Time to pack up and move on

Some of us start writing with a thought, a message that we intend to communicate before the end of the write-up, an idea that we want to convey, a feeling we want to express; I usually start with a writer’s block. And usually a large blinding one, at that.

 

I realise these ‘last e-mails’ are quite a thing. There’s so much pressure on the go-er to write something heavy that one can be remembered by. NOT my forte! I can yap endlessly, but writing inspirational or professional has seldom been a thing I can call myself a master of. So much that I used to consider “special” in that regard.

 

I am told, as a child, like I’m sure most of us have been, I was very courageous. Fearless, if you will. Over the years, in the guise of “education,” “sanity,” and “social mores,” I have shred that trait in bits and pieces and I cannot say I am left with any of it now. I am the kind of a guy who looks up theweatherchannel.com for weather before I travel and packs for average temperature, average temperature plus 2 degrees and average temperature minus two degrees, summer clothing and winter clothing even when I just camping in the backyard.

 

I am from a business family and in my community that entails having risk appetite of a tight-rope artist. When I am asked what I want to be, I say ‘teacher’ because while being a teacher is a position of responsibility I presume one can get away with not being responsible quite easily. Not in business, not when all you own is at stake, now when there are probably a trillion as many riches to rags stories as there are of the opposite kind.

 

With all that background, why am I quitting my comfortable desk job?

 

I don’t really know. Really, I haven’t a fucking clue!

 

Is it the money? Nope.

Do I want to prove something to someone? Nope.

Epiphany? Nope.

Did I spot a gold mine? Nope.

Sudden burst of emotion? Nope.

Influence of alcohol? Nope.

Drugs? Nope.

Parental pressure? Perhaps.

Societal pressure? Perhaps.

Inner feeling of inadequacy? Perhaps.

Good choice considering the motivations? Nope.

 

And yet, here I am, counting days before I will be out in the wild - timid rabbit in the wilderness, prey for the wild.

 

And as if the world wasn’t ending tomorrow, there is the pressure of writing that last e-mail saying tata bye-bye sayo nara to my workplace to haunt.

Musings – August 22nd, 2010

Vacant mind

There is something about a clean mind that inspires thought. Some of the most truest and genuine traits of an individual's persona take birth in this state of vacant mind.

 

Courage

To be what we are.

 

Compassion

 

 

Blank

 

 

Space

 

 

Cause

The end, the one thing that is the root and all of anything. The driver, the motivation, the purpose, the reason.

 

Demented

 

 

Spontaneity

 

 

Expectation

 

 

Form

 

 

End

Musings

Dawn

I don't know why I am so fascinated by the sound of 'dawn'. I've been saying it out loud to myself so many times it's beginning to sound like a word I've never heard before.

 

Tipping point

Off lately, and out of the sheer curiosity to explore what the hell it was about chatrooms that they became such crowd pullers in the days of yore - like the facebooks of today are, I created a cheesy sounding Yahoo alias and went on Yahoo! Chat. Not a pleasant sight. More than half the chatrooms are infested with bots writing to you with invites to, well, certain educational websites and the real people, if there are any at all, barely do anything. Or maybe it was just the excitement of being a noob that got to me.

 

So anyway, while I was there I realised how little it takes for someone to inflamme our egos. A hint of dissing or even a faintly harsh word more than suffice. But then to expect anything better out of the lots is a far cry too.

 

Occupation

IMHO if there's one thing that keeps our sanity in check, it is occupation. Not so much of the body as much of the mind. Somebody very rightly said about the idle mind.

 

Ram Gopal Varma

The guy's a crazy fuckwit. Bare as a newborn and extremely difficult. But he's got the sack to own up to his ways.

 

Crazy trolling spree

 

 

Inspiration

Someone wrote that every thing we know has been learnt and/or inspired off something that we've seen, studied, observed or experienced. Nothing can be said that has not been said already. Some poet / literary guy says something on the lines of – the foolish claim, the wise attribute.

 

Demons

Most, if not all, of us have our own issues and hurdles that we face and live with. And no, I'm not talking about married people. When somebody does not behave or react in a way that you would normally expect out of them try not being a prick and retorting at the fall of a hat. Be the higher being and step back. Be nice!

 

Narcissism

I was thinking to myself, you can tell a narcissist from his photo album. Whether narcissism is a boon or curse is not for me to decide. But that it is a growing phenomenon is a fact you can't deny. Our little worlds revolve around us.

 

Simplicity

 

 

Courage

 

 

Realisation

Not many of us realise that we influence the lives of more number of people than we are conscious of in ways we can ever imagine. If not the sun, at least be a little 0 watt bulb.

 

 

End

An Eventful Sunday Morning

Sitting at the 2^nd Floor of the K-8 Koyambedu Traffic Police Station and speaking with the Head Constable, a gentleman by name Amalraj, and his accomplice, I couldn't help but wonder in amazement how the seemingly innocuous things led on to this. I was reminded of this one particular afternoon in Coimby.

Apart from that I was likely to get a new internet connection at my home-away-from-home, the 29^th of September, 2009 seemed like most other Tuesday afternoons. The Coimby sun was shining at it's scorching brightest when Sahay Raj, a Field Engineer representing Tata Telecommunications, rung the door bell. On getting the door, I quickly examined him to see if he had got along his paraphernalia; none – just his beaming smile.

He handed me an application form, that he pulled out of thin air, to fill out while he went upstairs to assess the place where he would affix the equipment that would make home internet ready. I had only skimmed through the details the form was capturing and he was already back. Not to say he was any Ubermensch, but just that having worked for a banking back-office had instilled enough caution in me to make me wary of what the venomous fine print was capable of. I wanted to do a Watson on what the neatly arranged boxes of the application form were capturing. He offered to fill it for me, but I readily declined.

Once I was done filling out the application form, I asked for him to fill in his name and number on the tear off acknowledgement slip at the bottom of the form. And like the zillion other pieces of paper that I keep dumping into my wallet, even that acknowledgement slip found its rightful place in my wallet.

Amalraj kept asking question after question to verify my identity in true-blue CCTP style. Even as I was answering each of questions putting my best Tamil tongue forward, I wondered at parodoxes of why certain things meant more to certain people and how the very same things could be utterly worthless to others. The things that immediately came to my mind were those bits of random paper that I used to stuff my wallet up with – to any sane person, they'd be trash, but they were of immense emotional value to me. To me, they represent my thoughts and my consciousness as I was going to phases in my life.

On that Sunday morning, the Traffic Police Station on the 2nd floor of the K-8 was unlike any police station I had ever been to. In that, it was missing the normal clatter and clammer of most police stations. And as events have led me to, I have indeed seen quite a few police stations for various reasons. This room was rectangular and painted a police station white. The door-side of the room was to a corridor and the opposite side overlooked the neighbouring houses through a wooden framed window in the centre of the wall, about 3 feet from the floor. From where I was sitting, though, not much was visible of the outside. Amalraj and his accomplice sat with their backs to the wall on either side of the window. In their inquiry, I could sense a mix of doubt and greed. Or so I thought, keeping alive the conditioning I had been subject to all my life. As I kept juggling between answering and thinking and as my thoughts were drifting to my last birthday, I marvelled at the phenomenal capabilities of the human brain.

Birthdays have never really meant anything to me. In fact I have always found the whole ga-ga over celebrating birthdays as "special" days another of the many pointless activities my fellow "civilised" human beings engage in. If not for the gifts that a certain precious souls shower on me, I would even give away my thoughts on birthdays to them. I mean who doesn't like gifts! This one dear one got me a nice black Hidesign wallet on my previous birthday. I've grown very fond of it, so much that I've had it constantly protruding off my bum for nearly every day since then. And mind you, it's not only because of the wallet. Gifts (most of them at least) are a way of showing you care. Or so they say.

I got reminded of another evening at Krishna Prabu's house when I was there to catch up with a few friends and spend a normal jobless evening. Krishna is a man whose heart is as big as himself, and has been known to throw treats at the fall of a hat. That day was exceptionally special for him. "I have become a businessman," he announced, holding out a business card towards me. His father and his partner-in-business had purchased a quarry and he was clearly overjoyed at the prospects. I read the business card as I congratulated Krishna on his transition and promptly put the business card to where it was to rightly belong – the mini dumpyard in my wallet.

"So you work even on Sundays?" I asked Amalraj, to break the silence and the monotony of his questioning. "We have to work, otherwise we will be with our families na?" replied his accomplice. I didn't know what more to say.

Of all the things I carried in my wallet, till yesterday morning I didn't carry any of my new accounts' debit cards in my wallet. The account was anyway dry so I thought why the trouble. But after I had deposited my salary draft in the account, I thought it was time to carry the cards along. With a sense of pride, coming mostly out of the money that was going to fill up in the account and the fact the CitiAlerts which till a few days back embarrassingly declared, "You have Rs 0.00 in your account. You can withdraw upto Rs. 0.00." would now show a five digit sum in about 2 days' time, I dumped even the debit cards in my wallet. I then checked with Harsh to see if he wanted to do some catching up. With the pride still high in me, Harsh and I watched Toy Story 3 at PVR Cinemas. Boy, does the movie choke you or what!

The problem with PVR however is the parking. 2 storeys down in the basement and with the hundred vehicles crowding the two over-worked parking fee collection booths, breathing can be real murderer. Why, stop there for a second longer and the hundred odd motorists would all sound their horns so loud it would put a stadium-full of vuvuzelas to shame. Not wanting to test anybody's patience, most people are sensible enough to figure out their payout and keep it ready. Unless otherwise, like in our case, there is a miscalculation and you have to take out wallets and search for change and hand over notes a second time round – all the while withstanding the torturous horns and carbon monoxide tearing through your ears and alveoli. Who then has the time to keep wallets back in their places, all you want to do then is run for your ears and breath. Luckily for us, I was pillion and had Harsh's paper carry bag and could drop the wallet in the carry bag and not worry about having to stop to put the wallet back in the pocket.

I was beginning to realise that part of Amalraj's questioning was to evaluate my financial standing. And I must say I did well to not appear too flamboyant lest he develop any interest or anything. To some extent, I warded off any questions that I thought had ulterior motives. I looked at my watch, it pointed to 1:15PM.

After PVR, Harsh and I had decided on going home and we were almost on our ways back when I remembered that Chandrakumar and a few other friends were planning on a get-together at the beach. Initially I was to not make it to the get together owing to other plans I had of leaving town to make it for a birthday, but that didn't work out and I was staying back. So I thought why not catch up with old time buddies and I called on Chandra to check if they were still at the Beach. They were. Harsh and I headed to the Beach now.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Amrit along with Chandra. We spent a good 2 hours or so at the shores remembering old times, catching up on each other and laughing till our cheeks hurt owing to, among many other things, the difficulties and double entendres of Amrit and his life as one of the seamen. All pun intended.

It was then time to head back home. But before we went our ways, we clicked a few pictures by the Gandhi Statue and then it was bye-bye time. First the salary, then Toy Story 3, and then this tryst by the beach with friends - it had turned out to be quite a fulfilling Saturday and I couldn't ask for more. We were all smiles when Harsh dropped me to where my vehicle was. As I was heading to my vehicle, I remembered my wallet was still in Harsh's paper carry bag and I asked if I could take it back.

I felt a deep filmi pang as I noticed he was holding the contents of the bag in his hand. It almost felt as though the vision from the periphery of my eyes was blacking out. He seemed perplexed at my asking about the wallet. He didn't know it was in there, I didn't ever tell him. A flurry of thoughts – of all the things that were in there and all that they meant to me– ran though my head. We dashed to the Beach to see if we test our chances of find it. Not surprisingly, we didn't. We looked helter skelter but to no avail. It wasn't as much about the money that was in there. Not that I didn't care about the dough at all, but the emotional value of the things other than the money – the wallet itself, the other things I had in there – was way much more. A paroxysm now engulfed me.

I gave up hope and got back home on a vehicle running out of fuel midway. Unlucky? "There is no such thing as 'luck' and it's only a wallet and some random things that I lost," I told myself in consolation. "It could have been worse. I'm still breathing and alive," I continued. Somehow, money-less and dejected at my loss, I got back home. I decided on sleeping it out and didn't wake up the next morning until a call woke me up by around 11ish.

A very cynical me sensed that after my account of what I had lost, Amalraj had by now sensed that I was in no positionto be able to do him any favours and had reluctantly given up on his attempts too. He handed over the money-and-alot-of-my-other-'precious'-stuff-less wallet that "he had found on his early morning walk at the Beach" with just the now cancelled cards, my driving license and two other 'precious' belongings back.

More than the joy of having gotten back my wallet was my bewilderment of how Amalraj had gotten through to me. He called Sahay Raj first, about 7 times, to a 'No asnwer'. Krishna was next. Krishna called me, but I was too heartbroken to speak to anybody that morning and ignored the call. Krishna called another friend to inform me; he called me, same reaction. Eventually I answered a call and the rest is what you've just read.

Who would have thought that an innocuous and redundant stub of an acknowledment slip of a now non-existent internet connection or a business card that normally should have found its place in a business card holder would bring me back my wallet. My account falls terribly short of being able to illustrate the pleathora of things that should have happened and I shouldn't have got my wallet back. But none of them did, and I got the wallet back.

I have never believed in Chaos Theory, or any other logic that has been applied to our futile existence on this planet. But a certain few things happen which instill an element of doubt.

To what ends?

From as far back as I can recollect, all races (and journeys) have always been about running (or travelling) in a direction that leads on to either the destination itself or somethihg closer to the destination.

Any direction that didn't take one closer to the destination was the "wrong" direction. Of course, back then the toughest races were 2 laps of the circumference of the school ground and the longest journeys were from home to school. And back.

As I grew older the races got longer and longer and tougher and tougher. Long and tough not only because they were long and tough, but also because the destinations got so farther and farther away that they even ceased to be visible anymore. That and from being just tracks along the perimeters of grounds, the paths that led to destinations became more and more sinous.

Which meant: even though the direction seemed "wrong" for the time being, there was hope that it will take a turn and lead into the path to the destination. Back then, most paths did fulfil their destiny and did lead to destinations.

However that was far from all. From being merely sinous, the already meandrous paths grew more and more serpentine. Which meant: now paths seemed to be entirely in the "wrong" direction for days and months together. Some had the hope and strode on while most gave up and yielded in.

There was more. All this while, there was at least certainty in that there was a destination to reach. Now even that changed. As the paths got more and more confusing, it became difficult telling which the actual path was and which was not. Also the destination was so out of sight that it ended up being only an illusionary object of the distant future - indeterminate, uncertain and even undefined.

It has gotten to the extent that many can't tell the difference between a milestone and a destination. Reaching the end of your ladder is (or could be) your destination, climbing the first rung is not.

Today when I look around things have gotten worse. Destinations overlap, paths cross and the most runners run for the sake of running without the faintest knowledge of why they're running or what they are running towards. As long they're running, they're satisfied in the falsities of their being runners in their wee little races.

What's even shoddier is that in the name of reward and recognition, many a runners are given the delusionary fulfilment of having reached "significant" milestones in their journeys and the runners happily buy into the baloney too. Some even put up the medals and honours for the lesser mortals to see and turn green.

A lot of questions thus arise

• To what ends are all means?
  
• Is there a worthwhile and "real" destination to pursue?
  
• If yes, is it so bad to have a little fun along the way?
  
• For how long can one continue treading a path that seems all wrong before one calls it quits?

A bird in the hand

It took a litre of water after Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani to regain senses. However, I'm going to refrain from sharing my ordeal of sitting through the entirety of the disastrous attempt at slapstick comedy. If not for the one thing that kept me engaged through the god-forsaken tribulation, I might have as well walked out of the theatre the moment we walked in.

And at last, thankfully for me, or not, it ended. It was time to head back home in the lavish Coimbatore bucket down.

The heavens have been generous to south India over the past few days. Add the proximity to the Nilgiris to the equation, and we arrive at the sum of a day-long splendid weather, chilly nights, foggy mountains in the distant horizon, and not the slightest trace of sunlight till as far as the eye can see. Of course, riding back home in this weather can be a bit of a malady.

In the middle of a down pour, a water-logged Avinashi Road, and a traffic signal; I drift back to about 20 months from now. Dejected from having screwed up the CAT, having lost all hopes of doing anything at all, with no idea what-so-ever of what lay in store for me, and a few tens of ideas ranging from running away from home to killing myself – just for the heck of it – I was still working with Scope International. Without the slightest clue of what it meant for me, I had somehow gotten the MAT application form filled up and had got a chance to attempt the MAT in February. Even then, burning the midnight oil watching movies and browsing the internet for random shit, loafing about the streets of Chennai and living life with seemingly no sense of direction was commonplace. To make it worse, there was always the confidence whoever I met, "You'll make it, man.. you'll make it big someday." How I used to wish I could teleport myself to someday, if it ever existed!

It was a week from the MAT when Mayur bhai and Ankit had decided on taking a sabbatical. Knowing pretty well that I hadn't moved a muscle in the right direction since having submitted the MAT application form and that nothing I did would help take me any closer to cracking the MAT, I faithfully looked on as they got their leave approved. The MAT came and went, and the results were out in nearly no time at all. We'd all done fairly well, Mayur bhai especially well. But he was the one who took the brave step of not pursuing full time higher education, and took up business instead. Silently, I appreciated his educated and informed decision. Now Ankit and I were left behind. And of us both, he was the more sincere one – far more committed than I ever was about making it to a decent-enough b-school.

Of the plethora of b-schools in the MAT booklet, we had to shortlist 5 b-schools to which our MAT scores would be sent by the AIMA itself. Ankit had gotten the assistance of Salim at IMS to shortlist his 5, I simply copied Ankit's 5. So here we were with our choice of 5 b-schools and we commenced the process of visiting each of these to decide on 'the one'. The list – not necessarily in order of priority – being Christ University, MS Ramaiah and IBMR at Bangalore, and PSGIM at Coimbatore. I don't remember what the 5^th option was. Finally, we landed up here at Coimbatore. And after a year and half, I can say with certainty that it was for the good. Not because PSG was the better of the institutes, nor because it paid any more being at PSG; but simply because these 18 months gave me so much that if I ever believed in a God, I'd be at his feet today thanking Him (or Her) for having given me all He (or She) did.

Standing there at the traffic signal in the pouring rain, I couldn't help wonder how different life could have been. What if I hadn't chosen PSG, what if I went to Bangalore? What if any of those who made these past few months so special had not chosen PSG, and chosen some other b-school, some other course? Would these days have been equally special? Perhaps not.

What if my name was not Surya Prakash, and if it was Dhruv? Would I have been sitting next to Deepti in class? Would I have not known Vaishnavi Krishnan, would she have not invited me for her wedding? BTW, I have to be at her wedding reception in about 18 hours from now. Poor thing's getting wedded off. If not for me being at PSG, would I have known Fazin with his camera and chubby feet? Would I have known Shruthe with her 'Aye, go ya!' Would I have known Bubby 'Teddy Bear' Bisani? Would I have known Guru 'Girlfriend' Moorthy, or Rishabh aka Vito Corleone aka Trigonometry aka Kaalia aka Supandi? Would I have known Rajeshworry 'Blueberry' 'Limca girl'? Would life have been equally munificent and would I have gotten the gift of a pigsy little piglet with the tiniest set of chubby little fingers ever? Would Naveen have still assisted me with doing my joke of a summer project at India Cements? Would I have ever called Nishath 'Bunny' and would I have known that 'Chalo!' can be such a catchphrase? I'm missing a lot of names, I'm sure. But that's not the point, anyway. Point is, would life have been the same?

College is nearing its fag end, and perhaps that's why the nostalgic poignancy. As much as I've hated the things I have hated about having being here, I'm going to miss all of this very bad. Some things more than the others; other things still, the most. And in this one tiny corner of me, every time I hear anything remotely similar to any of the names above or have a moment's grace to myself, I'm going to think of this block on Avinashi Road where I spent 2 years of my life and I'm going to ask myself this question; 'Why DO we have to move on?'

Maybe somewhere else, I would have had a totally different bunch of people around me and chances are I might have been equally thankful. I might never know. But this one time at a Sunday school that I once attended, a lovely lady beautifully illustrated to me that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Today I realise, I couldn't agree more.

Rebound

What happened?

Nothing.

Nothing? Really?

Yes, why? *makes a face as if to have no clue*

Oh, come on! You don't know what I'm talking about?

Fuck off, man. I'm not in the mood. *makes a frustrated face*

I know, and you know very well too that it's the same thing that I'm asking about.

I have no idea, and even if I did I don't see why it should be of any interest to you.

Go on.

Just get the fuck off, man. I'm telling you this is a very bad time. *starts walking away*

*shouts out* ...and it will continue to be, unless you come to terms with what's right in front of you.

*turns back, looks, and continues walking*

*runs and catches up* *gasps a little* Okay, fine. Let's not talk about it if you don't want to.

*Keeps walking at a pace, as if not interested in what's being said* Yeah, like anybody was even talking.

*Tries keeping up with the pace* You know what your problem is, you're the biggest ego-maniac I've ever seen. You don't see it, but believe me that's what's killing you. You're insanely depressive, AND depressing.

*Continues walking at a high pace* *shows the middle finger*

*Almost running now* That's what you got too, didn't you?

*Comes to a jerking halt* *Almost fuming* Listen, man.. I don't know what you're thinking, and quite frankly I give a fuck. Please.. do yourself and me and a favour, and disappear.

*Grins a sly grin* You'll just never give in, will you?

*Frets* *Swings head to one side while inhaling deeply, and then quickly jerks head as if to look up and then back to the other side* *Catches hold of the collar in almost an instant reaction* Asshole, ONE more sentence.. ONE more sentence and I'll have you wasted. Run away. Don't you fucking get it I don't want you around?

*Almost gets shaken off his ground with the jerk* *But recovers immediately, and shakes hands off collar* *While adjusting collar and shirt* What're you getting out of this? Huh? Does this make you feel any more a man? Or are you just covering up for being the sulking bitch you really are?

*Loses all self-control* *Pushes him to the ground* Stay there! Ass-licking, crack whore! *Darts off*

*Is on the ground, takes his hands off the ground and dusts them* *Keeps looking on as he disappears out of sight*

WHAT is it?

Jerkin-effect – the outside cold-inside warm effect that results out of wearing only a jerkin in the rain. The legs usually get drenched, and give a feeling of "exciting" chillness and the trunk remains comfortably warm.

If I remember right, Senthil told me about it about a week ago. But he wasn't sure where it was being screened. "It might be playing at KG Big Cinemas," he supposed.

Now, I am not particularly an MJ fan. In fact, I'm not sure I've even heard a lot of his songs other than perhaps Beat It, The Earth Song and They Don't Care About Us. It hadn't been long since his sad demise, and I was surprised beyond measure on learning of the kind of a fan following he had. With all due respect to the 'King of Pop', I hadn't the slightest clue MJ was him. And now that he was no more, I felt this urge to get to know him better. Or at least to get to know why he was what he was considered to be.

When I first heard of 'This Is It', with its Michael Jackson poster et all, I couldn't imagine what it was. I mean, it certainly couldn't be a "movie" starring him – he was no more. And yet the posters proudly claimed 'Michael Jackson's This Is It'. It took me a little google-ing to find out it was a something of an MJ documentary. However that didn't take me any closer to guessing what it really was and more so why it was such a craze. But I didn't seem to have done much about it, and I let it be.

With all those unanswered questions in mind and not knowing what to expect, I readily agreed to Senthil's proposition of watching it this Tuesday that passed. But thanks to a little confusion about the show timings, we didn't get to watch it. We decided on watching it the next day. So, faithfully as we had decided to, Senthil and I got in touch and confirmed our plans of watching it on Wednesday. 'I'll drop in to your place by 9," he suggested. Vinodh was to join us too.

It was drizzling a "beautiful" drizzle then when Senthil and Vinodh arrived at my place by 9ish, and we left for the theatre within a few minutes. An old-theatre styled building, no air conditioning, tickets in the Balcony priced at Rs 30, a mistimed audio system and located in an otherwise prime but then deserted Bashyakarulu Street in RS Puram; Maruthi isn't the best of theatres in Coimbatore. There weren't more than 25 people in a theatre that could accommodate well over 500 – all classes put together.

This Is It started on a brilliant note. Not more than 2 minutes into the documentary, it's intent – 'For the fans..' – and a text introduction later, I was choked and my eyes were almost in tears. But then on, the rest of it was MJ practising/performing his songs for the concert(s). Blame it on either me not having been a big fan or the theatre itself, 30 minutes into This Is It and I was looking at my watch. But then Senthil kept giving me snippets about MJs life and things the 2 hours or so passed. It was time to hit the road and head home.

Walking out the theatre, we realised that while we were inside, the drizzle had turned into a mighty downpour. We could see the water logged roads from the theatre's windows. But it wasn't pouring as heavily then. We had brought our jerkins along, so I suggested we hit the road in the rain. RS Puram is about 7-8 kilometres from Peelamedu. I was expecting a scintillating ride back home in the rain. On my way back, I tried hard to like the movie, but I failed in the attempt. I tried enjoying the rain and what most would call a "sexy ride" back home, I failed again. Despite stretching my hands out wide on a moving bike, looking up at the sky and letting the rain drops poke me in the face till it hurt, breathing the rain in through my nose and other similar desperate attempts at trying to enjoy the rain, I simply couldn't.

Instead of getting back home excited from the "sexy ride", I got back home half drenched.

I couldn't help wonder whether something was fundamentally wrong with me, or whether all ideas of getting drenched in the rain are indeed sadly boring; or whether it took an especially smitten heart of a new-fangled lover boy/girl to "enjoy" the rain. Whatever the reason, I couldn't wait to change into snug, dry clothes and log onto facebook to do some stalking. ;-)

The jerkin effect can get almost anybody to feel like wanting to pee. Me no exception. It's amazing, the thoughts one can think in those few seconds. ;-)

Cheers.

P.S. Alpha, this is perhaps my first post that I am writing when I'm not angry. Although, if you can cut through the prose, you might just get a glimpse of the pang of a miserable actuality. And don't bother asking me what this means. J

It's A Beautiful World

"...there are two kinds of angry people - explosive and implosive. Explosive is the type of individual you see screaming at the cashier for not taking his coupon. Implosive is the cashier who remains quiet day after day and then finally shoots everyone in the store."

- Jack Nicholson as Dr Buddy Rydell in Anger Management (2003)

Agony, anger, annoyance, anxiety, apathy, apprehension, awe, boredom, certainty, cheerfulness, compassion, concern, confidence, contempt, courage, depression, disappointment, disgust, distraction, doubt, embarrassment, empathy, enthusiasm, envy, excitement, fear, frustration, greed, grief, guilt, happiness, impatience, indifference, irritation, jealousy, loneliness, love, lust, panic, peace, pleasure, pride, relieved, revenge, sadness, satisfaction, surprise, suspicion, sympathy, thrill.

Anger.

You sleep till late in the morning, there is someone to nagging you not to and asking you to wake up on time. You want to be lazy, there is somebody asking you not to be. You want to be alone, there are pricks who somehow always know just when it is time when you need it most and intrude in on you just then. Phone calls when you don't want them, text messages when you're least interested. Visitors when you least care. There is always somebody who is "in town" who you have to visit, somebody alwaying "needing you" by them, a wedding, a funeral, a get-together, a break-up, something or the other. Everybody expects you to be a "people person". You are expected to be nice and polite and all that shit.

Truth is, we live in a fake world. Everything is fake. The smile on everybody's face, the happiness, and the so-called I-am-happy-for-you-s, the concern that everybody has gotten so perfect at portraying that we ourselves forget it is but ersatz. Nobody, and I mean N-O-B-O-D-Y, cares a fuck about what happens to another as long as one's personal means are met. People make friends just to be sure THEY are not lonely, people marry so that they have somebody to "support" them - whatever that means. This whole concept of society is a big fat lie, all people are interested in is to be sure that their interests are protected. Parents want childrens for their old age, and the children rightly live up to that by dumping the parents just-in-time. The Toyota Way. People get pets for selfish motives, all those liars who say they earn for their "loved ones" really care only as much as a earthworm does about the world econommy. People fear "God" not because they care for anybody's good, but because they care more about themselves. There is a ulterior motive behind everything that people do. And the way we are going, I don'e any longer see any fault with being that way. It's like if you don't mirror, you get f-ed, figuratively and otherwise.

And inspite of all this one is expected to be nicey-nicey and "good" and courteous and like the fart of a dung beetle, when all you may care about is to be sure to plant a strong upheave one of the lower limbs somewhere by the pelvis of whoever expects you to be so.

Behind their masks, people are full of arrogance, backbiting, narrow-mindedness, rudeness, selfishness, superficiality and treachery. It has become very simple to tell real compassion apart, simply because it doesn't exist anymore. It's gone with the dodos.

I am tired of being the cashier, I've had enough. Give me a gun, I want to shoot you. But before that, I must go find Lou Zer and Jack Mehoff. Till next time, this is Deja Moo - The Cow's Opinion.

Children - Little, Beautiful Children

They're okay while they're small. Or little, if that's the word. When they can't speak, or make any noise - when they're mute. When they're like these stuffed toys you get in the stores that you can hug and sleep. Knowing happily that no matter what they'll never speak and that you'll never EVER wake up wet. But these good days with happy hours don't usually last long.

Before you know it, they learn to speak. They scream and shout and blow your head off. They make you wish you were born deaf, or atleast that you lost your ears. Then they cry and throw tantrums. And the worst part of it, is you don't even get to figure why. They pee and poop and puke and dirty everything that they lay their hands - or any other body part - on. As if things weren't messy enough, their noses start flowing like the Brahmaputra. BTW, and FYI, eventhough the Ganges is the longest flowing river in India, the Brahmaputra displaces the most water. Although its Indian-ness is debateable because it flows through more than one country and it even has its mouth in Bangladesh. Anyhow, this is not a Geography lecture. So I was saying, there noses flow like the Brahmaputra. With every exhale, the bubble builds up and appears as if about to burst, and with the ensuing inhale it gets sucked in and the flip-flapping sound it makes with the walls of the nostrils.. it makes you want to throw up. Argh!

They're so dirty and messed up, keeping them clean is the task of 8 pairs of hands at work 60 hours a day. And yet, no matter how clean one tries to keep them they always manage to dirty themselves up in less then a nanosecond. It's like they train themselves in the 'Art of Dirtying' for the nine months while they're in the womb. From their expertise, I can say it must be one-helluva training centre. Er, do you think this centre also imparts training in the art of.. you know.. ahem.. okay, I'm digressing now. Back on track, back on track!

Urgh! Dirty little.. little thing like things.

Then you have to admit them in schools, given them "education". WHY?! There's that rule of halves that some asscrack came up with, right? Something that goes you forget half of blah and half of blah, half of blah and blah and blah and blah blah blah. So, then.. W-H-Y? Hell, I hate those know-it-all teachers in the schools who behave as though they're authors of 'How To Raise The Perfect Thing' and as though they actually know anything about raising these things. Truth is, they know jack. Dogs and other-gender-of-dogs! And the kind of dosh it takes to get one of these things admitted in these self proclaimed "temples of wisdom", what about that? Where does one get that kind of dough from, do the F-tards sitting behind the big desks even wonder? B-tards! Temples with entry fee.

It's not like the things give a shit. You were, and probably are, a thing too, yes? Did you give a damn? How muxh of your "school-time" did you spend "learning"? Anyway, who gives a F? Why should you? F you, why should I?

Then these things grow up and have whims of their own. They haves likes and dislikes and shit. Dipshits want to be some loser independent things, they want freedom of speech, freedom of expression and crap like that when probably what they deserved was to be wasted in the bathroom or on a sanitary pad. Wonder where they learn the terminology from. Bloody TV and media.

And they grow up and want to have things of their own. As if there weren't enough things around. Thanks, but no thanks. Here in our so-called maadhar-land, we are well over a 100 million strong and growing. We've run out of space. Of course, a few lucky farts still live on easy street but barring them, we're more than we can be.

Okay, enough of it for today. So.. don't fret, get a pet. Yes, bring home a pet instead. Like I did when I got Zatarra.

Till next time - this is Deja Moo, The Cow's Opinion.

Deja Moo - The Cow's Opinion

It's been a while now since I "blogging". Started it enthusiastically with enough persuasion from Fazin but then I realised although I had these ideas in my head I couldn't word them. Either, they weren't ideas at all or they weren't strong enough for me to stand by them. A psychiatric would call it the W.I.M.P. syndrome but I'd like to believe otherwise. Or perhaps these ideas, I thought were so unlike the "me" I revealed that I was way too sceptical to speak of them.

So, whatever the reason, I started out with one post and the number has gotten any bigger ever since. So now, I have decided that I shall quit "blogging". (See, Mr Psychiatrist that's not the characteristic of a W.I.M.P.?)

Now, that doesn't mean that there shall be no more posting at this blog but just that I shall be passing the baton to my very good friend, my alter ego and my confidante - The Cow.

Gentlemen and gentlemen, I give you Deja Moo. Cheers.

First shot at blogging

I am starting to write hoping I’d, in the process, stumble on something that I can write about. Thus far, no luck.

There are a few random thoughts that I think I can develop, but I’m just too apprehensive because this being my first post, I want for it to be “great”. I delve a little deeper, is my writing a medium for me to express myself or is this some publicity stunt? F#$k, it is no publicity stunt, so I’m just going to write what I think, what I feel, the way I feel it. Uncensored. Unconditioned.

Most of us, we, spend most of our lives without realising that most of what we do is in utter frivolity and futility. Take, for instance, our existence. We are born in what could have been merely an act of pleasure. We are then brought up. Why, I wonder? Why do parents parent? I don’t see a point in toiling one’s ass off just because something one helped bring into existence needs to be supported. Compassion. Why is there compassion? People are born, people die. People come close, people go away. It is the way. Why do we get so involved in the trivial tangles of quick sand-ish things that are so engrossing that once we’re in there, they’re all that there seems to be? Anyhow, I’m deviating. So yes, we are brought up. We grow, we go through...

Bah, I’m bored. Later.