckles of worry appear on your face yet. Fortunately for us, Autowallahs exist. Not only do they ensure smooth blockage of traffic through mid-road cylinder changes or random-lane-bypassing; they have, in no uncertain terms, taken the meaning of safety to another level. Through their skilled maneuvering and timely expletives, they’ve ensured that three out of four people that take an Auto trip get to the destination; and more significantly; two of them reach alive. Now that is a healthy situation, I say. Especially since three out of four people that get into an Auto are evil regicide-plotting, money-minting Software Engineers from far away lands, commissioned by some very evil people to destroy the city’s CULTURE.

Now that is a very serious issue and Bangalore's Autowallahs believe that serious issues require mature, responsible solutions. Hence the Bangalore Autowallahs Association for Solving Serious Issues (BAASSI) has come out with its mature and responsible solution - "Kill the pests."

Apart from protecting the city’s CULTURE and ensuring pedestrian safety (You can’t run people over at 4.8 kmph); Autowallahs serve another often misunderstood purpose – they limit the average Software Engineer’s CULTURE-destroying capacity significantly by charging them the net worth of Greenland for a trip to Koramangala. Going a step further, they restrain movement of CULTURE-destroying elements by randomly disagreeing to go to anyplace other than Thipssandra.

And additionally, they are cute. They steal your heart with their polite commandments for 3.5 X 1010 times the meter reading when it’s too late (After 2 PM) or too early (Before 1 PM) for them to be driving their Autos. And when they explain in mid-journey why they’ll need 40 extra bucks from you as a compensation for the traffic’s speed, you just can’t resist CUDDLING the CUTIE-PIES.

Translation key to English:
CULTURE: *&^@*#^
CUDDLING: @*##&*^
CUITE-PIES: *&@^#%$@ @*&$ #$ $*&#$^#

Is this humor?

SA: Tune pyar kyun kiya?
AJ: Bahut zor se aaya tha, isliye.

SA: Mujhe Jayanagar ka ye waala part bada pasand hai.
AJ: Mujhe apne ghar ka woh waala pot bada pasand hai.

"Humor is tragedy plus time"

-Mark Twain

No, I don't like being photographed

Oh my god! It's on me! Damn, what do I do! Is anyone looking? There, they must be laughing at me inside. Aw man, how did I get myself into this... Okay, now that I'm in it, let me salvage some esteem.

Just be normal. Appear normal. They should feel that you are normal. You should look normal. Don't you get it yet, you imbecile! NORMAL! Look, he's about to do it. Gather your nerves now. Close your lips. You don't look good with teeth showing. Look to the right, idiot. You have a prominent left profile. Lift the eyebrows a bit. Yes, there... Now take the right foot a little to the...

> Click! <

What? He took it? NOOOOOO! I wasn’t normal yet!

…and that is why lions bathe

Summer vacations from college, those beautiful days of slumber. Disturbed only by the miffed rants of a distressed mother, asking the young man to take a bath, have breakfast, or at least brush his teeth. Another of those disturbances had just landed in front of the TV.

“When are you going to brush your teeth?”

She knew what she was playing with, and she knew what was to come. And, she hated it. It made her frustration diffuse out of the pores of her skin and haze her vision. It made her want to lose her motherly instincts and land a sumo punch into the young man’s belly. She curled up her wrists and twitched her ears in abandoned anticipation.

“Shero ne kab muh dhoye?” (When did lions wash their faces?)

There it was. The banal yet effective mechanism had been held in force by the young man’s father; from whom he inherited the ‘king of the jungle’ mentality. Which, to put forth in simple words, is a simple one-step process – imagine a lion in your place. Would it go for a bath? Would it like to brush his teeth? Would it find dinner at that strange (read vegetarian) family’s place an interesting activity to indulge in? And so, father and son lived a merry life at the expense of the distraught mother. The newborn in the family was watching this, and although too young for implementation, he was taking his first steps towards the “League of lions”, as they liked to call it.

Two things are impeccably consistent in Bangalore – Traffic jams and rains. As I was returning from the lunch this afternoon, a mild shower had me looking for my umbrella. Certain neurons connected unexpectedly, and I had a perturbing remembrance of the mother’s revenge.

The league of lions had an arrogant dislike of the rain. Dryness is sacred in the world of lions. Rain means getting wet. Wetness is disgusting. Wetness is a precursor to bathing. Lions don’t bathe. On that beautiful Sunday of July, the weather was pleasant, the winds were flowing fast and cold and dark clouds hovered in the sky. The established lion was all set to take the young lion and the formative lion on an excursion to the local marketplace, ostensibly for buying groceries. And while they were at it, a few pakodas wouldn’t topple any government.

Just as they were to leave, the mother offered her advice to take an umbrella along with.

Peals of laughter followed. And the league left. As fate was to have it, it rained that day. It rained just as the first pakoda went into the young one’s mouth. And it rained as it had never rained before. Cycles went floating, poles were uprooted and New Delhi recorded its highest rainfall in a single day for decades.

The rain didn’t spare our protagonists either. They reached their den drenched from head to toe, their clothes sticking to their skin, spotted by ketchup at places and soiled by kichad (mud) at others.

Noor Jehan wouldn’t have rejoiced on seeing Taj Mahal as much as the mother did at the grim sight of the three wet men, in mock admiration, as they went about their way, consecutively cleaning up themselves and taking baths. Then with one blow she dissolved the league and ended the family tradition.

“Shero ne kab chaate uthaaye?” (When did lions use umbrellas?)

Bushisms

Stumbled onto this page today. The pearl that stood out...

"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way."
—George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005

That's the most powerful man in the world, Ladies and Gentlemen, and you have a reason to be worried.

Why I can't have sameerahuja for an id

I realized this a long time back when I setup a y! account named sameerahuja82. In those days of youthful enthusiasm, I logged on to yahoo chat and was suddenly flooded with a thousand guys wanting to be friends with me.

Normally I'm a nice guy to be friends with, but still, there had to be a greater reason to the madness. As fate was to have it, I soon realized it. You see, my id could be broken down into two very semantically different interpretations -

sameer ahuja 82 : Another despo dude in competiton. 82? What does that mean! Must be his age. Budhdha.

sameera huja 82 : A Babe! She must from Pakistan. They have hot babes there. And she's so young... Just '82 born!

And if you're a south Asian teenager with raging hormones, as are 99% of the "India Chat" users, which interpretation would you see?

And hence did I realize the importance of separators. Namely, an underscore.

The Demons of Bangalore

Here’s a pop quiz for you… Which are the two most dangerous type of beings wandering in the streets of Bangalore? Give it a shot, you’ll probably get one of them right.

The Street dog and The Male bachelor. The difference is, that the former is liked by the society; fed and protected by the localites. Why wouldn’t it, it provides them security from the demons of other worlds and livens the days and nights with its almost rhythmic vocals. The latter… phew, the male bachelor! He makes the streets unsafe for the local females to stroll in after 7; he makes loud noises all night, his day is a mystery, for his claims of working in the software industry seem suspicious to most. “How can such animals make software, anyways?” Even more unthinkable is the thought of renting him a place to live. He’ll scratch the walls with his nails, drill holes into the floor, bring prostitutes to his place at late nights, he’ll be killing and eating lambs in the house, and will commit only-god-knows what other ghastly and otherworldly acts.

So what do we do? We offer him the dwellings deemed unfit for ourselves, those vacant terrace store rooms or the underground garages, or the occasional apartment where a girl committed suicide. And we charge him so much money that he has nothing left for his gruesome deeds. And we give him our verbal rule book, modifications to which can only be made to our expediency. Rational? Obviously. So what if these side products of the IT Industry drive Bangalore as a cosmopolitan. So what if they form the most critical infrastructural component of the industry that is driving the growth of this nation and this small town turned city. So what if our unwanted properties are now being rented at exorbitant prices just because these ogres have an existential problem. We hate them, and we don’t want them here. They should either leave, or marry. That will magically turn them into wonderful human beings with a great job and a settled life, whom we’ll give the best possible places to live and charge half the amount we charge them now.

Moral of the story: Male? Bachelor? Coming to Bangalore? Save yourself the trouble, marry. Or get a sex change operation done. Either is less painful.

The Parachute didn't open

He was hoping that it was a dream. Like the skydiver hopes that the parachute opens, like the soldier hopes that he doesn’t miss, like the racer hopes that he can make the bend. In those few moments of desperation he had experienced a range of emotions he didn’t even know existed.

Emotions lose their identity as they rise on the scale of intensity. Passionate love, extreme hatred, immobilizing fear or violent anger: each becomes a ubiquitous connection with the universal source as it reaches its ultimatum; the enigmatic hand that clenches the heart in its sudden and strong grasp. As the hand squelches on its vulnerable subject, man reaches the pinnacle of all emotions, the proverbial skip of a beat.

This was his pinnacle. He knew his odds. The next moment, he could be salvaged by the realization of what he was hoping would eventually happen; or be consumed by the throes of reality. Yet, nothing could be worse than this anxious search for an answer.

He opened the pressure cooker lid. Moong ki daal for dinner. Again.