Move on, next act, next scene. After a few futile minutes of looking at the notes and going through Ray Romano’s classic dialogue ‘What am I doing here? What the hell is wrong with me?’, online movie streaming seems a better way to prepare. Repeat steps 1-whatever: search movie, read preveiw, review, check out the actresses’ body(s), see if there’s going to be a ‘scene’ and thou is ready to start streaming. Helloooooooooooooooo, not happening without sound. If I wanted to watch silent movies, I don’t intend ‘Underworld 2′ (Kate Beckinsale, period.) to be of that genre.

And lest I forgot, Facebook isn’t happening at this time (ppl sleep early, I have no control over that). 12.45 AM

Well, fuck it all. Light a fag, watch the smoke twirl around and rejoice.

Sigh…….

And I’d say ‘ Jaane-jaan, doondtha phir raha………… ‘

Good nite, ppl..

I’m 23 today, and all I think about is this song by ‘Story of the Year’ called ‘Sidewalks’ (no reason why!!!). It may sound cliche, but there’s something about this year that emboldens me to face the day, take up a new challenge and ride the wave, you know!! (BS, I can’t swim for nuts!! )

It’s funny how some conversations, shared deep into the dead of the night canmake the coming day beautiful. Maybe it’s the talk, maybe the talker or maybe it’s just that ‘cutting chai’ one shares like sharing a page out of your life; whatever it is, it sure finds a place in your heart where it’s not hard to get back to.

K, am way over my head now. IT’s been a messy year leading to this, a even messier and happy day leading to this and it’s starving my head of some much-needed air. Heading off now..

Thanks to all my friends out there who made this day wonderful, and another round of thanks to ‘those’ who went that extra mile!

Happily asleep now,

Sid

“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.

Unfortunately though, some people never change.

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 ???

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?

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.

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?

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!!