Thursday, December 28

silence broken...

There are a lot of topics I intend to touch upon in this post of mine.
Only fair! I'd say.
After all it's been so darn long since my last post.
And a lot has transpired between then and this very moment.

Recollection time...

AJ - well, he's left for green pastures or should I say redder apples. Gosh! That sounded so corny! Last heard, he was sitting under a particular lamppost in the Parel area with an apple in hand doing a Newton of sorts. All the best pal!

Honestly, the exact reason why I got myself to write this post is Appu.
Read her latest post and pondered. Wondered would be apt.
We were 'ok-ok' friends in college but have become kind of close (here, I'm speaking entirely for myself) the last couple of years.
Have no clue what it is! But it sure is strange.
I LIKE STRANGE!
Apart from being a wonderful person, she is, for want of a better term 'raw'
Raw with her emotions (I adore her for that).
Raw with her opinions.
And above all raw with her instincts. (Have I repeated myself here?)

I just like having her as a friend and even though she is too busy nursing Meeshu to answer my call, I still like talking to her.

Then there's Sue. The sexy mallu lass. She is one person who you'd want to call when you wake up. She has the kind of warmth and glow, which should be a mandatory prescription for most of us with mundane lives and issues.

Di is another such radiant child. Child I say 'coz she treats me like a baby. Here's getting back at one of the truest and most genuine people I've met in this slanderous life of mine.

Have too many thoughts gushing into this ill-equipped cranium of mine. Thoughts I find too difficult to put down.

So let me switch gears to my next favourite subject -- FREE PRESS JOURNAL!

It surely is the holiday season. A time of giving and sharing.

Giving, they sure are -- upto 26 'proactive' ads a day in the Indian version of the Luerzers Archive. Our very own FPJ.

Sharing, we sure are -- each one claiming his pound of flesh from the 'agency's awards kitty'

Amidst all this, did go home for Christmas though. Took Cocoa along. Left her back with the folks. Think it'd be better for her. A move wholly and fully supported by Chidu and the entire Chennai Express.
It's been a day and I MISS MY BABY!

Andalib had come down. Bugger sent me a T-shirt through DHL. Took longer to get it from Cal to here than from the sweatshops in China to the arcades down under. So much for overnight delivery.

Signing out on that note.
Compliments of the season to one and all.
Stay Blessed.

Saturday, November 25

3...

And then one day the three would meet…

So it was written… so did it happen!
Rewind back to Calcutta. Early, formative years.
Formative? Hmmm… can almost hear Appu and AJ nodding their ever so wise heads.

Screw all that! Back then we were 3 of us. Hozi aka Hozefa Meccawala (Gujarati sounding, gujju boy. And he is as weird as this sounds. Take my word for it), Sudhin aka Sudhinra Nath (Bengali sounding mallu boy) and me (Gujarati sounding mallu boy)

Hozefa was the bright spark. And so I made him my best friend. Let alone flunking any exam, he was never ever 'surprised' by those nonsensical 'Surprise tests'. He was the rubber-ball, badminton court- football champ amongst many others.

Then came Sudhin. His report card made me happy. It was a sea of red with the solitary blue (for PT) standing up and hoping to be counted.

We've been through it all. Porn. Fights. Chits. So on and so forth.

Hozefa and I have been friends from the age of 3. And my mother tells me that when we were in upper nursery he went to her with a complaint.
He accused me of having shown him my weenie…Man! Did I start early or what?
Something which he claims he has no memory of now.
I say, ask them other people…hmmm…

Anyways the first hurdle came. Class 10. All of us managed to jump over it without hurting our parent's ego or ourselves. On second thoughts maybe a few dents here and there. But the bottom line is that we crossed the finish line. With chest and head arched in front.

Sudhin left for kerala. Did speak to him once. But other than that no news.
Hozefa tried to become a CA. I tried to be Hozefa.
Life went on.

Many moons, a wife and a kid later, for Hozi, both of us were in Mumbai.
Then I went to Gurgaon. He went to Kuwait.
We didn't think much of Sudhin.

Fast forward. No news from Hozefa as well. Called his Kuwait number, they said he'd gone back to India. Well thank you! But where in India? Back to square one.

The other day I check my mail. See his name in bold shouting out from the Inbox. It's been marked to Sudhin as well. Shit! Can't be.

There's another mail from Hozi, validating my e-mail id. Ok..ok… it's getting a little boring…
So many mails and calls later, I finally speak to Sudhin.
THIRTEEN long years later!
This is what I got to know from him…
While I was in Calcutta and Hozefa was in Calcutta, Sudhin was in Kerala
Then when I was in Calcutta and Hozefa was in Calcutta, Sudhin was in Bombay
I was in Bombay and Hozefa was in Bombay, Sudhin was in Bombay
I was in Gurgaon and Hozefa was in Kuwait, Sudhin was in Bombay
And now…
When I'm in Bombay and Hozefa is in Bombay, Sudhin too is in Bombay.

Thank you Bombay… we're back…Me and my best friends!

Friday, November 10

Appu ab idhar hai…


All this Appu talk of late was getting to me. And what better way to bring all this to an end by having her come down.
And that's precisely what she did. Bags, baggage and meeshu et al
The itinerary was set. She'd be here for a week. Sunday to Sunday.
Left the rest of the planning to the 'main man' - Chidu.

Arrival date: Sunday 5th November

9:30 am shopping for the list Appu demanded for. Carrots, beans, mixer, grinder etc etc etc.
Salary IN 1st November. Salary OUT 5th November. (for Chidu, I must add)

Flight lands at 11 or so. But like always we were late. So the master decided to skip the dropping of shopping bags at base and instead lug them all the way to the airport.
He also had some theory about getting the cab driver to park in some 'special' place.
It was to be a clean pick-up. A job that would up the bar for the CIA. In-out in 5 mins flat.

Flat it sure was. No not the tyre, you silly! How very predictable. The plan fell flat on it's or rather our face. The flight was late. Chidu couldn't find the 'special' place and so on and so forth.

2 shady looking 'madrasi boys' outside the arrival lounge.
2 carry bags with carrots, mixer-grinder etc.
'What bomb are they thinking of next?' was the question let out by those prying eyes.
Though must admit that got more raised eyebrows from the womankind.
And they weren't bothered with this threat-shreat business.
All of them were dying, no pun intended, to know where we got the vegetables from and whether we'd driven a better bargain than themselves.

Finally the flight landed. And yes! Appu took the 'toy train' of the aeroplane world - Air Deccan.

Cut to home. The introduction with Meeshu didn't go as planned.
I scared her. She cried.
Appu stared at me.
I stared at Meeshu. She cried.

Right then Meeshu felt for me the kind of love Cocoa feels for the thermometer and the places it visits on her body. Cocoa doesn't normally say anything. She cried!

Now that Appu came.
Gargi and Kaushik came.
Vicky came.
Even Anu came.
Vicky will come again.
Vinnie came.
Good i say!

Wednesday, November 1

Drive slow, folks on board!

So it was written. So it was done.

The above line sums up how I was the past week. And I attribute this state of mind to the visit of my parents.

To be honest, I see no reason to complain. The 4 days could very well be summed up in just one word -- GLUTTONY. This vice is nice!

Thursday, October 19

iblogged

Bored. Very bored. That’s how I’m feeling today. Too bored even to mention how I felt the same, yesterday and the day before. There! I’ve done it. So maybe I’m not that bored after all.
So let me quickly replace the word bored with the more apt, lazy.
Let’s re-read the first para with this alteration.
Hmmm… better. Much better.

The long weekend crawls closer. Have no mega plans lined up to nail it. And looking at the way Arun’s sprawled on his sofa in his cabin, it’s quite evident that I am not alone. Yesss!

Talking of Arun. The self-appointed tech savvy, alpha male got himself an ipod the other day. And the herd mentality was not to be left out here as well, so the other pillar of technological superiority, Nikhil, got himself the same gizmo.

Cut to the boyz in da hood walking around with their respective ipods, cords, manuals etc in hand like harassed parents seeking kindergarten admissions for the by products of flawed condoms.

The pillar started developing cracks, the alpha male as far away from success as our beloved servicing is to client issues.

A crisis was at hand. And who better to handle it than Mr. Gaurav ‘ten hands’ Lalwani and his Excellency Mehboob ‘ambidextrous’ Kasim.

A playlist here. A plug there. A copy here. A transfer there.
‘Where?’ the alpha man questioned. ‘Phsss’ he heard Gaurav’s spit bubble land on his supple lips. He was quietened. For now.

The transfer continued. Not necessarily of mp3’s from the PC to the ipod. But of bodies from one USB port to the other.

The air was filled with ‘Who’s’ ‘What’s’ ‘Where’s’ and ‘How’s’ The junta, like myself, felt the dreaded board exams were in progress.

Saji had a point or two. Infact, we ensured it never went beyond that. ‘There obviously isn’t any planning here’ he sneaked in before disappearing with the women folk into the yoga session. (More on this later).
Before I move on, it was 6 words from him. We had failed.

But the super humans hadn’t. They were strutting around with the headphones plugged in the right orifices.

Atleast someone was having fun.

‘Enjoy karo!’ I said and moved on to another planet.

Thursday, October 12

etc etc etc

My fear seems to be coming true. Can't motivate myself to keep posting day in and day out.
Probably I don't need to. Probably I lead a boring life.
Come on, can’t be. I am the worm.

So come on worm, speak.

Seems like AJ liked the attention, time and cyber space I've spent on him.
What are frens for AJ?

Appu's written something about me. Read it and felt it was good. Well, that's my opinion. Guess you'd have to visit her blog to be a judge. She's written about some stuff I'd forgotten. After having read wot she's written, I too miss the school and college days. Minus the exams, tests and punishments.
And since these are part and parcel of school and college life, I'd settle for the 2 years of SIMC. Man! Was life fun.

But I do miss Cal. (Calcutta, for the uninitiated.) Miss those late night addas under the streetlight. Roll call time.
Andalib
Bittoo
Chotu (to and from sutta breaks)
Rajdeep
Raj
Adil (to and from gym and alipore)
Gablu (avoiding his dad)
Bruce

These were the regulars. Then there were the non para boys.
Ajeesh, Jomy, Aditya (Andy;s fren)

No matter where we all went to spent the evening. Russell Street dhaba, Sharma's, Tantra, Someplace Else, Karnani, John's coop or Rajdeep's mezzanine floor. The gathering under the light was a daily ritual. Only to be missed owing to high (read excess) intake of alcohol, get lucky (read scoring with the chicks) and annual report card.

God, I Miss those times!

Friday, October 6

AJ the PJ

It’s been a while since the worm’s spoken. Not that too many were complaining. Except for my trusted old pal, AJ. Too up market a name for this Gujju bhai, so it’s best to call a spade a spade. In this case – Ameet Joshi.


Been busy of late. (And before AJ has a comment, let me say it myself, ‘For a change.’ Ameet stop sniggering)

China is driving me up the wall. ‘Not surprising’ said AJ the PJ, ‘they own the Great Wall dude!’ Guess this is the right moment in time for me to confess to the whole world or the two people who read this blog (AJ and me) the real reason why I tolerate Ameet Joshi.

The fact, not hidden to any, is that he makes me look good.
- More hair
- Less fat
- Better clothes
-That too matching
Aren’t these more than good reasons for anyone to put up with a little body odour and a little more audacity? They sure are for me!

I might be getting a bit carried away. Only a bit. So, since I’ve claimed to call a spade a spade, here it is.
I really do wish I’d have a heart and mind like his. Warm, sharp, quick-witted and above all, non-judgmental.

(Get a hold of yourself Brijesh. It was supposed to be a moment of weakness. Let it pass.)

OK! The moment and wind has passed. Where were we? Yeah…the Chinese. Those buggers were really onto me.
‘Why me Lord?’ I cried. Like a man of little faith.
But God moves in mysterious ways. So instead of sending down his wrath, he sent me the newspaper, wrapped.
And it declared verily unto me that even the PM is human and so is his family members, especially his grandson. And if they could be faced with this then who am I?
Man, mere man. (Jokes apart, hope the kid recovers soon.)

Faith restored I returned. Or should I say I left. For Aamby Valley. The exclusive city hidden in the hills of Lonavala.

I went. I saw. I wandered and wondered. What’s the big deal? The place is nice. The rates unheard of. The service, competent. But put together it surely wasn’t EARTH’S FINEST ABODE. No sir. Not by a long shot.
So 3 stiff shots. And I slept over it.
Woke up next morning, no change in opinion.
So 3 more shots.
Cheers!

Friday, September 22

Found

As I had promised. No, not promised. (Too strong a word.) So let me try again.

As I had written. (See below.) The research carried on.

Like King Bruce, I watched the spiders, (kapil, his friends on the other side of the telephone receiver and timmy in this case) try, fail. And try again.

Experts were called in and as the situation got a little graver, everyone whose names started with an H, T, M and L were summoned. But to no avail.

So it was left to the home team to come up with the solution.

I called in a meeting. A SWOP analysis of sorts. But knowing the team and the history between members couldn't get past drawing the grid, which looks a bit like this.





----------------------------





just when i had resigned to my fate, Kapil pulled out a rabbit from the hat. HIMSELF.

the normally, reserved, brooding, pessimistic Kapil, decided to catch this opportunity with both hands and to everyone's surprise came up with the solution.

Before I divulge the details let me absolve everyone who i had cursed, vocally or beneath my breath. It was not a human problem.

My old nemesis, the firewall, has breathed up this huge obstacle that did not allow some icons to be displayed.

A privilege, enjoyed by people blessed with exemplary gifts. Not knowing what they are at this stage, I can only take a guess. Which owing to its sensitive nature shall be divulged only after evidence has been gathered.

So till then lets enjoy the fruits of Kapil’s labour.
Here are the two links. Do click. Do read.

http://www.ishikasadhukhan.blogspot.com

http://www.butkintuparantu.blogspot.com

The Missing Link

The last few days have been exasperating for me. Appu’s got 2 really nice blogs.
Wanted to share it with the rest. But haven’t been able to link the blogs.

Spoken to my ‘one-stop-blog-shop’, Sue. She said, all she does is copy the link and paste it onto her create post page and voila it’s there. I tried it. But maybe it’s got to do with ‘karma’. It wasn’t there.

Frantic calls to Sue. Try without http. Try with http. Try www. Try copy pasting from the page. Tried this. Tried that. Tried. Tried and got tired.

Sue you are a sweetheart. Thank you.

Since all this didn’t work. Tried Option B. Or should I say, Option T. Timmy, my man Monday-Friday.

He did some research, snapped his fingers, cried Eureka and ran out. Thankfully, for us, with his clothes on.

He tutored me. A little bit of copy. A little bit of paste. A little bit of html and here it was, it had become a hyperlink.

Timmy, it’s officially out, ‘you’re the man!’

Perhaps I conferred the title on him too soon. (Another Sania in the making???) I did see a spark in him. But if you click the hyperlink, you’d see for yourself, there’s no fire!!!

Timmy you are not ‘the man’ you are the ‘missing link’. Period.

Now more hours will be put in. Researchers from across the web summoned and I will crack the code.

Until then, links stink!

Wednesday, September 20

ishika's mom

i'm pretty excited about this blog of mine. and hopefully will be keep it going for a much longer time than i have for most other 'sudden' interests.

sent out a mail to some of my frens, telling them abt this new quirk of mine.

appu posted a comment. so guess i'll write abt here in this missive.

appu was in college with me. in pune.
and if u know any or rather both of us, you'd know straight away we couldn't be friends.

this calls for a quick refresher course. tick off the below.
- strong headed
- opinionated.
- vociferous
- non bengali's speaking the language
(must confess she got better command on the language)

but they say God moves in mysterious ways.

we've had are bouts of not talking. talking. ignoring. snarling and finally since we were both getting tired, settled on being where we are.
'comfortable' with each other.

read both her blogs today. superb i'd say to her personal one. ishika's is sweet.
and that's not appu...

got lots to write. donno where to start. so best visit the below.

http://www.butkintuparantu.blogspot.com

interesting read...a mail i recieved.

SYD BARRETT
Jul 20th 2006

Roger "Syd" Barrett, leader of Pink Floyd, died on July 7th, aged 60

TO THOSE who were young then, the late 1960s were the best thing since
1789. All that followed paled by comparison. This was the time of the
Paris riots, with students hurling cobbles and the FLICS hurling
tear-gas back; the first convulsions over the war in Vietnam; the
Prague spring, quickly crushed by Soviet tanks; and everywhere the
sense that the young, by sheer numbers, could overthrow the established
order and make the world again.

If they failed to remake it, this was largely because they were out of
it on one illegal substance or another. For many of them, the drug
scene was a quick, soggy spliff behind the bike sheds, or a reverential
division of a cake of greenish powder, washed down with a glass of
Liebfraumilch and covered up with burning joss sticks. Yet at the
highest levels of culture the new gods of rock music tripped on much
more dangerous stuff, and sang about it. They did not find truth
exactly, as much as yellow walruses, purple fields, kaleidoscopic skies
and melting buildings, all of which were evoked in music and light
shows so new and peculiar that the best way to appreciate them was by
being prone and stoned yourself.

Syd Barrett was the very exemplar of this wild universe. As the leader
of Pink Floyd, the highly successful psychedelic band that he
christened in 1965, he wrote and sang of "lime and limpid green", of
Dan Dare, of gingerbread men and, in the band's first hit, "Arnold
Layne", of a transvestite who stole underwear from moonlit washing
lines. His weird words and odd, simplistic melodies, sent through an
echo-machine, seemed sometimes to be coming from outer space.

Yet there was also something quintessentially English and middle class
about Mr Barrett. His songs contained the essence of Cambridge, his
home town: bicycles, golden robes, meadows and the river. Startlingly,
he sang his hallucinations in the perfect, almost prissy enunciation of
the Home Counties. He made it possible to do rock in English rather
than American, inspiring David Bowie among others. The band's first
album, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (1967), made Mr Barrett
central, plaintively calling up the new age from some distant and
precarious place.

Yet the songs were already tipping over into chaos, and by January
1968 Mr Barrett was unable to compose or, almost, to function. Dope,
LSD and pills, consumed by the fistful, overwhelmed a psyche that was
already fragile and could not bear the pressures of success. At
concerts he would simply play the same note over and over, or stand
still in a trance. If he played, no one knew where he was going, least
of all himself. The band did not want to part with him, but could not
cope with him; so he was left behind, or left them, enduring drug
terrors in a cupboard under the stairs in his London flat. Casualties
of "bad trips" usually recovered, with stark warnings for the unwary.
Mr Barrett, famously, went on too many and never came back.

Friends, especially his Pink Floyd colleagues, tried to encourage him
to resurrect his career. Their attempts were heartbreaking. At various
times in 1968 and 1969 microphones were put in front of him and he was
persuaded to sing and play. Cruelly, the recordings of his solo
efforts, "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett" (both 1970), caught
everything: the nervous coughs, the desperate riffling of pages, the
cries of frustration ("Again? I'll do it again now?"), the numbers of
takes. The sleeve of "Madcap" showed a naked girl in attendance--there
had been any number of those--but Mr Barrett oblivious to her, his face
masked by long hair and mascara, crouched shivering on the floor.

Cambridge, where he had learned to play banjo and had proudly covered
his first guitar with mirror-discs, seemed the best place to retreat
to. He went back to live in his mother's cellar, boarding up the
windows, and returned to the painting for which he had trained at
Camberwell School of Art. Ambushing journalists were told that his head
was "irregular", and that he was "full of dust and guitars".

Mr Barrett was now the most famous recluse in British rock. Slight as
his oeuvre had been, it proved impossible to forget. His death, from
complications of diabetes, brought an outburst of regret from rock
stars and fans who were still following him. Tom Stoppard's play "Rock
'n' Roll", which was playing at the Royal Court when he died, made him
a metaphor for revolutionary music: in 1968 a Pan-figure piping
liberation, in the 1990s a tired, grey man spotted in a supermarket.

SHINING LIKE THE SUN
His band last saw him in 1975 as they recorded, in "Shine on you Crazy
Diamond", a tribute to him that sounded like yet more encouragement.
("Come on you raver, you seer of visions/Come on you painter, you
piper, you prisoner, and shine.") Mr Barrett wandered in, fat and
shaven-headed and hardly recognisable. As his friends sang "You shone
like the sun", he seemed to laugh sarcastically. He stayed a while in
the studio, and then went away.

On the recording, a guitar player drifting in space walks through a
door and finds himself in a loud cocktail party. Managers and promoters
come up and flatter him, cajole him into working for them, but at last
he escapes again. This time, nobody can catch him.

INXs in Mumbai

INXS is scheduled to play live in Mumbai at the MMRDA grounds on October
5th.

Tickets prices at 1200 & 70 will be available at Planet M & Rhythm House
from 21st Sep.

If u r looking to bum freebies, catch friends at DNA, Kingfisher Airlines,
Akruti Nirman & VH1.

If u followed Rock Star : INXS, then u can listen to the winner JD Fortune
front the band.

shooters in india

had this niggling thought in my head for some time now. but since it's a niggling one, didn't come to fore front. not until yesterday.
it's a question rather. 'Why aren't there shooters in india?'
ask the film producers, diamond merchants or better still the father of krishh, you'd say vehmently.

no re. not those kinds. but come to think of it, the job profile is almost the same -- remove scum off the surface -- that's what they too claim, don't they?

mine is a more specific query. why aren't there any shooters in indian hotels?
why? why?

i can understand in firang land where they wipe and polish those places where the sun don't shine. but in good old india will prefer the situtaion watered down.

atleast the Taj's could have them. they are indian hotels after all. or since Tata ji is a parsee, it's like they do in iran? donno how they do it there? do they? i'm pressed (no pun intended)to ask.

here, tissues are for other issues. it's water we're after.

Tuesday, September 19

Good morning! well, actually not so good. lots of phone calls. Lots of servicing phone calls. its getting to me. and to add to it, there's this irritating brief. No, not the one i've got on. Thankfully, when it comes to that I have the option of reliving my childhood dream. Being Commando.
But not in this case.Alas!
It's pretty complicated. It's for a car. A car that is big. but not really that 'big'. I've heard stories like these of some 'Big' guys. So the task at hand (not so 'big' for the protagonist in the stories i've heard. He!he!) is to inbibe a self of pride in owning a car that is supposed to be 'big' but not actually 'that big' when compared to the REAL 'big' boys.
wish i could find the solution in some agony aunt column. Lots of 'Big' guys wriote-in about their 'big' problems when compared to other smaller boys with a 'big' sense of pride!
been struggling with it.
Add to this the chaos in China. would be asking for too much if I'd have to ask them to open their eyes wide to reality.
why don't they do what they're best at? we do the ads. They just copy them.
Ctrl C. Ctrl V. Simple!

So i need help. Running to get another cup of coffee. Maybe the answers lie deep within the chickery sediments.

Please Pray for me my Brethern!
cheers till then.

Monday, September 18

orkut!

been noticing tons of people in my office logging onto this site daily. thumbnails of PYT's and some not so PYT's smeared all across screens. was kind of pissed off coz they had managed to tuck two of my main communications devices (msn & yahoo msngrs) behind some frigging firewall. Now, how is this soldier going to update satus on his whereabout to the rest of his kind out there?
why couldn't they block orkut or the Hi 5's of the world? nothing to hi-5 about, may i add, rather cornily.

but this thing is a boon. (thanks Timmy, once again) hey bugger! makes me think, are you working at all, you friggin trainee writer!

but the site rocks. so my sugesstion. if the msgnrs have left a void in your communications routine, here's the (whatever) that'll more than fill it up... www.orkut.com.

cheers till then!
so c'maaan. let's see em ads.

Greetings!

finally have got my own blog.
feels kind of cool.
although i must confess that i had created the account a couple of weeks back. (Thanks Timmy)
but have managed to scribble something only today. (Thanks Sue)
So without further ado... Let the blogging begin!