parallelisms

She stares out of the window, longing for someone to talk to. Another day passes her by, she’s getting sick of the stillness around. Come to think of it, she’s sick of pretty much everything around her: the early morning arguments with the municipal cleaners who sweep the dirt off the road onto her carefully tended to garden, the neighbours who don’t talk but pore over their high walls to spy on her, the lack of activity in her own life and her complete detachment from her family. She carries on in this vegetative state day after day, night after night and counts the minutes till death provides that comfortable solace from this searing numbness to Life. Her husband is a simple man, of simple thought and pure values. He is too honest and trusting, she thinks, for his own good and he gets beaten around for it. A simpleton, really and she hates the fact that she has to stand by him and bear it too. They have drifted apart over the years, each oblivious of the other’s importance in their lives. A few words shared, an old stale joke told again and a passing reference to the land’s politics makes up their conversation for the day and they draw into their shells once again.

“A boy came by in the afternoon” she says, brightly. “Uh huh, yes, I spoke to him outside”, an uninterested reply and the seed dies.  She doesn’t tell of how she poured her heart out to the boy, her troubles, her insecurities, her lack of friends, love or compassion. she had ranted about her husband, his failings, his simpleton outlook and the blunder he had made in life. She doesn’t talk of those 10 minutes in which she laid her life bare for the boy to see and how she had pleaded silently for freedom from that uncaring stone of a man, from this damning place and from everything life had put on her table.

As the boy was leaving, she had wistfully remarked ” My husband, my children and I lead parallel lives; unconnected and unaware of each other for ….”.

Now, she looks on sadly at that cold man in the easy chair and walks with a heavy heart into the darkness of their bedroom, unafraid of the dark but afraid of the stranger beside her. And as I walked away, I felt a million other such eyes on my back.

Watch your space!!

A week ago, having pretty much nothing to do on a Sunday, i decided to take a stroll around my neighbourhood. A good half-an-hour later, I unfortunately happened to walk in on the building watchman trying to interest his wife in some pillow-talk. A word at that moment might not have been the best time to express my feelings, but I certainly hope the drunkard had enough sense not to think wicked ever again at 2 in the afternoon while lying down on the parking lot!!

Unfortunately though, some people never change.

twitter, blog , fb.. it’s the mad fad age!!

It’s all the same, yet people feel driven to follow fads. Put it down to the peer-driven society that we live in were non-conformance is dealt with swiftly and severely. You’re literally cut off from the rest of the world, yet I notice that more and more people are choosing that freedom over the incessant demands of society. Today’s fads are usually linked with today’s idiot box: the computer and all it’s paraphernals.

Honestly, if you can log onto the Net, you can certainly see what you’re friends are doing on FB or Orkut or just IM them. In what way is Twitter more compatible for these short check-ups? In every way, you have to be logged on 24X7 to know what’s happening around you. So it doesnt make any sense in chossing twittering over FB (which again gained popularity over Orkut, an earlier entrant!!) or one of the million other networking websites. Yet, the way people rave about Twitter, you would think that loads of money was being distributed freely among all!!

In that sense, it’s refreshing to see people blogging more often (Ahem..); it’s gives you space to choose what you wish to convey and in which manner too. Be a loudmouth or the silent sort, there’s room for all. It’s the most open form of communication that at the same time gives you a sense of privacy and a free hand to express or not to express yourself, all at your own sweet pace. That is something I feel social networking sites will always lack. They seem to be the exact anti-thesis of a blogging space, and that’s what makes them grow at such a fast rate.

But hey, is anyone reading this ???

Perspective

I’m having lunch at office in one of those morose moods i’m usually in these days. Staring out of the window, I seem startled at the sight of a perfectly clear day (I wonder why?). There’s a single cloud right along my line of sight; it seems like an aberration in an ocean of bright, arresting blue. I begin to think.. in terms of human perspective, the setting seems to be the perfect display of loneliness. There wasn’t another cloud in sight for atleast a mile in any direction and I think stupidly ‘How did this cloud get left behind?’ As I was having these insane thoughts, the cloud began to expand; slowly but surely. As it grew beyond the boundaries of my window, all notions of loneliness escaped my mind and in turn was replaced by a more aggressive and challenging sense, as though it were angry at my initial thoughts.

Just when I thought it was all over, the cloud began to split and two irregular forms began to take shape. In a biological sense, you would call it ’mitosis’; a humanist would look at it more optimistically, say something like giving or sharing life with another (if you could ever relate clouds to life!!); a tripper would put yet another spin on it. Yet, I was thinking on more personal terms by now.

The operation was not yet complete though, one of the the two clouds slowly moved away leaving behind a cloud even smaller than before in that bright blue canvas…

Perspective can fuck up your mind, can’t it?

a matter of one gigantic step, and it didn’t require the Moon

As the dust settles around the boy, he looks back at the vast desert expanse that he had covered, the one littered with trees, bones and the odd beautiful flower that brought a smile on his face. He looks onwards to an uncertain destination. Is that a mirage? Or can he even see anything at all? The uncertainty grips him in a stranglehold and urges him on in a perverted sort of way, as did his first hormonal reactions to the feminine form. Another part of him holds back due to fear and an inbred defeatism, amongst other things. The boy must decide..

As he ponders, he sees a scorpion scurry past, oblivious to his presence. He wonders what drives it on, what was there to rush towards ? There was no rat race in this desert, heck, there was no one else around.

A blurry movement and the scorpion had a ready meal. A look of amazement crosses his face; the swiftness of the motion and the incisive forethought gives him a huge adrenaline rush, akin to the most penetrating form of arousal. The feeling of happiness pervading his being, he takes a step forward……….

…the boy is now a Man, and there’s no looking back.

yeah dilli hai, meri jaan..

Bas ishq, mohabbat, pyaaaaaar…..

Aur kaafi sara bakwaaaaas…..

Either a sincere effort went awry due to several contrasting views of how the film should develop or Mehra was getting high all the time. The movie had it’s moments – both funny, contemplative and poignant. I remember Amitabh Bachchan complaining that ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ “exposed the dirty underbelly of India.” . He should see this movie.. Wait a minute, he did a cameo here… WELL NOW, who’s the hypocrite?

creatively dead

I’ve been meaning to blog for quite some time now. The need to update my space has been eating away for over a month now, yet my two insatiable friends called “procrastination” and “sleep” have been keeping me busy. Add to this the fact that my roomie’s ‘habits’ kept me away from the keyboard all these days. I didnt want a hygiene disaster!!

I have seen, just like everyone else, a lot of astonishing things happen this month. The satyam case keeps draggin on, another shining example of Indian bureaucracy in top-notch form of pushing things under the carpet, indian cricket reaching new highs (and by that, I don’t mean the slew of victories but the manner in which they were wrested),  Obama’s  historic swearing-in ceremony and my most favoured and hurtful topic, Liverpool Football Club’s resurgence as a title contender and the off-field fiascos that tend to disrupt this winning mentality.

Yet, none of  these events have really affected me (except the last one) to the extent of expressing me strongly. Is it just me or are we, the mob, becoming inured to what happens around us? I remember seeing a photograph in the newspaper in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. There was huge protest on at the Gateway of India lambasting the politicians for not being able to avert or ameliorate the situation. People were holding up placards which said stuff like “No more of your vote bank politics!! We are sick of it!!”,etc. This portest was given extensive media coverage for a week or so with the papers screaming out hyper-paranoid statements ina move to intice readership. It was funny and insulting at the same time to go from reading “Enough is Enough!! – Mumbai demands justice” to almost no mention in the paper in a matter of a month.  The protestors have disappeared, and so have the inflammatory headlines and the ‘call for justice’ has sadly been drowned out. All that we hear today is whether Kasab should get a trial or not!! Heck, I guess even that’s not of any concern anymore. It just looks like Kasab is just going to be sent from one jail to another for many years to come– talk about a road trip!

I haven’t stated this before: my roomie’s a Satyam employee. He’s gone through so many ideological changes this month, infact he’s been embarrassed at every crucial juncture as his company’s saga unfolded. In the beginning, Raju was ‘an ethical man’ who could do no wrong, it was all the greedy and corrupt CM’s doing; a few days later Raju was a misguided man which soon manifested itself as abrupt silence at the slightest mention of Raju’s name.  So too with their acting ceo-cum-world-bank-official-briber Ram Mynampati. The man slyly left the country as things got hot under his arse, similar to what the Hinduja brothers did a decade ago (they now run their Indian businesses out of the UK). I’m not sure what has become a bigger joke now: the beleaguered IT company’s dirty secrets coming out one-by-one or the extent to which the Indian security agencies were unaware of the fraud. Neither affects me today though, life just goes on..

Coming to Liverpool FC, I’m proud to see LFC sniping at the heels of Man-U in the Premier League. I really do hope that we end our 19-year drought this season. As for all those Manure (yeah, they are) fans who think otherwise, you can go stick you-know-what up your you-know-where!! Yet, as has been ‘the Liverpool way’ in the past 2 seasons, there is always a black lining in the silver clouds. The Yanks screwed up things initially, Rick Parry has been doing it every since he’s been associated with the club (an utterly incompetent fool, he couldn’t sell a joint if he walked into a hippie commune) and now Rafa has decided to deal his cards more aggressively. I was saddened to see Keane leave the club he loved, horrified at the way he was treated while at the club. Yes, he missed sitters all right, maybe he wasn’t the right  man for the club, but half a season is hardly time enough to make a  decision about a player’s capabilities and mental set-up, however prodigious your reasoning skills may be. Benny made a mistake in this matter, no two ways about it and he seems to be doing the same thing all over again with the club’s exciting young talent (read Daniel Agger, Jack Hobbs, etc). Is Rafa the right man for the club’s success to return? I am completely in agreement with anyone who says that Rafa Benitez has brought the club to a position from where it can challenge the rest of the top four clubs for the title. But can they do it on all four fronts – the league title, UEFA Champs League, FA and Carling cups? And can they do it on a regular basis? For all the man’s good work, I think not. His reasoning is rigid, as is his system and totally inflexible. Flexilibilty has been the key to success for all great sports teams, football including. Liverpool’s past great teams were famed for it, Arsenal and Chelsea showed in the prev seasons and so did the other team over quite some period of time. Sadly, Rafa cannot see this and that is why I believe he must leave and make place for a manager with vision, flair and a dose of excitement. Rafa deserves a lot of accolades, but not one of being called one of Liverpool’s greatest managers.

But as one sportswriter put it “As long as Liverpool keep winning, no really cares about the internal working of the team and it’s manager.” In that case, this doesn’t affect me at all, right?

I just don’t know what to write about!!

Hosing out in Hyderabad!!

Mahatma Gandhi once remarked “If the people of India spat together in unison, we could probably drown most parts of the country and drive the British out!!” or something like that. Such was his annoyance with this degenerate habit that plagues most of our fellow citizens, the illiterate as well as the educated classes. He would have probably had a heart-attack a million times over if he could see the extent to which Indians take public property for granted through a multitude of body outlets!!

I’ve been living in Hyderabad  now for the past 5 months yet, I am taken aback everytime I seen a person taking a leak in public! Highways, throughfares, important road routes, near cinemas, restaurants, etc.. you name it and they’re there.. with the fly down and ready with the pichkaris.. A ubiquitous sight today in Hyderabad; they could probably be listed on tourist brochures from now on. The city authorities, having noticed this disturbing ‘flow’ of things, constructed a huge number of public toilets in the city, but to no avail. Not only did this city’s legendary RAP (Rapid Action Pissforce)  leave the facilities alone, they went one step further by using the areas around the facilities. Ok, enough disgusting shit. This city is going to the dogs anyway!!

So the next time you’re in Hyderabad and hanging out, keep an eye on where you walk and lounge about!! yep, no place is beyond their legendary reaches!! And I haven’t even started on their remaining acts of fame!!

a mixed soup.. attractive to the coronary senses, not so to the rest of your body..

So as the tumultuous week shows no signs of giving up the shock value, I’m left to  wonder at the immense capability of a human being able to stop, emote and move on. Yet, it’s these very actions that show us for what we truly are: hypocrites of the premier order. To support my allegations with facts, here’s a sample of what I’ve come across in the media over the past few days:

1. “FBI may allow India to prosecute Mumbai attackers” – CNN IBN (8/1/2009)

Hah, need I expound any further on the details presented in this headline, a sentence that reeks of double talk? The words “may allow” is a slap on the face of a nation that has been shaken to it’s roots by the events of the previous month and one that is increasingly clamouring for a tit-for-tat reply. Since when did we require permission to bring wrong-doers to justice? I was shocked, surprised, angry on seeing this and even felt a deep sense of hatred against the Americans, yet most people just laughed at it and moved on. Tomorrow, I will too and become one among the mob.

2.” Satyam: The face of a Rs.7000 crore lie” – Times of India, 9/1/2009

I just loved the opening sentence of this delightfully written article. It goes like this: “The irony of it lies in the name – Satyam, meaning truth.”

Nothing could have emphasised the extremes in a better manner. A company that could cough up imaginary amounts of money, and yet we complain of being short of money!! Don’t worry, your superhero from Garagaparru village will show you how

0 + 3.6 billion INR = 53.6 billion INR, where 0 = 50 billion INR.

The man’s a bloody genius, can’t u see ??!!! The stocks have crashed, Satyam employees flood the job portals with their resumes, people express shock at Raju’s disclosure.. anyone wants to wager how long this mood will last?

3. I save the best for the last. A stunner of a headline, it captures the human society in it’s most primordial form, stripped bare of all those layers of blood, branding  and accessories. Read on

“Porn industry seeks federal bailout” – CNN, 9/1/2009

Two premier adult magazines in the US of A have actually appointed a legal representative to present their case before the Congress, and they sound pretty confident about getting their share of the moolah. Here’s what the rep had to say:

“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three.”

I just had to laugh at this crude, yet powerful statement. “everyone and their mother…” ha ha ha. But wait more follows in this enlightening statement..

“The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”

I must admit that the statement sounds strong initially, but we’ll have to wait and see what the Congress and the American govt. think of this. Shucks, the general elections just got over . And what an election it would have been, if this issue had been raised in one of the debates. There’ll be cries of ‘moral outrage’ and ‘don’t-aid-the-social-evil doers’ but at the end of the day, this industry is something that has stood the test of time and will continue to do so.

And it’s just Thursday!! I just can’t wait for the remaining 3 days to follow. Yeah, including the drab office hours that sap the life out of your soul…

More of the Satyam Clown and Co., English cricket experinecing it’s own soap opera and the final antics of Bush as he moves out of the ‘adoring’ public eye.

Sayonara till then, and keep reading.

Boom-boom.. shake it up!!

So Israel decide to scare the living daylights of the Palestinians and go on a video game-kind of bombing run. At this point, it’s hard not to feel sorry for the latter, but having spent a major part of my childhood in that part of the world, I know that Arabs can be a real, shitty creed of people. Sneaky people, most of them (Disclaimer: I’m not being racist, it’s an inference from experiences)
.

But coming to the meat of the matter, Israel have given India the perfect example to follow. They didnt give one damn thought to the reactions of the world community. Hell, they even told the world that they wouldn’t stop till Hamas was destroyed!! Talk about having balls, those jews really know how to kick ass .

In the current scheme of things, wouldn’t it be a great thing if the Indians could do the same in Paki-located non-state operated territories ? A piece of their medicine, I say. While we are at it, we can also kill that freaky eunuch tv host in pakistan. (yeah, that IS RACIST!!)