Divide By Zero

Of once pretty palaces and bells that still chime

2011-10-27T19:30:00.015+05:30

A quiet but insistent knock on the door woke him up. The ceiling fan was still creaking like a clipped metronome. The curtains were flapping soundlessly to the beat. It was an old curtain, washed many times over. The sun shone through the outlines of a faded rendering of a tiger roaring mid leap on the calico.

The knock again.

He stepped off the bed.The clock needles said 9:40 or was it 8:40. 9:40. The floor was cooler than it was yesterday. He opened the door.
"Breakfast closing at 10. You want something?", the 15 year old Marathi receptionist,concierge,cook of the Gangaram Hotel, Bhuj asked him.
"Scrambled egg and toast",he said.
"Wanting tea or coffee?"
"Tea. I know the farmers in Vidharbha are in the red, but go easy on the sugar"
"Jee sir", he smiled."Wanting hot water?, Cold day today, one bucket for twenty rupees"
"Ok.Bring it up after my breakfast is done. Will come down in a while"
"Maria madam already there", he said with a smile and walked back down to the kitchen.

Maria Joao was at the table reading the paper framed against the doorway. A gentle drizzle had started sometime not too long before.
"Good morning",she said adjusting her shawl which she had wrapped around her shoulder.
"Morning. Late start?"
"Yes. Will take it easy for the next couple of days.Plan to leave next week to the weaver village"

Maria was from Portugal. A graphic design graduate learning block printing techniques from the local artisans in the villages around Bhuj.
She spoke slowly, rolling her syllables with care.Also, she was pretty.
They had met at the dinner table the night before.An Italian photographer and a tall Dutch woman on a Sabbatical who were there for dinner were not to be seen.
They had talked of Sicily and Sicilians and how Maria's sister had wanted to marry a Sicilian she had met. In the end she decided not to, after meeting the prospective mother-in-law.
He had never been to Sicily. He wanted to go to Sicily.

"What about you?",she asked.
"Yup.Lazy weather day.Plan to go down to the Paraag Mahal a bit later in the day.
"Hmm.. was there with some friends a while ago, but the entrance charges for foreigners is outrageously expensive."
"Any good?"
"Creepy, if anything..",she said after much thought.
"We'll see..", he said, sipping the milky tea.

It was nearly two when he decided to go to the Palace complex. The hotel was right next door to the walls. The air was moist and the streets wet. Every now and then a droplet would land on the back of his neck. He followed the wall until he came to the gate.

A sign pointed to the right "For buy ticket".
A signboard said that the Palace was built in the 1879. Italian Gothic. A functional Bell tower.One of the three functional British era bell towers in the country.

All around were signs of the Great Bhuj quake, which everyone mentioned once in conversations he had had since he was here .Spidery cracks on the facade. A lopsided tower.

The palace was closed till three. The rubble from Bhuj quake had still not been cleared from the complex. It had over the course of the nine years blended into the forlorn, though not entirely depressing surroundings. Pipal trees were starting to take root among the fallen bricks. The bricks were redder than usual because of the rain. A disused well with a pulley lay to one end. A truck load of sand had been carelessly dumped nearby.
A little girl was busy tunneling into the sand with both hands. Each little hand carefully extracting a scoop of sand from either side in tandem.After every scoop she took time to smoothen the walls with her little palms. Every three or four scoops she wiped the sweat from her sandy brow.She paused for the while to check either end. Soon they would meet. She decided to take it one end at time now.

He decided to walk around until someone arrived. Soon someone arrived.
The gatekeeper.

"What time does it open?"
"Check the board. It says three"

The girl had completed her tunnel and after a pat down on the insides stood back to admire her handiwork. She was now deciding on whether to make a new tunnel to the left or the right of the current one.

"Whats inside?", he asked the gatekeeper.
"See for yourself. Just another 20mins to go".

A red sedan which had seen a brighter coat of paint rolled in. Tourists. A newly married couple got off and the man said something terse to the driver.Honeymoon.Both had their shades on. It was cloudy, so the whole world probably looked like an under-exposed photograph to them.
They came down to where he stood and asked the gatekeeper for the tickets.

"Look here.", the gatekeeper said pointing to the signboard.
The wife pulled at the husbands arm as he glared at the man through his shades. They soon found a convenient fallen pillar to take each others' pictures on, with the rubble as the backdrop. Shortly the husband walked over to him and asked if he would be "So kind as to " take their photograph.
He said yes. He took two photographs. One with the shades and one without.

They walked back together to the door. Shortly a man in an old uniform walked down to the desk at the gate with a steel box in hand.
Soon, the palace was open for business. The gatekeeper stared into the rubble with a disturbed expression for a while and then walked to the well to smoke a beedi.

The palace was as Maria had described. The corridors were wet and slippery. The couple was on their way out by the time he entered the main hall. Obviously, the decor and tenor of the place didn't go well with what they had in mind for a honeymoon. He now had the entire palace to himself.
He went into a room with a stuffed tiger whose fur was now starting to get moldy.There was one room which obviously was the bedroom with full length mirrors. The silver coating had worn off in large patches. The furnishing was distinctly European. He walked into the once definitely magnificent durbar hall. More tigers, buffaloes and antelope heads. Two buckets had been placed to catch the water leaking from a damp patch next to the crystal chandelier. Big drops sploshed into the almost full buckets every once in a while. The stained glass windows fresh after the drizzle filled the far end with dewy light. Red.Blue.Yellow.Green.

He loitered around the hall, looking for a good angle to photgraph and gave up after a few attempts. He walked up the stairway to the bell tower.The bells rang every fifteen minutes.One chime for each quarter and then ringing the number for each hour. Soon it would be four. he scrambled up the stairs to be in time. On the roof at one end was the Hamirsar and a cool breeze was blowing in from there. The tower had been hastily patched up and held rather precariously with assorted scaffolding and pillar support. He walked up the claustrophobic spiral stairway and stood above the assortment of bells, ropes and gears.
Sure enough, at four, the gongs rang out, the oiled metal and wood creaked, the ropes were pulled and with a rearrangement of gears to chime out five strokes the next hour, the tower fell silent.
He stood for a while staring into the tiled roofs of the palace watching pigeons dart in and out secret cubbyholes and cracks left open by the quake.
The sun was now out. He wondered if the tunnel still held up with the dampness fast drying away in the western Sun.

He stood there for a long time. Soon he heard footsteps. A balding head popped out of the stairway followed by a girl in her late teens in a dress she would start hating in a while. After another few minutes, a matronly woman of forty panted out of the stairway and she stood against the railing catching her breath. He walked down the stairway and went back to the entrance.

The gatekeeper was still standing by the well.
He walked down to him.
"So how long have you been working here", he asked.
He shrugged and threw his stub into the well and lit another one.
"Longer than I care to remember."
"Is the palace maintained by the ASI?"
"Nope. The trust runs it. The Maharaja's trust"
"They dont seem to be doing much from the looks of it"
"My grandfather was a halwai in the kings kitchen. He used to say that the King had an ugly queen but a lovely palace.He should have seen it now"
"Hmm... There's water leaking in the darbar hall"
"I placed the buckets myself", he said,"The present Maharaja is a mad man. Ego. Britain, France, America had all said they would pay to renovate the palace.But the man wont listen. He says, he will bring the palace to it's rightful place but not with an Englishman's money. Baawala ho gaya hai sala" ..and after a pause "Poori duniya Baawli ho gayi hai" and walked off.

He stood by the well for some time. The red walls were now glowing, the water slowly drying.
He turned to walk down back to the town.

The little girl was nowhere to be seen. All that remained were two tunnels with damp,darker sand on the entrances and a lazy dog sunning himself on the heap.
Another sedan pulled into the gates and passed him, splashing his shoes, riding over a shimmering early evening puddle.

He cursed silently and walked to the gates. "Poori duniya baawli ho gayi hai"

Scandal in the Wind

2011-09-11T13:23:00.007+05:30

From the Political desk special correspondent

MAYAWATI GOVERNMENT INSTITUTES SALVADOR DALIT AWARD FOR STATUE MAKING

Under fire following the recent Wikileaks' release, Ms.Mayawati's government has gone on the offensive to reverse adverse public opinion with a slew of measures. The Wikileaks report had accused Ms.Mayawati of, among other things, being MAYAWATI.

The Uttar Pradesh State government has announced the institution of the Salvador Dalit Award for excellence in the field of sculpture and iconography. The awards will be judged by an eminent panel headed by Ms.Mayawati. It is expected to be a single person panel.
The award will be given out every year on the occasion of Ms.Mayawati's birthday to the best Mayawati statue sculpture and will include a free trip in a empty jet to a choice of location of Ms.Mayawati's rally in the past one month.

Addressing a rally of 100000 strong people patiently waiting in the dusty heat of the Cow belt for their promised biryani, 500ml desi and a Maya themed Barbie doll, Ms.Mayawati stated that the move will galvanise, what is arguably, the state's biggest industry and benefit the poorest of the poor.
The announcement has also resulted in the increase in the stock prices of the Reliance Industries, who had acquired the biggest marble quarries in the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh just days before Ms.Mayawati's institution of the award. Company spokesperson denied any links between the two events and the same evening issued a denial for the denial to keep all bases covered just in case.

In the press conference following the rally, when one of the press corps indicated that she was obviously misappropriating the name of the famous European artist, she promptly accused him of being anti dalit and said that like Salvador Dali, she was widely misunderstood and misrepresented

Her suave aide-de-camp Satish Mishra, then disconnected his call to the US Ambassador's residence and interjected that, like Dali, Ms.Mayawati shared a Surrealist view of the world. He also reiterated that he had been misquoted in the Wikileaks report and said that all he said was that Ms.Mayawati had a “strong, authoritarian steak” sent to her by the Texas chapter of the BSP(TBSP, often mistaken for Tablespoon in party literature) on the occasion of her birthday.

Ms.Mayawati's birthday is in addition to being a significant social event in the UP Administrative services calendar is also a very important source of income for Lucknow's bakery industry. The economic churn associated with the event is no less significant in comparison to what is experienced in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras or Rio during the Carnival weekend. Unlike Marie Antoinette, Ms.Mayawati on her birthday means business when she says “..let them have cake”.

At the end of the conference, she released an audio CD compilation of songs sung by leading artists of the day,from around the world, in her praise. The album features Elton John's rendition of "Scandal in the Wind", Chantal Kreviazuk's “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and Bappi Lahiri's remixed version of “Blue Suede Shoes”.

Party insiders indicate that Ms.Mayawati had stridently demanded that the famously dead Michael Jackson be convinced into contributing to the album. After, much grovelling and convincing on the impossibility of the situation, she grudging accepted that he would be unavailable, but not before accusing him of being obviously anti-Dalit for not being a part of the historic compilation.

Salvador Dali, for obvious reasons was unavailable for comment.

People from The Mountains -1- One Fine Day

2011-08-06T21:05:00.004+05:30

He was sitting on the top of a bus when he first saw her. He saw her before she saw him. She was with a companion. A tall brunette. You could say, they had just met on the road. Both seemed to be people who would pack and unpack their backpacks a few times before they decide to stuff everything in anyways.

She saw him as she stood trying to figure which of the many old green and white buses she had to take to go over the mountains, over the Rohtang. She was not too sure she wanted to be travelling on top of any of them and walked towards the far end with the brunette trailing slightly behind.

The morning mountain air was crisp. The bus stand had been washed clean by the early morning showers. Little puddles with little ripples as the buses trundled past, engines struggling to breathe in the thin air. The man next to him tried to light a beedi. Two match sticks, the wind blew out before the end glowed a bright orange as the man drew in a deep drag. A couple, possibly Israeli with Star of David tattoos and dreadlocks looked like they had smoked something stronger than just a beedi.

A sharp rasping voice from below cut in. "Uthro saalon!! This bus not moving if people on top sitting. Bus company very strict. Sometime people falling into mountainside and dying."
The conductor went into the bus having made what he thought was a fairly impressive speech... in English.
No one moved. Ten minutes, the world went around it's axis, slowly , thoughtfully.

The sharp rasping voice started again."What I tell..". Only to be cut off by the earthy pahaadi accented Hindi speaking driver who sauntered in from the chai shop with his still steaming glass of chai. His voice had the same quality as the vapour strongly rising from his glass.
"A man died a month ago. Left behind a woman and a few kids. The driver and conductor are in jail now.If you dont get off. This doesn't move. ", he said pointing his tea glass at the bus. The steam silently melting into the morning chill against a dusty bright movie poster.
The driver then pointed his tea glass hand at him and said. "Tell the bloody phirangis what I just said .All of you get down and wait for the next one coming in from Rekong Peo".
Everyone climbed down in a few minutes. Some more reluctant than others.

The bus from Rekong Peo silently slid into the other end of the bus stand as everyone was getting off this bus and before he was able to get in, it was full. He threw his backpack on the roof in between a bunch of vegetable sacks and got into the already full bus.

She was there in the last seat by the door and a dirty window. He climbed in. People walked in. He let them past leaning against a cold steel pillar by the door. The floor of the bus was muddy.

The conductor walked up to him.
"How long to Keylong?", he inquired.
"The road is quite bad, just a slush stream at places on the top.Should be about 8 hours tops"
"How much?"
"8 hours I said"
"No. I was asking about the ticket."
"120"
"Here you go. Standing is not fun"
"Hope your back holds up. You city folk", he said and walked down to the brunette.

"Two tickets to Keylong"
The brunette said something into her ear. She replied.In French. She had a lilting faraway tone. She shuffled for a while, opening her passport pouch and then her wallet before putting together her 120 for her ticket.She smiled sometimes into a distant void as she talked.
The bus weaved its way out of the town. Slowly at first. Slower still later. Little pockets of conversations had started in the meanwhile. A vegetable seller introducing himself to a Slovenian father and son. The Israelis quietly whispering to themselves. An old man complaining to his neighbour about the Israelis. A quiet looking short man was asking a tall Dutch lady if she would marry him.
He stood against the pillar for a while. Every time the tyres drowned into a pot hole of indeterminate depth, the passengers at the back were tossed up like vegetables being tossed for a salad by a careless tired chef.

One hour.They were climbing now. Someone pointed to a carcass of a jeep fallen off a cliff and everyone craned their necks ..some ...only because the neighbour was craning his neck.
She woke up the brunette, who had dozed off and pointed wordlessly to the jeep.
The brunette said something. She said nothing. The brunette dozed off again.

The road was better now and they were making good time.
One hour.Still climbing. The honking was conspicuous by it's absence.

He had just found the sweet spot against the pillar he had now warmed up and that was when the brakes slammed. Someone swore. He was sprawled against the door before he knew what had happened. Almost at her feet.
The driver was leaning outside the window and questioning the parentage of a jeep driver coming downhill. The jeep driver was responding in kind . He stood up righting himself. He felt a vague dull pain in his shoulder where he had landed against the door.

"Are you alright?". The same distant lilting tone.
"Yup. The road is..ummm.. quite bad". he said in an asphyxiated voice of someone who was waiting to talk to someone with a opening line in mind, but had to change it suddenly on being spoken to.
He certainly didn't sound anything like he had wanted to sound with the opening line.
She smiled brightly and looked away as you would look away from someone you wanted to make conversation to , but just figured that the other person probably didn't.
He wanted to tell her, that it wasn't that way. He didn't. He couldn't.

He sat on the floor by the doorway. The wind had dried the sludge into little misshapen crumble cookies. He felt them crumble as he sat on them.
The bus was now behind an army convoy. It sure seemed that it would be there for a while as the road had now dramatically narrowed.
The bus stopped. The whole world as far as he could see had stopped.

"Landslide". Someone said.
Slowly people started getting off. The old man, went to the rock scree behind a boulder after much looking about. He came back his fly still undone.
The Israelis, got down to smoke.
She fumbled into her pack and came up with a crumpled cardigan, careful not to disturb the sleeping brunette, contorting herself in the little space she had to put it on. He was sure that they had just met on the road.
He got down to stretch his legs. His shoulder was a bit numb too. He jumped across the slush missing his target and splashing into the muck. The mountains are never a bad place to get stuck in he thought as he took in the view of the valley in mid summer.

The greenest it would be any time of the year. Glacier melt slowly pushing it's way down the valleys. Stopping to pass on a secret package to the trees it happened to meet along the way. The trees would then blow up the bounty in a brief shriek of joy..A joy, green in colour. Only to slowly wither away leaf by leaf in the not too far winter. He vaguely pointed his camera to capture the valley mid-shriek.

She had gotten off the bus too. She walked across . Uphill of where he was.
He asked the driver who was squatting by the slush on the side of the road how long they would be here.
The driver shrugged and asked if he had a cigarette.
He said he didnt . The driver shrugged some more.
She took out a pack of almonds . She ate them staring into a valley with defocussed eyes.

She had pretty hands.
What makes some hands prettier than others?

He continued to stare at her hands as she stared into the valley. Keeping time by the delightful arc of her hand as it moved from somewhere in her lap to her slightly chaffed wind blown lips.

The crowds were now starting to head back to their buses. The rubble had been cleared.
The Israelis had just lit a cigarette. One of them looked peeved that he had to waste a perfectly good stick because someone cleared the rubble a bit too early. He seemed to be a someone who thought the whole damn world was unfair anyways. He was the last to get in.
He let the guy past as he stood against his once warm,now cold steel pillar.

The brunette was up now and was trying to take some pictures of the valley and the mountains on the other side placing the camera unsteadily in front of her nose as the bus swayed.
Soon, they were at the top. It was a time somewhere between early evening and late afternoon and now the bus started to go downhill trying not to careen into the valley and join a few other unlucky brethren rusting in the scree far below.
Everyone had their cameras out. The Japanese far in the front respectfully poking their long lenses past their neighbours noses apologising every time they fell against them when the bus braked.
Had had his out too. The brunette was sleeping again. He was busy for a bit trying to adjust his light meter settings every time the bus went in and out of shadows of the mountains .

Their eyes met. She half smiled.
He was not sure if she had smiled. He smiled and looked away not sure why he did that .
When he next turned to her with a rehearsed opening line,she had already closed her eyes, her fingers gripping the window pane pretending to be asleep
The evening light was settling softly across her tightly stretched face.
Yes.She was pretending to be asleep.
As the bus turned a bend , he saw her hand, still gripping the dirty pane. One brightly painted red nail glowing in the warm light.
One glowing red nail, framed against the mountains. Like a wayward sun who had lost his way across the sky. He could see her fingers tighten and relax as the bus banked around bends, but her eyes remained shut. Her face remained taut.
He closed his eyes too. Letting the sunlight warm his eyelids. He found the sweet spot on his warm pillar again to rest his back on. And watched floating tendrils in a red sea through his closed eyes.

"Bon Jour", he would say when she opened her eyes.
"Bon Jour", she would say with a smile . Adding. "Parlez vous Français ?!"
"Nope. Nothing beyond 'Ça Va'. Ça Va?"
"Hehe. Am fine. Where you from by the way"
"From the south. Somewhere warmer. And you"
"From Paris.I've never been to the south of India. I'd like to though."
"You should. It's pretty in parts, ugly in parts, interesting in most parts."
"One can say that about most places in the world. Dont you think so?"
"Nope. Wouldn't say that about Paris."
"You've been there?"
"Yes and no."
"And that means?"
"Was there for only a weekend? Almost doesn't count considering Paris"
"You liked it?"
"Hemingway didn't lie, when he said that Paris is a movable feast...Ugly was sure missing there"
"A movable feast....."
"Ya. Difficult to explain it without spoiling the orange tinted connotations that the phrase puts in your head"
"I kinda get what you say. I would say 'Yes' if someone asked me if Paris was a movable feast too I guess"
"You read Hemingway?"
"One"
"Which one?"
"Something about a civil war in Spain"
"For whom the bell tolls?"
"Yup. The same one"
"It's like listening to the Blues isnt it ? Reading Hemingway.",he said.
She mulled over that for a moment.
"Not a bad way to put it. Though I look at it like watching people at the Notre Dame on a bright Summer day."
He mulled over it for a moment.
" Not a bad way to put it either", he smiled into her eyes.
"You have pretty hands"
"Really", she said looking at them,"Nobody told me that"
"Now someone did"
"I'll remember that" .She laughed from into his eyes.
"Not a bad day at all isn't it?"
"A fine day, monsieur. A fine day" ,she said looking into the distant mountains. "It isnt the same as Not a Bad day"
"A fine day it is , mmeslle"

The light was already fading as the bus made its way down the last stretch.

The damn brakes again.
They both woke up with a jolt.

Their eyes met again.
He half smiled at her. "Bon Jour", he said gingerly.
"Bon jour" , she said, not exactly like she had said a while ago when both where floating down the mountainside in the warm light with the bright nail framed against the evening mountains.Eyes closed.

She had gone from pretending to be asleep to a point in space-time she may not have been awake, somewhere during the descent.
She looked at him and started to say something.

She took a little too long.

He had already decided that it was probably not the right thing to have said. Should he have said "Bon Soir"? He looked away into the mountains.
He looked up. He saw her eyes closed. The window closed . Eyes shut.Hands pulled into her crumpled cardigan. Face taut.
He smiled into the evening and waited for Keylong to arrive listening to Norwegian Wood looping over and over again in his earphones.

"It was not a bad day". He thought.
"It could have been a fine day", he sighed and walked off the bus to find a place to stay for the night.

Of Moments of Truth

2011-07-13T00:46:00.001+05:30

Railway stations had always fascinated him. This one was vaguely similar to an old picture he had filed away someplace . The picture in his head was too clear to be true. He smiled at the thought of how much of our past is imagined and how much is what we want it to be , rather than what it really was.
His train of thought was broken by the footsteps of a dozen dhoti clad passengers running on to the rusty metal over-bridge to go over to the next platform, mouthing a very rural Telugu in between paan tinged breaths.
The evening sun, had just gone below the horizon. A slight chill hung in the air. It was a window between when he could see the mynas silhouetted against a shade of an indigo sky, with a tinge of orange and the time the antiseptic white street lights are switched on.
The mynas were as he had imagined them in his filed away picture.Equidistantly perched over the electric lines with millimetric accuracy.

The crowd thickened steadily and he instinctively tightened his grip on his backpack. He had an hours time to kill and he walked the entire platform searching for a suitable bench to settle on. All of them were full.. With families excited to be going away on a holiday, with daily labourers and their dazed looks, with a newly married couple thrilled to be holding hands and making plans.

After he had walked back and forth a couple of times, he found on bench with a red veil limply across it. It was probably left unoccupied, because of the veil.. It almost told you with a quiet dignity to find another bench..this one is taken.. He pushed it one corner of the bench and settled in for a long wait for his train to arrive. He didnt mind the wait. He could see in the fading light, the wisdom and the quiet fortitude of the elderly, the burden of responsibility,the ebullience of youth, the joy of childhood. He was completely at peace. He liked the fuzzy feeling of the nothingness and disconnected thought. Miles way from the life of constant confusion that he was going back to.

A feeble voice, yet so clearly heard over the din, reached him. It was an elderly man, dressed in clothes that looked like they had been washed many times over and yet looked neat. He held in his hand a leather case ,that had seen better days. The bag was packed completely and the zipper had popped at the seams. The man asked him, if there were any ladies sitting next to him. When he answered in the negative, the old man picked up the veil and with a tired sigh, he moved it aside to make room,taking care not to drop it onto the dusty floor.

Both stared at the mynas until they were imagining them against the pitch darkness on the horizon.

The crowd was by now jostling around with people tracing random traverses to get from one place to another. He nervously asked the man,where the B2 wagon would stop on the platform.

The old man indicted that it would be stopping just about a few metres from their bench. He relaxed.

The old man asked him, where he was going to. He replied that he was going to Bangalore. The old man, throttled half a chuckle.

" Software?"

"No, Electronics"

"Ah, Ok, Software". A quiet,uneasy silence.

"You are going to Bangalore too?"

"No. I am going to a small town called Chittoor. It's close to Tirupati, about 50 km from the Karnataka border.",he said in fairly good Kannada.

"Oh, you speak Kannada!",he exclaimed, decidedly surprised to hear his native tongue,so far from home.

"Yes, I worked in Bellary for some time. I learnt my Kannada there. Are you here on a vacation?"

"Hmm. Had come over to meet my grandparents, who live close to here. What about you?"

"I am on my way back home from Behrampur, travelling in the general compartment"

"Oh.Orissa?"

"Yes, my son works in the Archaelogical Survey of India, as a junior assistant. He has just been posted there and it is the first time, he has been away from home for so long. I went to visit him for a couple of days to make sure he is alright"

"Oh,that's nice"

"I am a school headmaster in a government school in Chittoor" , "just three months way from retirement",he added with a twinge.

"Must have been difficult travelling in the general compartment."

"We are used to this. We have to learn to."

He imagined the headmaster's son, brought up on a dosage of middle class values. middle class resilience, conservative sheltered thought, poring over dig sites, finding stuff that people world over would come to see and could not help comparing it with his own job of pecking away mindlessly at a keyboard. The confusion, which had cleared amidst the throngs of the humanity just moments ago, was slowly seeping back into the crevices of his psyche.

He felt guilty about earning all that money for a little more than breaking a mild mental sweat in a shiny cubicle in an environment where people complained if the AC setting was 2DegC above or below their liking.

More than ever, he resolved to end up doing what he wanted to do. Get back to the classroom,only this time, on the otherside of the desks within the next few years...
His guilt trips were using up more fuel than ever before off late.

He shook his head and said,

"It's such an interesting job, is'nt it? The ASI "

"A job is a job. He found it after a lot of running around. I spent a lot of my savings to get him this job. It doesnt pay much, but he atleast can do something with his life. "

He tried hard to find the right thing to say. He couldnt find anything much to say and smiled meekly.

"Must be hot in Chittoor"

"Much hotter than Bangalore definitely"

Weather. Signs that the conversation was wearing thin.

He left the old man to his thoughts. The old man wiped his glasses.
A mother shouted at her 5 year old. An old woman carefully adjusted her sari before descending into the tracks to cross over to the other platform.

His train was due in a couple of minutes. Already people on the platform were restlessly stirring, counting their baggage and in some cases their children. A kilometre down the line, where the tracks bends into the paddy fields, a strident beam appeared and was soon followed by a strident hoot of the engine's whistle. He got up and stretched.

He looked down to the old man still staring into a private void.
"The train is here"

"I have a small request if you will care to hear"
"Yes"
"I dont have money for a ticket or food. My wallet was stolen on my way here from Behrampur"
"Ok...",he said hesitantly. The engine hooted out a clear and shrill note.
"If you dont mind, can you lend me 200 Rs? Give me your address and I will send you the money. I dont know anyone in this town and you know how the Ticket Checker is"

The train was now almost at the platform, sending people instinctively behind the yellow line which they normally ignore.

His mind was racing. It was not the 200Rs that worried him. He wondered about many things, like trust, fate, belief all at once. The train stopping and all the people rushing in did not help him.

He took out 200Rs and hurriedly wrote down his address on the paper the man had held out to him.
The man thanked him tersely and walked away.

The train stopped here for only two minutes, a punctuation in its journey across the fertile south. He had to get into the train now. He went in and sat at his window seat pushing his cheeks against the cold,rusty grills. He saw the man... or was it someone else headed towards the station exit.

Something told him, sitting on the cold rexin of the Indian Railways berth... all the "life experience" he thought he had earned over the years of travelling and meeting strange people in strange lands, had not helped him when he was getting conned in a place 50km from where he was born.

But somewhere there was a niggling hope that a cheque would be mailed to him. Like in a Reader's Digest story.

Three and a half years hence, recalling the incident and updating a blog post .. it still rankled. The old man needed the 200 more than he did, no question about that.. He spent more getting his hair trimmed.

Still.. the fact that the letter never came dented his faith in more ways that one.

The old man probably still comes to the same station every once in a while, fine tuning his act, adding minute details to make his son. his job and his retirement vivid entities with a life of their own...A sharpened pencil and a piece of paper ready in hand.

Slip Sliding Away

2011-06-12T15:29:00.007+05:30

She walked in somewhere between the time he ordered for his fourth cup of kahwa and the time the cocoon warehouse caught fire caught fire in Kawabata's Snow Country.

She walked in with the afternoon melting fretfully into evening...an evening which made it easy for one to make a choice between the cane outdoor chairs or the air conditioned couches inside the cafe with the artificial lights and the still cinnamon laden heavy air. He never like cinnamon all that much anyways.

It must have been the glasses. What about her glasses? He wasn't quite sure.But yeah..must have been the glasses.

The cafe overlooked a wide street across which was a grey ash brick wall. Inside the grey ash brick wall was a grey ash brick one room house . A dog wrestled a cock into the ground .The cock in turn tried to peck the mongrel when it had a chance to get up and noisily flap its wings into a little private dust storm.

She chose a chair overlooking the entrance, across his table, partially hidden behind a rather inconveniently located pillar.

His kahwa arrived. She beckoned to the waiter. She didn't look like a coffee person. Must have been the glasses. What about her glasses? She didn't take too long to place her order. She was possibly a regular here? Quite unlikely though as this was a new cafe and he was here most weekends since it opened and had never seen her.

A brisk breeze not quite a wind, was blowing. Monsoons had hit the Andamans already.. the confident looking, business suited newsreader had said and was fast progressing towards the mainland.The dusty leaves swaying with a practiced carelessness cast moving rusty shadows on the walls of the cafe. Filtered sunlight.

A Mango smoothie arrived at her table. Yup. Not a coffee person. She opened a book,tweaked the straw at the bend into a convenient angle, pushed up the bridge of her glasses, drew a sharp sip from the glass and proceeded to read.He tried to read the title on the red colored cover. The pillar was definitely inconveniently located.

More people were walking into the cafe. Some of them still numb mouthed from a comfortable afternoon siesta in a shaded dark curtained neighborliness with the ceiling fan creaking randomly rhythmic overhead. The curtains occasionally forced astray to cast shards of bright light.

The book she was reading was fairly thick. His Tolkien in his bookshelf didn't look too dissimilar. Was she a Tolkien reader? He remembered a random conversation he had with a friend some years ago about women who knew their Simon and Garfunkel and what defines them.Very few women he knew ,knew their Simon and Garfunkel. He met one on a beach on the West coast on a rainy weekend ..but he didn't know then that she knew her Simon and Garfunkel. She was a something in the media business..he couldn't quite remember now.. and had a little gap between her two front teeth and her name reminded him of snow in a teacup.

His tea was now cold. He didn't particularly mind that .The shadows were getting longer, the streets busier. Each table had a little plot unfolding. Some more interesting than others.

She seemed to be a slow and a thorough reader.Unlike him. She took her time stopping occasionally to stare vacantly into the street. Which Tolkien was her favorite? What did she think of the movie? He wagered that she too would have thought that the movie never did justice to the book. He was right about the coffee,wasn't he? A phone call interrupted her. She disposed of it quickly with a series of shrugs and a none too cheerful goodbye.

He walked down to the restroom . She looked up as he went past and their gazes met. Before either could register much he walked past. What about those glasses? By the looks of it..She hadn't started reading the book too long ago.

On his way back, he caught her mid sip staring into the vacantness ahead and he could read the title lit in a shaft of light.

“Word Power Made Easy”.The same book thats been crowding the pavements of the cities of the country for the last decade along with babble like “Who moved my Cheese?”

It was like someone switched on a fluorescent industrial tube light in a cozy candle lit room ,switching off the BB King record playing in the background at the same time.

He got back to his table. A stray dusty leaf had found its way into his tea cup in the meanwhile. And he was no longer sure when he claimed in conversations that life had taught him how not to be judgmental.

Wry smile.

He closed the Kawabata, put it into his backpack,paid the bill at the the counter and cycled home humming “Slip Sliding Away”...Damn.What about those glasses?

The Immigrant

2011-04-03T20:34:00.014+05:30

Moussa bin Said lit his last cigarette for the day. This pack had to last him until tomorrow. He inhaled deeply and watched the match he carelessly flicked sputter briefly in a puddle from the afternoon rain.
Strange, he thought, the evening paper hadn't predicted any. The paper had even said, it was going to be a bright sunny day.
Well now that he thought of it, the papers had predicted an Algerian victory over Egypt in the African Cup in yesterday's game in Algiers. They'd got that wrong too.

The rain wasn't a bad thing at all he figured as he took another deep,satisfying drag. The sun was out now and the remnant barely cohesive film from the brief downpour made the leaves look greener and the Sacre Couer more ethereal than the usual 4PM light made it look.

He watched the Japanese tourists pass by, Nikons in hand, clicking everything in sight with accompaniments of exaggerated sighs. They were the easiest to peddle stuff to. All he had to do was thrust a replica Eiffel Tower into their faces, and say "2 Euros, Arigatho" in his gruff baritone with a slight furrow on his shaggy brow. This usually convinced them to buy one from him.
The Americans too were good bets. One of the paradoxes he never understood. The Germans were the most difficult, followed by the Chinese. He had trouble telling the Chinese from the Japanese when the first waves of Chinese started coming in to Paris in the early nineties. He'd learnt eventually.

He let this bunch go undisturbed though he had made half of what he usually did because of the rain. The old man who played his harp on Saturday evenings on the stairs was slowly making his way up among the evening throng coming up to watch the sun set over Paris and watch the world(yeah.... the world in the literal sense) stare into the evening sky.
He took a last deep drag and then with gentle deliberation exhaled ringlets of smoke into the evening sky. The butt joined the match without a sound and he watched it get gradually soggy.

He leaned on the railing, turning his back to the relentless horde on the courtyard on their way to the traditional photo op. He could hear Malouda trying his persuasion skills on one of the Japanese. He was new, just come into Paris from Abidjan.Just like he had all those years ago, as a fourteen year old. He and his mother.

His mother was now dead. One of the few regrets he had was that he had no photographs of her. He no longer could recall what memories of her were creations of his imagination and what memories were real. She called him Pasha. Emperor. He smiled and for a moment, he almost recalled her profile conjure itself in his minds eye with startling clarity before fading way into a maze of half formed images and words.

A voice behind him meekly said a feeble "Excuse me". Japanese, he smiled to himself as he turned to greet the owner of the voice. She was university student with a non descript bespectacled face and a slightly disheveled hairdo. "How much for the Tower?"
He smiled again. Picked one of the cheap replicas (Made in China) and gave it to the student with a look of genuine benevolence, which only time can bestow on the faces of old men, and said to her. "For you. I take nothing". The student looked confused. She slowly extracted a 5 Euro note and stood there.
Moussa, bent and packed the remaining towers into his cheap plastic bag whose zippers needed a replacement. He emptied his days earnings into his mother's camel leather pouch, his only inheritance. He got up,put on his cap and heaved the ring of trinket key chains onto his arm.
The student was still standing there with the tower in her right and the money in her left.

He turned and walked away down the stairs. He passed the harpist Jacques. They exchanged a nod and he stood there for a while listening to the sombre notes. He turned upwards. The student was still standing there. He smiled. She smiled.

Some days..are better than others, he thought. "What the hell..".. he lit another cigarette and headed down the hill to a place he called home, but was not quite one.

Immigration,Customs and other things wrong with international air travel

2011-02-14T00:57:00.001+05:30

Burning hydrocarbons..., originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

A reassuring thrum,
Dim lights mellow,
He smells stale airline food

Metal Bird

2011-02-12T21:49:00.003+05:30

Clear Winter Morning sky,
A Bird soars,
Sonic Boom

Personal Quasi-Tragic Sunset- I

2011-02-09T21:42:00.001+05:30

Personal Quasi-Tragic Sunset- I, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

a flower blooms,
thick black smoke,
wilts

Kashmiri kahwas

2011-02-06T01:12:00.001+05:30

early evening sunlight,
thoughts of kashmir,
he sipped saffron laced tea

Of long gone Summers and taking the wrong train

2011-01-09T01:53:00.004+05:30

Minmaya!! That was the name he was looking for. He had spent an entire Saturday and a bit more, but yeah, early Sunday or late Saturday, depending on the kind of person one is, he finally managed to roll out the syllables painfully encrypted in the depths of his sub conscious. 2:10 AM.

It was a name from four summers ago, not too long ago, many would say,again depending on the kind of person one is... but he had grown old in the meanwhile. Four years... "Older than I once was, younger than I'll ever be, but that's not unusual" as Paul Simon would say.... The summer of 2007, was preceded by a long winter and a longer more painful spring.

He had decided the summer would be his epilogue to the story of his last one year. A year he made choices, including a choice not to make one. Choices that defined him, more than any event in his 25 year old life. 25 is a nice round figure. He never understood why 25, not 24 and 26 are counted upon as significant take-stock milestones. Was this a result of the decimal system? What ages did the Romans deem significant ?

Mimaya became a little paragraph in his epilogue. A dead end on the JR Tohoku line. A point of must return. He had left Tokyo's Ueno station early in the morning at 5AM. Changed seven crossing the torturous spine of the Japanese mainland, all to reach Aomori in time to catch the 1130PM ferry across the Tsugaru on to Hakodate.
Crossing the sea, gave him a metaphorical finish line. To start a new race all over. To be done with the race he had been running all along. A race he had lost, but like the athletes trailing the winner and runners up, just pointlessly kept running to reach the ribbon which has been breasted and subsequently trampled upon by a horde who already finished ahead of him. Flying didnt give him the same feeling. It had to be a boat. A break in the medium not dimension.
Reaching Kanita three fourths of the way, he felt confident enough to hop on to the train heading north, without asking the ever polite station attendant of the final destination.

It was a little toybox of a train. The kind railways put in at the fringes of their network. Fringes forgotten by people but alive as numbers in the budget sheets of a Rail company. But none the less important to the two people every square kilometer who live in these fringes. People who plan their entire social lives around a timetable at the neighborhood railway platform(yeah not station). Soon, he was passing through cabbage fields (reminded him of Chekov's Soviet), little platforms with people sitting on benches on the platforms not to catch trains, but to catch up on conversations and sunshine. The train, hesitantly gathered speed, knowing surely that she had to stop in the next minute or two and then she gave up hope at the slightest tug at her brakes,stopping to drop off a lady and her unmarried 35 year old daughter here, a milkman there.. He could not see the coastline, but he could smell the sea. A smell not unlike the sea of his home.

It was a good two hours where he sat looking out of the window, acknowledging or ignoring fellow passengers depending on how much he liked them when he saw them on the platform as the train drew in. He never listened to much music on the road..or on the rail. He never managed to finish a book on the road. He needed long pauses in motion to be able to dispose of a couple of chapters. His books always got back badly dog eared from a trip. Not from use, but being shoved into a rucksack which seemed to have enough wiggle room when the trip started, but now was strangely refusing to accommodate.

A little into the afternoon, he rolled into a quaint little town called Minmaya and yeah, it didnt take him too long to figure that he would be going nowhere for a while. A traveller can easily know by the sounds the train makes at the last stop. It's like a collective sigh of an audience after a rather boring lecture one has to sit through more out of politeness than heartfelt interest.
He asked the station attendant(ever polite) in his pidgin Japanese. He always took care to use the pidgin version. He had learnt that the moment, one asks a question in fluent Japanese, one gets an answer in fluent Japanese, and it aint easy for him to keep count once that starts happening.
He got a suitably "yukkuri hanashitekudasai" response telling him what he had suspected.

This was the end of the line. Would you like to stay?
No.
Then why are you here?
Wrong train.
Wrong train he says,haha.Where do you want to go.
Aomori.
Aomori?Haha. Go back to Kanita.Haha.
Well, haha.When does train leave?
In an hour.Are you sure you dont want to stay?Haha.
Well, haha.

And there he was in a little town, a town he would have liked to settle into a quiet retirement like the one the station master was looking forward to..or not. A town, where time was measured not in minutes, but in seasons. Four springs old, three summers ago. He sat on the bench watching the train. She was in a deep unshakeable slumber, like people who sleep with no sign of life.
He knew then, that he would miss the ferry. Five hours in a day is a tough little stretch to make up for when all one has is a Seishyun 18 ticket and a lot of time to kill. He made peace and waited for the train to wake up.

Minmaya.

Looking back, four summers hence,with the benefit of hindsight he realised that reaching Aomori in time for the ferry, would really not have made any difference. His obsession with the prize was strong enough for him to disqualify winners, move the finish line and ....may be he still races against ghosts for prizes long won.

Minmaya was just another bend in the track. A nice little memorable bend from four summers ago.
He uploaded the blog entry, switched off the lights, opened the curtains and faded away with hazy images of deer at sheer gorges, volcanoes with jagged cones, a shop attendant who rented bicycles next to an onsen, who served milk in bottles....and the prize.

Kathy, Emily and Metaphors

2011-01-04T01:57:00.001+05:30

Venus, Cycle and a Basket , originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England where my heart lies

Autumn Sounds withering with the wind

2010-09-10T23:03:00.003+05:30

Primary Colors, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

a leaf falls,
another leaf falls,
yet another leaf falls.

Random flight patterns

2010-08-08T15:59:00.001+05:30

Random flight patterns, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

Hit the road Jack!...Dont you come back no more no more.....

Loneliness

2010-06-27T15:02:00.001+05:30

Loneliness, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

Of Sundays and Hemingway

2010-06-13T21:55:00.004+05:30

The sound of the TV filtered into his room, and he stirred to find that the sheet he was lying on was a mess .He was now sleeping on the mattress.He smelt the coir or he imagined that he did. His bed was always a mess when he got out of it. Sunday.
He shaved his week-long stubble, wiping off the lather instead of washing his face. A hurried breakfast. A quick shower.

The sky was cloudy and the curtains were drawn.A Cuban movie was on air. Lilting Spanish with English subtitles. Old Chevy cars. Sounds of Viva José Martí . Framed photographs of Che and many cries of Compañero. A light house, a bearded speleologist and a Labrador named Champion.
Something reminded him of Hemingway. A vague Cuban connection. He had read his "A Farewell to Arms" a week before, interspersed with rambling walks and moments spent staring at the Arabian sea. The book, the sea and the approaching monsoons only had made his melancholy take deeper shade of blue. He wondered what it would be like to spend a week, or a couple in Havana.
He stepped out into the cloudy day, with a Maugham that he had started the previous night. The Maugham remaining unread for the rest of the day. He had a bunch of photographs that needed to be sent out and an entire afternoon to kill.

The Italian Cafe was almost full, but one could also classify it as almost empty depending on how long one spent there. South Korea and Greece were playing their first matches of the World Cup. It was a re-run of previous nights match-up. He knew the result. Korea-2.Greece-0. One goal had already been scored before he had entered the cafe. He spent a while waiting for the second, before he zoned out with an Ethiopian filter coffee.No milk. A couple of German student tourists sat next table. His attention piqued whenever he heard a familiar phrase. He was reminded of Stuttgart, a rainy evening waiting in the drizzle for an old friend, followed by an evening of Bier at the crowded local pub. Wichtel.
They left unhappy after they found something wrong with their bill. The one with the spectacles, noted down something, probably the expense tab in her notebook with a pencil.

He chanced upon a photograph of an old friend unexpectedly in the midst of random link clicking on his Facebook page. A woman he had not seen for more than a year. The unmistakable asymmetry of the smile, punctuated by an upper left canine which just chose to grow in a different direction to her upper right. Symmetry as a virtue to describe beauty was overrated..but then were so many other things too.....
It seemed strange to him that another pretty woman he was reminded off was also someone he'd met off chance, with two front teeth which parents silently and unnecessarily worry about without letting their children know, but the children know that the parents don't want them to know.They added character to her animated face.He was not sure if she was the first person to have used "manifestation" in a conversation with him. Itreminded him of Pulp Fiction.He fished her name out of the ether, smiling to himself at what search engines could do. A short message was sent.He was again reminded of the impending monsoon and a city he loved.

In, the meanwhile, the TV had switched over to the England-USA match. He didnt care much about the proceedings and went downtown to his favorite bookstore. He picked up a James Joyce, a Hesse and Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. It was 4 when he walked out and the clouds made way for the evening sun. The streets and the people looked prettier in the light. He made way to a department store which he knew had a quiet cafe where you could see the people on the street, but the people could not see him. He had been there once and he had happy recollections and a bunch of photographs of the evening.

The umbrellas with the Coffee shop logo had been removed from the balcony. they were there the last time he was here.He settled in for the evening with the Hemingway.

Santiago, the old sailor and Manolin,his apprentice discussing DiMaggio and how they rued not inviting him onto their boat. The dreams of lions on the white sandy beaches of Africa. Santiago's intuition that his luck would turn tomorrow and he would catch his big fish. His mast and the sails of the skiff patched with bags of flour.

He was interrupted by a waitress eager to clear his table. His coffee mug was not yet empty and it was quite an awkward moment, when she lifted the mug to put on her tray and found that it was half full. He brushed her off with a silent wave and she made an embarrassed and hasty departure into the kitchen.

Santiago and his skiff, moving effortlessly into the Gulf away from Havana with the current. Santiago and his skiff and his fishing lines cast precisely and baited with sardines and tuna.
Santiago and the marlin. Santiago and his brother.

The evening was metamorphosing into night, unobtrusively. The pigeons were putting in their final shows of formation flying. Swooping gracefully over the evening skies before returning to familiar roosting spots for the night.

Santiago locked in a battle of attrition with the marlin. Santiago, sees the purple and silver marlin. Santiago kills a dolphin for dinner. Santiago. Hail Marys.Our Fathers.

A group of friends were spending their evening making conversation with lots of interspersed laughter. One of them, wore a pink shirt over which she pulled over a shawl when the wind blew hard. Her shoes were pink too, and she dangled one on her toe tips when she crossed her feet.

Santiago reels in the marlin. The first shark. The harpoon is lost. A couple more sharks. The marlin is devoured. His noble friend, far nobler than those who would eat him. His friend whom he had killed with treachery. He rued going so far out. ..All for nothing.

More people walked into the cafe, the chairs were soon all taken. He was the only one sitting alone at his table. A couple discreetly stared at him from the doorway wishing him to get out.

Santiago ploughed into his shack, leaving his marlin..or what was left of it after the sharks were through on the beach. Manolin found him in the morning. Asleep. He cried. He went out for the newspapers of the last three days . Baseball results.

The couple must have wished hard enough. He woke up , put the book into his bag and went out into the street. He had his marlins to catch and a cake to buy.........

Silver moon and Peace

2010-01-10T15:40:00.009+05:30

"Shiloh Angoubi!", The name rang out of the megaphone loudspeakers placed at the four corners of the circus tent, each connected to the microphone by a confusing profusion of wires ..like distant cousins who dislike each other, yet held together because none wants to disappoint the sentimental family matriarch.
In a nation of Raos , Kapoors and Singhs, she always had to enunciate her Manipuri name atleast twice before people pretended that they'd got it. Inspite of the the harsh loudspeaker, she was pretty sure not too many of the two thousand people in the tent seated spread over thirty rows in little arcs of lazy expectancy quite figured out her name..or even bothered.
", on the tightrope ....", the voice continued.

She kept telling herself that there is a first time for everyone. Another inner voice responding that no amount of encouraging cliches would help her, and that now what happened to her would be beyond her control.
Was it really beyond her control?
She shook her head in a futile attempt to throw off the little women clutched to her head, the voices...... Maybe that did help.......

She could hear the dusky Moushami Sheikh, the 41 year old artist, whose realm she was treading on for the first time, somewhere below the safety net.
Moushami, who never missed her prayer...her eyelids lined with kohl and her eyes with sadness. The cat calls and whistles had started to wane away inspite of her last ditch attempt to use the semi transparent nylon bodysuit which she borrowed form Elena, the alcoholic Russian trapeze artist.
Two years ago, she had been told that Shiloh would be her understudy to whom she would pass on the secrets of the rope, and this was the day she had been dreading.
The circus would no longer need her, and the world where she came from, no one who dared wear a semi transparent nylon body suit would ever be allowed to fit in. She wondered if her eyes betrayed her inner thoughts... that she wanted a big hole in the ground to swallow her, that she almost wanted Shiloh to fail.

High up on the pole, Shiloh mechanically flexed her toes inside her rubber soled shoe.She rubbed her sweaty palms on her new silver frock, which had been thrust into her dressing room by Gupta, the manager. The uninviting nylon only made her sweat more.She gripped her balancing pole and put one foot over the rope, trying to find the sweet spot, waiting for her mind to zone out before she put out her other foot into the point of no return.....
Another ironic voice told her that she was already at the point of no return.

She'd fallen a hundred times over with a little more than a sprained neck and a sore ankle which enabled her to get a week long break from her training routine with Moushami...
It was the falling now bit that she was petrified about. She'd heard endless pontification about how failures are stepping stones to success and other similar blah blah.
Life had taught her that there are some failures which mortally wound......Which bleed for a long time, which no tourniquet can quell..
She had a feeling that this would be one..She falls today, she'll never be able to walk the rope in front another audience ever.

The tent lights dimmed, the white focus light turned on her, which made her silver gown shimmer, like a moon in the distant Manipuri skies, Moushami sighed, a circus quietened.... Shiloh put out her other foot on the rope.. her master, her slave.

That night, Moushami slept in peace........

Another doodle......

2009-12-19T00:00:00.001+05:30

Jesus was not the only guy who could ...., originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

While December did creep in like the elegant Kyoto tea house mama-san as mentioned in my previous post, it suddenly decided that I had done something atrocious..Like sipping matcha from the saucer with an appreciative slurp...Vidhyarthi Bhavan style... and decided I deserved a tangle with the floating winter bug.

Good news, I seem to have weathered the worst of it.... Will head out into the JP Nagar reserve forest in the afternoon tomorrow to bask in the winter sun. Was there for a walk last week for an hour and figured I was missing my camera ....

Finished Updike's Rabbit, Run! after what seems like ages. Good fiction after a long time. Currently reading Truman Capote's rather evocative bio.
Also bought myself a Grimmett and a book on Peninsular butterflies in preparation for being a snob (Gah!! that's a Tailed Jay, not a Blue Bottle you worthless piece of amateur i-try-to-throw-around-the-Latin-name scumbag!) on the Facebook "I heart Nature" groups.

A visit to an old friend's, a walk in the woods, a dollop of Capote, lots of Filter kaapi and some more mileage on my 400D....
Copenhagen should provide for the comic entertainment over the entire weekend. International diplomacy is alive and kicking....(..each other..)

Btw, Silvio got his nose busted by a ..well ..rather concerned Italian citizen... I wonder what he will do next to top the "Women's lingerie through the modern era " alternatively titled "What Michael should have painted in the Sistine Chapel" doodle . I would'nt be surprised if he suggests a boob job for the Danish queen in the head of states meet... if he makes it with the broken and freshly plastered nose....

He is quickly replacing Mao and Kim as my favorite head of state .....

As they say in the movies....
Over and Out

The Direction Home....

2009-12-05T22:42:00.004+05:30

The direction home...., originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

December!!! November was sweet as promised. December kinda just floated in like a Japanese mama-san in a Kyoto Ochaya..Unobtrusive and Pleasant.

Found myself a bunch of stuff to do over the next few months, which should help rejuvenate a few dormant Grey cells... Decided to postpone my Lanka expedition and settle in for the Christmas and the New Years in the Ghats.

A lot of water has flowed down the KRS since the last couple of weeks and the sediment is just starting to settle down.. finally!!!
My boats, taken some time turning .....a lot of time turning.... but we 're headed in the right direction.....
As only Dylan can say ..."You're Invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal"

Listened to Simon and Garfunkel after what seems like ages.... Kathy's Song never sounded prettier.

PS: Early morning start tomorrow..... Heading out down Kanakapura Road and the Valley School. Tragic that I've somehow managed to lose my Norah Jones CD.. Clapton and BB King would be nice on the way back...But I needed Norah for the morning drive...Damn...

An uneasy peace

2009-11-25T08:44:00.003+05:30

A Moving Image, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

..... Always knew the signs, but there's a certain ring of finality when one sees the writing on the wall ......or in this case a little Gtalk window.

I need to pack a bag and .........

Coffee and Theroux

2009-11-01T21:54:00.002+05:30

Laundry and Lightplay, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

Absolutely beautiful day in Bangalore today.... A visit to the neighbourhood coffee shop... peepul watching with Paul Theroux for company. Reading his older rail journey now. By his own admission in his newer travelogue, the Great Railway Bazaar has parts which are a figment of Theroux's imagination, but nonetheless makes for a very fine coffee shop read... the kind you can read a couple of pages and dream through a couple more in a wonderful meditative buzz ... damped oscillations of subdued ecstasy with recollections of a hundred journeys on the Railways of Asia interspersed with Theroux's prose...

Not stepped outta Bangalore for a couple of weeks now.. not since the morning dash to Nandi Hills to catch the sunrise over the plains....

Was in Rajasthan this time of the year in 2008.... One of the high points was sipping masala chai on a cane chair overlooking the Pushkar Lake watching the myriad temples reflected in the quiet waters......Heard that the lake beautification project went awfully wrong and now the place looks like an excavated archaelogical dry bed.... Sad...

Back to work tomorrow..... Clocks, clockwork.....tick tick tick tick.....

November Rain

2009-10-26T21:36:00.002+05:30

Blue Grass, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

November looks promising. A wedding, a portrait photography workshop, a traditional Dakshina Kannada temple fair and a Herpetology workshop in Agumbe lined up..

Promising... Little bit of the understatement...

Santosh Datta is getting married soon, but he probably hasn't invited you, you or yeah.. you too... Another one bites the dust in the first week of November. He's not yet choking on it though.... Interested peepuls may like to know that he is planning a honeymoon in Sikkim in the cold of winter. We wish him all the best for the immediate future :P

Am attending a 1 day Portrait photog workshop one of the weekends and if it tickles my taste buds, will go for the advanced classes on the following day. Not worked with artificial lighting, so yeah..... Should be able to learn something new. Will let you peeps know how that turns out....

The icing... Have registered for a workshop in Agumbe's Rainforest Research Center for the month end....<> Am so goddamn looking forward to this. The workshop is conducted by Gerry Martin....one of the peepuls I've watched open mouthed on Nat Geo. Spending three days there should round off a Sweet November....
Some serious bitti reading in Forum's Zoology section planned over the next month in preparation.......
Rains in Agumbe.... muttering Dr.Raaj's stellar "Aaagumbeyaa Prema sanjeyaaaa" in a infinite meditative loop..
Life , ladies and gentlemen , doesn't seem so bad at all .......

Next on the agenda is to figure out my plans for Lanka and a Yakshagana school where me and my camera will be tolerated for a couple of days.......
The camera will be kept warm and loaded .......

Wover and Out.

What am I doing at 9AM on a Sunday morning?

2009-10-25T09:39:00.001+05:30

A Relic from a bygone era of Indo-Italian Engineering, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

2009 was kinda blurry for most part. It's almost petering out and I am not sure if it's a good thing or not. There's been some great travel and awesome books, but on the other hand it's been pretty unsettling in a few ways.
Still pecking at keyboards for a living, spend a few Sundays in LalBagh spacing out under random trees which have survived the recent Metro cull, keeping my camera pointed at random peepuls without getting myself seriously injured in the process..
...clocking in miles with the state transport corporation....

It's been one of those years you know one remembers for a long time, but cant quite put a finger on the reasons for the same....... Okay, I might know the reasons..... but then don't quite think I want to massage em into a bloggable format..... Chicken...Cluck,Cluck.
I need to wake up and smell the Filter kaapi.

Reading up Sri Lankan history, a big fat tome by a Sinhalese professor... and he's not quite Al-Beruni ... Hopefully, I can manage to see for myself in December....

In parallel, reading transcripts of a conference hosted by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala....which I must say has been tickling the necessary pleasure centres ....

I hope 2010 will be less Brownian......or do I really ....
Whatever.....

PS: I quite liked September ........

Lalbagh - Morning Magic

2009-10-24T00:43:00.001+05:30

Lalbagh - Morning Magic, originally uploaded by Stithapragna.

Finally got a pro account on Flickr. So henceforth will stop uploading pics on Aarkut and Facebook ... I guess with the Flickr bloggin interface, I'll get back to bloggin a bit more often.......

This pic was clicked one cold morning at Lal Bagh. More micro posts to follow.....

Of a First Quarter report of a year well begun..Well begun is half done..tadaa...

2009-03-22T23:06:00.023+05:30

First entry for the year and rather late in the day too... It's more to do with the fact that 2009 till now has been rather eventful and well spent compared to 2008, which will not take up too many lines in my biography... Am currently bloggin outta Coimbatore,a place where I spent my 1st birthday in the last millenium.Been here for almost a month, but this is the first weekend I've actually parked the backside in the town. Decided to go out to the best restaurant around,The Residency, and play the petit bourgeois with my Murakami in my bag. I was in for a rude surprise, when I was told that I coudnt enter their pub Bike and Barrel, because of the "dress code".Sure enough they had a notice at the pub entrance to that effect stating one had to have ones hirsute calves covered up in fabric ... However, even more surprisingly, I told it was OK to go their gourmet restaurant The Pavilion or the Aghan Grill.And it was in the Pavilion that I decided to spend the evening with caffeine and Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Service is discreet and nice.
I've been turned outta exactly two places earlier in my few jaunts around the globe. One was at the KL Petronas Towers, where after a day of aimless loafing around the city, I decided after seeing a flyer someplace to go to listen to the Malaysian Philharmonic in the towers. I was very politely told by the attendant at the ticket counter that the dress code was strictly "Smart Formals" . A quick selfcheck left no doubt that in my t-shirt and my oldest khai shorts, I was just one step above "delirious hobo" and a long way from "Smart Formal". I walked out with no hard feelings. The next time was in Shibuya,Tokyo at the GasPanic Club. Along with a bunch of desi blokes, we decided that an evening of debauchery at the GasPanic would be a good way to sign off the week in style, only to be told on producing my passport for age check that the Pub was full by a bouncer the size of Alaska. It was plainly evident this was nothin do with his tables being full, when he let in a couple of other non-desis in without as much as a cursory glance at their IDs. This time I was pissed off and pissed off pretty bad. But yeah, I wasnt exactly Gandhi in Pietetmaritzburg and other than a bit of dramatic shoulder shrugging left the place with a rather sour after taste at the back of my mouth. We filed into an Irish Pub, were the junta was mostly silent for most part waiting for the bile to dilute. When I was invited into their pub at Roppongi a couple of months later by the touts outside, I made it a point to express that their place was a pisspot not worth wasting the weekend in.

So like I said, 2009 has been pretty eventful. Spent a weekend in Chikmagalur in Jan, gallivanting around Bababudangiri ranges with an assorted bunch of friends and strangers. We hiked up the Sarpadari onto the Mullyangiri and then walked down to Bababudangiri all in a day. This was clubbed with a visit to Belur and Halebid. Was revisiting these places after a good decade and a half.. Managed a few decent photos too.. Ah! I must not forget to mention my 55-250 IS which is my current walkabout lens on my 400D. Pricey acquisition, but worth the price.

February, I spent most weekends at the Rishi Valley School off Kanakapura Road. Wonderful place this is for Bird watching. Managed to snag a hornbill and my best capture of a Common Kingfisher amongst a few other firsts. In case you'v reached here on googling for the school, here are the details.
-There's a direct bus from Banashankari Bus Stop at around 6:15 in the morning(forgotten the bus number though)
-Best to reach around sunrise.
-You can get down at the Silk Farm Stop,just after the NICE bridge and then walk the 2 km to the school.Dont fret, there's loads of birds on the way to the school too..
-You need to sign a visitors register at the school gates stating your purpose.No questions asked if u've come with a Cam or a pair of scopes.
-You are not allowed to take pictures of the school or the students.
-There are a couple of little waterbodies and a large well, around which there is a lot of avian activity
-Dont wear your Govinda pants and give your vocal cords a rest when u are in the environs..
-Lots of birds to be seen, the Paradise Flycatcher, Coppersmith Barbet, Hornbills,Bee-eaters etc etc.

Been here in Coimbatore all March. It's a little hotter than Bangalore, but a couple of freak showers have kept the temperatures to manageable levels off late. My first weekend was spent fooling around Coonoor. I took a train to Mettupalayam from Coimbatore early at 4:30 ish(AM)...to catch the steam train outta Mettupalayam to Coonoor. The lady at the Coimbatore reservation counter told me that the steam train wasnt running on account of some maintenance.(Note: It pays to check up with Ind Rail if the train is running before haulin ur ass to Mettupalayam.It's pretty old and bound to be temperamental) .Anyways, went down to Mettupalayam and took the bus to Coonoor over the hills. Sunrise over the hills is quite a sight, saw it from a bus.Spent an entire day loafin around the town...Just random stuff.. Spent the night in a homestay at Lovedale which I reached by the evening train and came back to Coonoor the next day by bus.
Hired a rick to get me around the hills for 250 bucks and got a few snaps of the tea gardens before I got back to Coonoor to catch the Steam train to Mettupalayam in the afternoon. Spent the afternoon in the engines shed at Coonoor watching the railroad guys do their stuff with the engines. Nice twas. The train journey back was phenom. The views are grand..Although I had to stand for most part in the general compartment with a rooster and a lot homo sapiens just behind the engine,I spent most of it sticking my head out with my cam in hand gettin a shovelful of coal in my hair at the end of the day.Might good way to spend the weekend. no?

The next weekend was in Valaparai. This must be hitchiker central in the South of India. Every damn vehicle I thumbed, stopped to gimme a ride and a few that I didnt thumb stopped to give me a ride. I caught the early morning bus outta Ukkadam to Pollachi and then changed over to the Valparai bus. Reached Valparai at around 11:30 in the morning. One horse town. The main road stretches a good 500 mts with a statue if Mahatma Gandhi on one end and the statue of Indira Gandhi(unrelated) on the other. I had book my reservation for Sat night at Green Hill, the only decent lodge in town. Rooms are not spectacular but neat. I spent the morning at the Sri Kundra Estate by the riverside, chasing a rather energetic kingfisher and a few egrets before dozin off under a tree by the bank. Went down to Balaji Covil for the evening halfway by bus to Karimalai and then walking amidst the tea gardens to the top. This is pristine tea garden country....acres and acres of the green carpet for as far as the eyes can see.. Prettier than Coonoor methinks...Got a lift back to the city in the back of a lorry. The next day went down to the town bus stop to check for buses to "Nallamudi Poonjolai Viewpoint", a place I'd heard of from the locals.I also managed to fathom that I had to catch a certain "High-forest" bus. I then dropped into the tea stall at the bus stand..half the village seemed to be inside. I asked them about the bus and before I knew I was being told by a bunch of em that the High Forest bus was a partnership JV between the local MLA, the owner of the HighForest Estate and someone I coundnt quite gather. They said the next bus was at 1030 and I had another 15 min which I could kill by having hot chai. Playing the gracious guest, I bought a round of chais and before I had my first sip, lo behold, the High forest bus was there all of 15 min early. A few sprightly old men, jumped in front of the bus and exhorted me to finish my tea, while they umm...obstructed the bus, standin in thier lungis and striped chuddies. The bus driver wasnt havin any of it and when he engaged the first gear, all the sprightly old men, equally sprightily got outta the way of the way of the bus, before I had a chance to jump into it. I paid up for the teas and ran behind the bus and in the process was separated from my left sandal in the melee. I couldnt make it though ...No sweat, ever the resourceful traveller, managed to get a ride to the place first in an Accord of a seth in white and white..complete with the driver et al for a few km to the Siddhi Vinayaka Covil and then to the place in a Maruti with a little kid and her uncles. The view is definitely worth the trouble. But I guess early morning would be the best time to get here. Anyways, I had a Murakami moment, when a bizzarre priest came by, explained the lay of the land(told me that the tallest peak to the front was Anamudi, the highest point South of the Vindhyas) and then explained in a lot of detail about the time, he saw the vision of Lord.Muruga 10mts from where we were standing. He spent some time after that feeding bananas to bulbuls and I came back to Valparai, where I took a bus to Attakatti and walked down almost all the way down to Azhiyar on foot in search of the elusive Niligiri Thar...in the afternoon sun... My feet were screamin at me for the next couple of days. And yeah..No Thar anyplace..Spent some time at the Azhiyar Dam and came back home...

The next weekend..yup the third on the trot on the road was not a solo trip. Datta of the Hokkaido trip fame came down to Kodai from Bangalore, while I climbed up there via Palani. We dumped our stuff in the YH and went fooling around the shola trails down the now defunct Ponds factory. The route is pretty scenic and with little more than a hint of rain in the air, most peepuls had stayed indoors. And when we got down to Dolphin Nose, it started pouring buckets and we spent some time at a Tea Stall waiting for the rain to ease out. The food at the YH deserves mention for being real crappy, though the rooms themselves were pretty decent. Read Murakami's After Dark for sometime and went to bed.
Sunrise was awesome, carpets of fluffy clouds a few 100 feet below us and the clear skies with the sun... phew... Went down to Kookal by bus...a 40 km journey.Took the bus to Kalavarai and got down at the Kookal Piruvu, then took a jeep down to the Kookal town with a couple of local ladies for company. Had a lunch which involved Datta trying the local delicacy..Burnt Omlette with Fried Flies Seasoning in a seedy hut with psychedic imagery of Amma JJ and MGR. Spent the afternoon levitating blissfully on the lake shore, before the rains started. We waited for it to ease out in a makeshift hut by the lake. We took the evening bus to Puttur. The scenary on the way is awesome and after having a tea in Puttur hauled our asses back to Kodai for dinner.
We checked out the next day and went to Mannavannur by bus. The town is on the same route a Kookal , but you dont piruvu at the Kookal Piruvu ..Just keep goin straight. Once again, postcard perfect lake with no crowds ... a whole afternoon loafing around the lake.. Lotsa potos too...

Btw will be back in Bangalore come the month end..... Will hopefully finish reading Hard Boiled Wunderland and End of the World by then.......

Of Drinking Tea in Coffee Shops

2008-12-13T23:16:00.005+05:30

People watching from Coffee shops is one my new found past times. Been frequenting a few off late in the neighbourhood. I have a taken a particular liking for the one at JP Nagar II Phase near the Raghavendra Mutt. It's big and it's got a view ..nothing phenom, but you can people watch without being accused of being a lech.
I was reading the Ice Candy Man one chilly afternoon and decided I needed a cuppa chai to go with it and headed for the cafe which happens to be right behind where I stay. I settled in to a comfortable couch, in one of the corners inside next to the counter.
A couple of tables to my left, a gang of three.A girl and two guys.were huddled around a chess board. The guys were ruminating, taking their time over what they intended to do next, while the girl looked on with defocussed eyes. Wonder what the equation between them was...Who was the girl rooting for? Were the guys playing coz that's what they'd been doing every weekend of the last few years or was there something more there being played for..
A group of 4 boys, with the first hint of a moustache on a couple of them, were seated right opposite where I was. All of them ordered tall frappes...Cold..In this weather? And they talked a lot over them. Nothing I was the least bit interested in, but I couldnt help catch the occasional segments. I had finished reading all of 3 lines in the book, when they piped in Mehndi on the speakers.
I got up and moved out into the balcony, where they've a few chairs looking out to the road. It was now past approaching 4:30 PM. The shadows of the motorists had lengthened and there was a life like quality to them.They seemed more alive than the motorists themselves. The light was soft, warm ..like a Simon and Garfunkel poem...
The noise ..yes.. the noise.. honking, revving engines, shuddering buses, was there when I sat down. Ayah was being carried away by the Ice candy man and slowly, as the narrative panned out, the white noise in the background was replaced by the Ayah's pleading and by Lenny's silent shrieks ....
A little while later, and well into my second cuppa chai, I was distracted by movement on my peripheral vision. It happened to be a couple who'd just walked in and were looking for a place to sit. The chess players and their companion had not moved. One boy had made short work of his frappe, the other three still hadnt finished theirs.
They settled for a spot in the corner, where the light was just right. They were a new couple...One could just tell. They changed seats all of 4 times before they decided on a couch where they could sit just the right distance from each other..not too close..not too far...
I went back to finishing my book as the sun tipped over. I read the rest of it in one stretch....

Of things to come and few that have been.

2008-11-25T07:57:00.004+05:30

I have been quite busy stimulating the Indian Economy ,especially the transportation and credit markets off late and hence request your understanding and co-operation .(The last part of the phrase is a acute side effect of writing too frequent mails to your client at the office indicating that you screwed up big time and requesting them not to switch on the fan with the shit hitting the roof ..Sorry for the crappy imagery running around in your head).

I have managed to give my feet, camera and belly a good little workout over the last fortnight. Had been for a week long sojourn to Rajasthan and then a rather long weekend at Coorg. This would definitely not put me in line for employee of the month given the truck loads of work piled up, but we might have managed to snag a Masters degree somewhere in the middle of the vacation which involved a detour to Pilani.We will know for sure sometime in December though.

Reading has been slow since the last blog update, but we still have managed to run through a gamut... Murakami's book on running, a Mark Tully, Elif Shafak on being a Turk, Scott Adams lazy attempt at making money with his blog book and a few more..... Currently reading a Bapsi Sidhwa..

A travelogue blog on Rajasthan will be updated in the near future hopefully....One of my resolutions for 2009 (yes..I make them in Nov and forget them in Dec)is to become the most prolific blogger this side of Kalasipalya..2008 has been pretty bleak and I understand that the great moral responsibility of passing on the cutlural climate and the flavor of the times to the generations of the future is not to be taken lightly .(Pfhbttt..Thbbbttt..Let it be noted for posterity that the author of the blog has a tendency to snort occassionally when he laughs out loud...)

More soon...

Of Nothing in particular and something in general...

2008-08-30T21:20:00.009+05:30

Another rainy weekend , nothing much to do, sitting at home, idle mind,devil's workshop and a few other cliches, the blog entry happened.

Just got back home from a family shopping rite in the Forum Mall, which was followed by a dinner in the Transit Lounge(whoever came up with dat has apparently never been to a lounge).Standing in a queue for a couple of lime sodas is not fun, especially when you decide to buy yours at Shiv Sagar, where all the veggies in the Forum Mall converge to tank up. I plunged into what seemed to be a queue at the cash register,held out my 100 bucks and waited for it to be plucked outta my hand and be pinned by an indignant stare from the cashier and proceeded to contemplate on among other things the size of the font used to display the restaurant's menu . After deciding that it was not quite Times New Roman, I proceeded to contemplate why Times New Roman is called Times New Roman.Apparently there is a reason.

Anyways, I was jerked outta the blissful state of dhyana by an indignant stare and some mumbling very close to my left ear. Like a fine,expensive camera coming into focus, my senses tuned into the auditory input.... "Brr..Zrniwoop...frinngg..stanning..in...loo..have been stnding in this queue for a long taime.How can you just come int the queue and bah!"
The very apparnt Pnjabi accent and strong perfume stirred something in my head. "Oh..yeah..Oh yeah..ah hah..ah..hah..You think you can go all self righteous on me,just be cause you think you happn to be in some imaginry queue in the Fourth or Fifth Dimension. I dont see any rip in the space-taime fabric so you cannot be in the fifth dimension.So if you do claim that you are in the Fourth Dimension queue, you need to prove that the vector product of the curl and the closed integrl over the idli you will order is zero in the direction of the cashier from the point in the four dimensional coordinate system that you claim or hppen to be in". However, the stirring in my head failed to translate into frequencies in the audible range of humans except for a sheepish "Yup" and a resonating energy wave in my head which dissipated as a fiery redness around the earlobes. I followed the "Yup" with the rolling of my eyebrows, which didnt please the lady one bit,but before she could launch her next barrage of Pnjglish, I profusely apologised for ruining her evening and proceeded to eat my shirt to show that I had meant what I said.

In other news, John McCain has decided on his running mate. G.Bush is kinda shocked to have heard that the 73 year old McCain can actually run after what the Viet Cong and time had done to him and is being treated for low self esteem and shock at his Camp David Retreat. The national award winning NFL Cheerleading Squad has been requistioned to perform and scream "B-for Brave,U-for Übercool, S-for Sexy ,H-for Hot...Boooooossshhhh" whenever he does something right, like spell Pakistan correctly.His spirits have been considerably lifted now but he still wonders why they have the two dots over the U in Ubercool.......
McCain though believes that Sarah Palin will come handy to raise the photogenicity of his campaign, which has been seriously undermined by the senator from Illinois who stands for change with his "See, I dont have love handles the size of Texas" torso. I dunno what the problem is with the guy, who claims he is standing for change. Why doesnt someone give him a few quarters and dimes and ask him to stop flashing his pearly whites and blinding half of America with the glare. Anyway, I think that McCain has tilted the scales a fair bit. Men are naturally disposed to voting for women, who shoot big deer in Sub-Arctic tundra for recreation and own a float plane.

I shall get back to my Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy..I am into the second book in the series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe .... and tickle myself to sleep.
Wover and Out.

Of Dosas in Gandhi Bazar and New Guitars

2008-07-27T22:16:00.010+05:30

Chatting with someone on Gtalk while composing a blog entry makes for a rather demanding weekend chore, but when the person whom you are chatting with happens to be someone who happens to be not just another someone, you do make the effort.

The last month has been rather dreadfully boring and I hope there are not too many of these in the near future. I did turn 26 though. I shall spare you the usual drivel of peepuls suffering from quarter-life blues. I managed to keep my reading progressing at a decent chug .

I had started reading Mao Zedong's biography in Japan in the spring, and was midway thorough it when I packed my backs to return home. It was positively depressing to find that my copy was not to be seen after my luggage porter was through putting my baggage into my hotel room in Thailand.(I was shifting my entire set of worldly possessions to India, so I did look like Fedex had outsourced a sizeable chunk of business to me).

So when I found a copy idling in my friend's bookshelf on a visit to his house in Hebbal, I brought it back home to finish it up. I still am to come to a conclusion about Mao and his life and times. There can only be a couple of em...Either Mao was a brain dead psycho or the authors are pushing some serious anti-Chinese propaganda. It is nonetheless a very interesting read.

Next went on to finish John Gribbin's Schrodinger's Kittens. Written in his usual fluid style, the book makes for a very good after-work read.

Still not able to finish Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio after I decided to stop reading when I reached midway.

Put away Stephen Clarke's Merde Actually. This guy knows his stuff. A light,fluffy read(and I dont mean it in a kinda girly way) with a very fluid narrative.

My last read was Pankaj Mishra's very insightful Butter Chicken in Ludhiana...It's about life in the small towns of India during the early 90's when the beginnings of the Great Indian Middle Class was taking root. Makes you want to hit the road with a vengeance.

Planning to start Kawabata's Yukiguni (Snow Country) today.

The Bangalore blasts from the last weekend had taken the wind outta the city's sails on Friday. We have the usual political doublespeak clogging the airwaves and this is compounded with the usual insensitive media persons shoving their version of events into the viewers throats (sigh! miss the good old days when Salma Sultan and Komal GB Singh did their thing in DD).

I did register my token protest by eating in the busiest and the most Bangalorean of all eateries in Bangalore.Had been planning to visit there for a couple of weekends and finally did manage to go there this time around. Vidhyarthi Bhavan was not different from the last time I visited the place with my dad a few years ago

We were greeted by a dude just outta his adoloscence blocking the entrance with his left arm and were asked to wait for 10 mins. Two Kanglish speaking dames(the kind you see outside JNC or Christ College) waited for exactly 600 seconds before charging the sentry with perjury in the peoples' court. "Uncle neevu 10 minutes aagutte andree alva. Nodee 10 minutes aithu?" After a few more minutes of silent name calling by the sentry and the patrons, the sentry magnanimously let the throngs rush in but not before specifically ushering in the dames with a "Aunty, wolage hogi eega". The dames were obviously scandalised at being addressed so.

An 80 year old granny was probably crushed to her death on her way out, but such trivailities pale in significance to what the diners need to be up for next.

You need to be at your cunning best to grab a seat in VB without having aged significantly trying to do so. In fact it should be declared an art form by the state government and an award must be instituted for the same. My friend and I strategised a fair bit considering the sizes of dosas and chutney remaining in peepuls' plates, their age ,past history and high school academic records before deciding that a family of three sitting at the far left corner of the hotel were the best candidates to wait upon till they finished washing down their dosa with by-two Filter kaapis. Continents drifted apart, Halleys Comet travelled a third of it's orbit when finally the family rose, to find their way to the hand wash. I had strategically placed myself to ensure no other diner had the same ideas that we had. After demolishing two masala dosas and chugging half a liter of chutney, sharing a table with two middle aged men with a lot to say about the quality of service from Vodafone we walked out with a quiet sense of achievement.

I bought a new guitar(my second one) from Jayanagar 2nd block and I intend to see that is better used than my first one, which is probably gathering dust in a second hand gear shop in Higashimatsuyama,Japan.

The only tune the poor thing belted out was an occasionally correct rendition of Tujhe Dekha to Ye Jaana Sanam. More on my progress on this front in the next blog.

Cheers

Of Morning Blogs and Fine Weather

2008-06-22T10:18:00.007+05:30

A morning blog this one.. being penned at 1000 in the morning. I rarely do that. Most of my blogs get written under the shroud of starlight and moonbeams(OK, the image doesnt sound so romantic, if you factor in a hairy brown skinned guy in his desi chuddies pecking at the keyboard).

Been a long time since I last blogged and there's been an awful lot that's happened since then.

I sometimes wonder how the happening peepuls around blogosphere manage to capture their every waking breath, office argument, heartbreak, toilet break et al in their blogs every single day. If my life were to match up to the blogosphere standards of "happening", I'd be sleeping 30 mins a day, commuting 4 hours a day with a random hot chick who shares my taste for Haruki Murakami's literature, reading Hemingway in office while my boss drones on, run into Sharon Stone in the loo, discuss Einstein's interpretation of religion with the random hot chick on our way back home, make love to her in the neighbours garden and then finally get back home and all excitedly blog about it.

Since February, I've taken a bunch of vacations which involved climbing active volcanoes, staring into volcano craters, camping inside a caldera, hallucinating prime numbers in a wooden cabin in sub zero temperatures, soaking in onsens, memorising train time tables in Japanese font and castle hopping.

A random sampling of the Japanese vacation below.

This was followed up by a rather long vacation in Thailand on my way back to Bangalore..err. .Bengalooru (spelling it that way is supposed to make me empowered and feel like all my problems are solved as the politicos in reams of newsprint have suggested). It involved tagging along with sis to Phuket and Bangkok ,a solo walkathon across Ayutthaya and Kanchanaburi, fotographing monks, tigers and monks with tigers.

Otherwise nothing newsworthy happening at my end unless you would like to know that the corns on my soles have eased up and withered away. I no longer walk like Jack Sparrow.

I have managed to sew up a few reads on the side, which include The Inscrutable Americans(an average read), Dawkin's The God Delusion(high decibel), James Watson's DNA(brilliant stuff) and in the middle of a couple of other books.

Bangalore is definitely having a spell of swell weather off late.The mercury is hovering around the lower twenties, flowers are in bloom, wind speed just right. Good enough to shut up the panche clad uncles in Brahmins Coffee Bar who cant stop saying "Eevagin Saaftwaare Engineergalige yen gotthu? In 1973, naavu May nallu swaatar haakondu waaking maadta idvi Lal Bagh nalli"(What you scoundrel saaftware engineer knows? In 1973, we all wearing sweater even in May for morning walking in Red Garden")

Have taken a decision to volunteer in an NGO on Saturdays for a couple of months. I have decided to follow Calvin's exhortation to lower my expectations to the point where they are already met. Anyway,let's see where that goes in a couple of months time.

Missing my weekend jaunts into Tokyo, and the feeling of elation when I find the right Japanese word to explain my country, body hair ,religious orientation and alleged mathematical genius to 88 year old Japanese on mountain tops..but yeah...already filed in Nostalgia section .

Until the next blaahg.

Cheers

Of Mountain Mists and Simple Questions

2008-02-08T20:59:00.000+05:30

The hills never looked greener in all his sixty two years. He loved being here. The monsoons had swept their way across a month ago and what they left behind overwhelmed his senses. He never regretted the decision he took thirty years ago to leave it all and live here in the quiet of the foothills of the Western Ghats. They cast a million shadows of doubt when he had decided, but he knew what he wanted. The evening mist was just beginning to settle and he could almost smell it.Random unconnected thoughts whirred in his head.

He was pulled out of his reverie by a tug at his little finger. His grandson,all of six and a reflection of his own zest for life was looking at him with a twinkle in his eye. The kind that dissappears with the abrasion of life.

"Dada, whats the meaning of love?"

"Love is like winter snowfall."

"Why is it like snowfall?"

"When it starts snowing and you look outta the window, it is the most beautiful sight in the world. You venture out to play in what you are wearing and after a while, wonder what stupidity forced you to do that. You then wish you hadnt gone out in the first place,or you had more clothes on and wait for the snow to go away. You curse the snow and keep looking outta your window to check if it has gone away.

Then when the sun comes out and you see the last of the winter snow melting away, you almost wish that it didnt".

"Dada,what did you do when it snowed?"

"I listened to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel"

"Simon what?"

"Never mind lets give you ride home on my shoulders"

"Are we going home?"

They walked home ,both wiser than when they left it. His wife was there on the lawn reading her Murakami.

"Dadi, do you know the meaning of love?"

"Oh my!! Lets hear what the meaning is?"

"Its like snowfall!!!",he said excitedly jumping into her lap.

She looked at the man she'd woken upto on the best days of her life and they both half smiled.

"Yes ",she said,"it's like snowfall .......and now you are my snowball"

"Why am I a snowball?"

He sat down to pick his reading glasses and his Kawabata and his thoughts went back to those winter days...

Of Unfinished Blogs,Vagabonding and The First Winter Snow

2008-02-01T21:42:00.000+05:30

Winter has set in ,in this part of the world. I've almost lost three toes and four fingers to frostbite, but otherwise I'm doing pretty good.

Been a long time since my last post in November. After many false starts and a bunch of saved drafts, thought I'll push the publish button for a change this time around.

During a welcome break of three weeks in India for the year end, I managed to cover some mileage on the Great Indian Railways traveling to the East coast to my granps' place and then bussed my way through a big chunk of the West coast. Not exactly Jack Kerouac kinda odysseys , but not bad for a nice distraction from the rigours of the life of keyboard pecking and corporate clucking. The Indian Railways never fails to hold me in a spell thats nearly lasted a lifetime. Nothing to beat the aroma of Idlis and chutney(you never get that railway platform chutney anyplace else in the country) wafting through the windows in the dead of the night with the accompanying newly released musical.."Idly, Aaa Idly, Aa Idly, Idly". As kids, moms never let you get a bite of the oily vadas which the blokes peddle, but at 25, life gives you more choices and this is one of them... A plate of Vada in the dead of the night for no particular reason....

I'd spent 4 years of college life in Manipal never really getting the hang of the topography of the neighbouring city of Mangalore and all things Mangalorean. (The topography of the Mangalorean female specimen,of which we did have a glut in our college does not count). Since I had to attend a wedding in the thereabouts, I took off early morn from Udupi where i was based, for a day of pottering around Mangalore.

I got off the bus and took a rick to Sultan Battery ,my first stop for the day. Now, having been the majestic and awesome Bekal Fort in Kanhangad, I was expecting something similar, especially since my guide book, promised "exquisitely baffling architecture". I think this was some seriously twisted deviant, hell bent on ruining people's early morning starts. The Gurpur River is a good back drop for the(well ...almost concrete) structure, but with the number of ciggy packs and garbage around, this wouldnt rank anyplace in my list of to do places.

After a not so good start, things could only get better and they did. I am no fan of religious architecture , but am a sucker for history and there's lots of it in the churches of Mangalore. I went to a couple of em, and each had a little bit of 1500s and 1600s lurking in the Frescoes and the engravings. Could recall a bit from the Bible study class from the fifth grade after staring at em paintings. I visited Aloysius and Rosario Cathedral, even sitting through the Sunday mass in Rosario :) The smiling volunteers in the church, dont make the whole deal too bad either.

The wedding done, I took the roundabout route back to Udupi via Karkala, and stopped at the 1000 pillared Jain Temple, also called Saavira Sthambada Basadi in Moodbidri. It was not crowded when i went in, just a couple of locals and the temple accountant hell bent on extorting a big fee for letting my cam run riot. I keep my lenses and wallet closed . Just an out of the way place, with a nice ambience, but not someplace I'd go back for a second look. Not bad for a day's work eh!

Bangalore was once again the usual ..crappy traffic..honk,honk,honk..

I flew back to Tokyo after a fortnight of leisure. I'd managed to read up a lucidly complex(you'll know what I mean if you read one) Jiddu Krishnamurti book, a book on Hindu Revival by a Belgian,"Decolonising the Hindu Mind" during the time. I am in no mood to read Murakami or Ishiguro or Kawabata at the present moment.

Did read up a couple of Lonely Planet Travelogues and a book on the weirdness and the madness of Tokyo in the last week. In the middle of Kerouac's On the Road and Will Shirers book on the Third Reich.

My last couple of expeditions into Tokyo too were pretty rewarding. I managed to get tickets to a bunch of Sumo bouts and believe me ..It's a must see event in Japan. The ambience and the Shinto rituals make it all the more exotic to the average desi looking for "the real Japan". I've become a pretty big fan and now follow the tournament schedules,leaders and the private lives of the yokozunas with an almost Japanese zest.

It snowed for the first time in a couple of years in this part of Japan. A pic from my neigbourhood below clicked by one of my colleagues at office.

Thats it for now. Was quite and effort typing with the six remaining fingers. Will keep the good work going :)

Ciao&Cheers

Of Moments of Truth....

2008-01-14T20:24:00.002+05:30

Railway stations had always fascinated him. This one was vaguely similar to an old picture he had filed away someplace . The picture in his head was too clear to be true. He smiled at the thought of how much of our past is imagined and how much is what we want it to be , rather than what it really was.
His train of thought was broken by the footsteps of a dozen dhoti clad passengers running on to the rusty metal over-bridge to go over to the next platform, mouthing a very rural Telugu in between paan tinged breaths.
The evening sun, had just gone below the horizon. A slight chill hung in the air. It was a window between when he could see the mynas silhouetted against a shade of a indigo sky, with a tinge of orange and the time the antiseptic white street lights are switched on.
The mynas were as he as imagined them in his filed away picture.Equidistantly perched over the electric lines with millimetric accuracy.

Both stared at the mynas until they were imagining them against the pitch darkness on the horizon.

The crowd was by now jostling around with people tracing random traverses to get from one place to another. He nervously asked the man,where the B2 wagon would stop on the platform.

The old man indicted that it would be stopping just about a few metres from their bench. He relaxed.

The old man asked him, where he was going to. He replied that he was going to Bangalore. The old man, throttled half a chuckle.

" Software?"

"No, Electronics"

"Ah, Ok, Software". A quiet,uneasy silence.

"You are going to Bangalore too?"

"No. I am going to a small town called Chittoor. It's close to Tirupati, about 50 km from the Karnataka border.",he said in fairly good Kannada.

"Oh, you speak Kannada!",he exclaimed, decidedly surprised to hear his native tongue,so far from home.

"Yes, I worked in Bellary for some time. I learnt my Kannada there. Are you here on a vacation?"

"Hmm. Had come over to meet my grandparents, who live close to here. What about you?"

"I am on my way back home from Behrampur, travelling in the general compartment"

"Oh.Orissa?"

"Oh,that's nice"

"I am a school headmaster in a government school in Chittoor" , "just three months way from retirement",he added with a twinge.

"Must have been difficult travelling in the general compartment."

"We are used to this. We have to learn to."

He shook his head and said,

"It's such an interesting job, is'nt it? The ASI "

"A job is a job. He found it after a lot of running around. I spent a lot of my savings to get him this job. It doesnt pay much, but he atleast can do something with his life. "

He tried hard to find the right thing to say. He couldnt find anything much to say and smiled meekly.

"Must be hot in Chittoor"

"Much hotter than Bangalore definitely"

Weather. Signs that the conversation was wearing thin.

He left the old man to his thoughts. The old man wiped his glasses.
A mother shouted at her 5 year old. An old woman carefully adjusted her sari before descending into the tracks to cross over to the other platform.

His train was due in a couple of minutes. Already people on the platform were restlessly stirring, counting their baggage and in some cases their children. A kilometre down the line, where the tracks bends into the paddy fields, a strident beam appeared and was soon followed by a strident hoot of the engine's whistle. He got up and stretched.

He looked down to the old man still staring into a private void.
"The train is here"

"I have a small request if you will care to hear"
"Yes"
"I dont have money for a ticket or food. My wallet was stolen on my way here from Behrampur"
"Ok...",he said hesitantly. The engine hooted out a clear and shrill note.
"If you dont mind, can you lend me 200 Rs? Give me your address and I will send you the money. I dont know anyone in this town and you know how the Ticket Checker is"

The train was now almost at the platform, sending people instinctively behind the yellow line which they normally ignore.

His mind was racing. It was not the 200Rs that worried him. He wondered about many things, like trust, fate, belief all at once. The train stopping and all the people rushing in did not help him.

He took out 200Rs and hurriedly wrote down his address on the paper the man had held out to him.
The man thanked him tersely and walked away.

The train stopped here for only two minutes, a punctuation in its journey across the fertile south. He had to get into the train now. He went in and sat at his window seat pushing his cheeks agains t the cold,rusty grills. He saw the man... or was it someone else headed towards the station exit.

Something told him, sitting on the cold rexin of the Indian Railways berth... all the life experience he thought he had earned over the years of travelling and meeting strange people in strange lands, had not helped him when he was getting conned in a place 50km from where he was born.

But somewhere there was a niggling hope that a cheque would be mailed to him. Like in a Reader's Digest story.

Three years hence, recalling the incident and updating a blog post .. it still rankled. The old man needed the 200 more than he did, no question about that.. He spent more getting his hair trimmed.

Still.. the fact that the letter never came dented his faith in more ways that one.

The old man probably came there to the same station every once in a while, fine tuning his act, adding minute details to make his son. his job and his retirement vivid entities with a life of their own...A sharpened pencil and a piece of paper ready in hand.

Of Nothing in Particular

2007-11-12T17:05:00.000+05:30

Hi Peeps.

It's been a long time, and a lot has happened since then. I cant help it, that I am a happening guy. For those of you wondering how incredibly vain, is this blogger, please check out "bad sarcasm" on Wiki.

Been to Nikko a couple of times in the last month. The second time was to check out the Autumn colours a week ago. Apparently half of Japan had the same idea and I ended up stuck in a interminable traffic jam to get up to the woods and the lake from the Temple complex downhill.. I was far better off than people who followed an hour after me. They spent 5 hours, to my couple of hours staring outta the window of the bus. The scenery itself wasn't too bad though.

Growing up as I did back home,hanging outta the foot board of buses, jumping in and out of running trains, deep sea diving without oxygen and parachuting off 30 floor buildings(guess which two I made up :P ) , the announcements in the buses here never fail to tickle me.
"We are now approaching the Irohazaka Slope.The bus will largely sway from side to side. Please fasten your seat belts and secure all baggage. Passengers may experience motion sickness..blah blah". In that goddamn traffic jam, if we moved any slower, we would be going backwards !!! Yuri Gagarin wouldn't have got those many instructions when he blasted off into space... It would probably have been [Thick Russian Accent] "Theez eez Borisz , Hope yzou have tanked up on Vodka and don't forget to pee righd into ze vaccum pump.Dont get too cloze though!! 3.2.1.Blast off"

With minimal observable damage I reached the Lake inspite of the allegedly apocalyptic journey, but not before I flexed my new found Japanese muscle with the pretty "Call Center Lady" sitting next to me. CCL had apparently backpacked in Tibet, travelled in a bus for 4 days from Yunnan.. after dropping out of Arts College. CCL also had a blinding revelation that my thick spectacles were a result of staring at miniature robots, after I solemnly told her that I was an Electronics grad. The specs were a result of staring at entirely different, organic specimens of the female sex, for long hours during my long adolescence ,but obviously I didn't tell her that. After holding her spell bound with my Japanese for a good hour, I concluded that my Japanese was coming on quite magnificently or that I was a stunningly handsome male specimen, if it wasn't my Japanese :P . If you still haven't checked out "Sarcasm" on Wiki, You should do so now......

I stayed overnight in a Pension next to the Chuzenji Lake after spending the evening trying out my new Canon EOS Kiss Digital X. I quickly figured, how much I don't know bout this gizmo...

The next day, I loitered around the Ganmangafuchi Abyss near the temples and came back to Tokyo to check tryout my new contraption in Meijijingumae ,Harajuku, which always has more than one good photo op in store...

Check out the dude with Gold Fish Earrings.

And they lived happily ever after......

I've been reading loads off late... Staying up well into the night. My most recent reads.

-Alan Turing's Bio
-The History Of the Orgasm - Very informative. For the ones with leers on your faces.. This ain't got any pictures :P
-A Nick Hornby Novel- How to Be Good... Classy.
-Murakami's Dance Dance Dance .. Abstract and Dreamy
-Currently reading - Oppenheimer's Biography. Spectacular stuff this. I am half way through and this is easily one of the most lucid works in contemporary writing that I have chanced upon.. It really deserved the Pulitzer it got.
-Got another book on the futility of religion and a Nietzsche which I might not understand at all...

Happy Diwali to all the desis. And to all the non-desis... Look up Diwali on Wiki.

Ciao!

Of Empty Streets and Simple Complications...

2007-10-01T18:48:00.000+05:30

He continued walking in the misty drizzle. The tiny raindrops, almost apologetically, gently landing on his face, and ever so slowly mingling with their brethren on their random traverses across his cold cheek. He didn’t particularly like to face up to the idea that the next five days would be spent pecking at a keyboard in an antiseptic office, but the weekend wasn’t much of a respite at all from the jarring futility of his excuse for a life. He wondered which he hated less…. The weekend won…But only just…

Weekends were something he had always looked forward to as a kid. The promise of a couple of days break from the rigors of the unimaginative and institutionalized, almost ritual boredom called school…. Looking back, he tried to remember when the concept of the weekend stopped being a novelty and became a tooth in a wheel, mindlessly being driven by an iron chain with a will of its own. Somewhere between the time he’d sleep walked through school and found himself in a university, he hadn’t planned on getting into in the first place, he quipped soundlessly. He tried pinpointing the exact point in the crowded timeline, despite a voice in the back of his head trying to reason with him about the meaninglessness of the entire exercise. After a relatively short battle, the voice won.

The rain helped. It kept people in their homes, leaving the streets and the little puddles for him to negotiate in a calm he so loved to have around him. He allowed himself a rare smile. Not rare, because he didn’t smile too often…Nope, to most people around him, there couldn’t be a happier man... It was rare, because it didn’t have an agenda…
The voices made sure that these moments were far and few in between though.

Although he had lost his religion somewhere along the way, he believed in a certain interpretation of cosmic justice, almost bordering on the concept of Karma.
The only way he could explain his present situation was through this means. A certain part of him, told him that this was an escape route the mind sought to explain seemingly random connections between unconnected events. But there are times when a refuge in such “reason”, however farfetched can make life so much less complicated. Also, the “reason” gave him hope… He had been a good man, a confused man but an honest man in the last couple of years that he knew what exactly he was up to…or so he thought. Yet life had dealt him the cards, from a deck, he desperately hoped in hindsight, had been shuffled one more time. Using his definition of cosmic justice, he reckoned that he should be in the black sometime in the future. His not so distant past’s bad karma should be annulled by the events in his all too recent past. Maybe not entirely, but certainly in the near future…..
The rain suddenly morphed into an angry hail of thick raindrops…He looked up …He smiled again… Not a bad weekend he muttered and kept walking.

Of the Birth and Death of Indian TV

2007-08-25T19:53:00.000+05:30

Japan may be the second biggest economy in the world, but the jingle industry here is stuck in a time-warp and they refuse to stop using high pitched juvenile voices to scream their punclines. The same "Sugooieee ......%*%^&*^&(^(^....aeeeee" is used to sell every product from toothpaste to Automobiles. There are a few ads which tickle the senses but most of it cacophonous non sense.
The talk show hosts are so goddamn over-the-top with the canned laughter and the exaggerated laughathons that even if I undertood the language any better, it still wouldnt make any sense.Check out Lost in translation for a better idea of what I'm saying.

I am actually missing the early Indian Television scene , which I grew up with when I was a kid. I remember, when we first bought a TV in 1986. Those days were extra special with the whole household's routine planned around Chitrahaar,Ramayan, Mahabharat,Samachar,Fauji, Buniyaad and Circus. My fav spot used to be the Sunday evening 5PM with Giant Robot .. Then, ads were never considered the nuisance that they are now, cos most of them made sense and most of the everyday average-Pandus could understand and relate to em. Anyway since DD was the only one channel around, there was not much scope for channel hopping during the ad-sequences. If DD decided to air only ads on Saturday evening, we would have uncomplaininingly watched em:)
We knew the names of every single newsreader ...Minu, Rini Khanna who later became Rini Simon or the other way around, Tejeshwar Singh, Neeti Ravindran,Gitanjali Aiyar,Komal GB Singh,Sunit Tandon. TV has lost that personal small town feeling it had when it first hit India.
The color stripes with that annoying shrill background sound giving way to the DD opening song in the afternoon was the thrill of the day..The DD emblem slowly materialising outta a circular orb, with the shehnai Taa na nana naa in the background.

The oldest ad that I remember is the one with Javed Jaffrey in Cinkara. "Bechara kaam ke boj kaa maara" and then a spoon of Cinkara and he flying thru the glass door. Fascinated me endlessly to see all the glass flying around :)
Then there was the Goodwards gripewater ad. The one featuring the three generations. Very touchy feely ad.
I still like the freshness in the Torino jingles set to that very catchy tune.
-Its a great great feeling,
the taste sends u reeling ..Aah..Torino Orange
and the
Its a new new sensation,
Orange fascination .Aaah..Torino Orange

Then there was the ubiquitous Nirma Ad..
Doodh si safedi, Nirma se aaye..Rangeen kapde bhi khil khil jaaye..Sabki pasand Nirma.

The Maggi tomato ketchup sequences with JJ and Pankaj Kapoor..mouthing inanities like 'Lily, Dont be silly' and 'It's Different' :)

NECC: Sunday Ho Ya Monday, Roz kaye ande.....

ECE: Jyada de ujala, hyaada din chalne waala ECE Bulb aur ECE tube :)

No new fangled "Isme me hain Ultra phenicol penta sodium meta isosilicate zinc chlorate micro granules jo Dandruff ko jad se nikaale " [Shudder], just old fashioned Pappu-Kamala stuff.

Sue me for being an emotional cliche, but I'd rate Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, Baje Sargam, Ek Chidiya Anek Chidiya,Purab se soorya uga as the best ever social messages that have been conveyed via the visual media in the history of Indian Television... Simple, subtle , classy...

Anyways, while the Cable TV revolution was a breath of fresh air for the Indian TV scene when it came in, all they seem to air off late is the mind numbing Saas-bahu crap.

Sigh.
Ting Tin Ti Ting.

Of a Summer Sojourn on Trains...

2007-08-22T17:33:00.000+05:30

One of the few perks of a deputation to Japan, which kinda slightly makes up for the torture of having to consume my own culinary creations, is the Summer vacation. The basic idea is that people go back to their hometowns from the repititive rigarmole of their everyday lives and do the Obon thingy, which is a Buddhist festival, honouring and communing with the spirit of their ancestors.
Now given that my ancestors would be kinda chilling out with Indra and co, in the upper reaches of the Himalayas sitting on cumulus clouds (Please refer to Ramanand Sagar's Mahabharat for more visual clarity.They probably hit Goa every winter, but that would be speculation), we decided to check out Hokkaido in Northern Japan. The "we" in question happen to be myself and Santosh Datta aka Babruvahana(Pls refer below pic for details of the aka).

My vacation kinda kickstarted on Fri,10th Aug, with a party in Ginza with a few of my Japanese friends after which I was supposed to join Babru in front of a Starbucks in Ikebukuro at midnight. The plan was to spend the rest of the night in a pub , but we ended up spending it in a 24 hr MacDonalds since the pub was closing early for the nite.

Day1:
After pretending to drink one Coke and eat one Burger from 12 AM to 0430 AM, we caught the first train out to Ueno to begin an epic train journey across Tohoku in the process maxing the benefits outta our 5day, 11500Yen Seishun 18 kippu.

The route:
Ueno-Utsunomiya-Kuroiso-Koriyama-Fukushima-Kogota-Ichinoseki-Sendai-Morioka-Odate-Aomori.

We had to change 10 freaking trains to get to the northern tip. Lunch was a hassled bakery affair someplace midway.The plan was to take a night ferry to Hakodate and then take it from there.
But the Railway dude informs us that the Ferry is a no-go since they'd stopped operating it(Incidentally,he was wrong)....
We missed the 1045 Hamanasu Express to Hakodate too, so we were destined to spend the night in Aomori. We had an alleged burger for dinner at a MOS Burger joint and after wandering the streets watching the hip hop junta try their latest moves and a shamisen player entertaining an audience of exactly three, we crashed outside the Train station with our backpacks for pillows.

Day 2:
We rise bright and early and made for Kanita on the morning local. After reaching there, we were too consumed with our previous day's success in negotiating the Japan Rail System and jumped on a train to Mimmaya, assuming it would get us further on till the Seikan Tunnel.
Mimmaya turned out to be a nothing place which looked liked the ones where life revolves around gossip at the station waiting room. It was a dead end and we retraced our way back to Kanita and then took the express under the Seikan Tunnel into Kikkonai, then catching an afternoon train into Hakodate, where we were interviewed by an Assistant Director of some Television channel about what we liked about Japan. I must have made it on TV, and I looked like a train wreck :D

We moved on to Onumakoen St to camp around Onuma Lake around Mt.Komagatake. We scouted out the local station and the information center and booked our rooms for the onward journey to Sapporo. We stocked up on dinner supplies at a local combini and moved to Choshiguchi St, where we got down to camp.We got a empty piece of real estate at the far but prettier end of the lake.

We met a local Japanese couple who were chilling out on evening chairs next to our tent. They gave us local dope on wuts best and where to hire the cheapest bikes.
We had dinner and took a nap in the tent at 2000 and got out at 2130. Watching the reflection of stars in the water was a first for me. The sky was perfectly clear,the air crisp, the chill faint and I aint gonna forget that sight for a long long time...little shimmering silver dots in the still water.I also saw 5 shooting stars..I'd seen only one my whole goddamn life till then :)
We crashed out for good at around 2300.

Day 3:
We were the last people to wake up in the camp. We packed our tent into the backpack and made for an onsen resort at Nagareyama St. I almost fell in love with the cutest ever Shop attendant,Babru being the gentleman sacrificing et al :P. We hired MTBs there and went around the 14 km circuit around the lake and also island hopping the small islands around Komagatake and returned in late afternoon to return the bikes and popped into the onsen. Not a great onsen, but was charging the moon cos one can see Komagatake from the pools.
We returned back to the camp site and pitched the tent. We slept early .The night was a bit overcast. Not quite like the night before...

Day 4:
We moved camp and after encountering a snake at the station, moved on to Mori-> Oshamambe->Otaru->Sapporo.
After reaching Sapporo , we unpacked at the YH after a breakfast at a Mister Donuts at the station. We went to an Indian Restaurant for dinner and then went on to the Odori-koen where the Summer Festival was being held. Babru danced himeself into a trance to the repititive though catchy beat of the Hokkaido Odori around the stage..

Day 5:
We moved outta the YH next morning and took the 1000 AM to the Historical Village of Hokkaido, where we were shown around the place by an English speaking ex-Animal Husbandry researcher and English Teacher would taught Japanese in Australia and Argentina...phew...

We then went to the Beer Museum to same their exhibits. I kinda liked the early 20th century poster of the Beer Ads...Very kitschy, very cool.

We then went to the Bus Station to book the tickets on the night train to Utaro in Shiretoko.
And then walked the length of Odori Koen. We returned to the Bus station behind the TV Tower to catch the night train to Shiretoko.

Slept like a baby on the bus... The push back seats went way back. Real comfy :)

Day 6:
We woke to a rainy morning, and arrived at the Utaro terminal early. We went out to the information center and waited for it to open up at 0900. Getting all the info that we needed at this superb Info Counter, we made for the campsite on a ridge overlooking the Sea of Okhotsk.
We made camp and then it started drizzling again, so we got back into the sleeping bags and slept fitfully until late afternoon. We woke up at bout 1300 and made for the Nature Center a 6km walk from the camp. We then went to the Furepe-no-taki, which is an amazing piece of real estate. The setting is absolutely mindblowing... Open flowering grasslands will deer loitering about, a deep craggy rockface and the sea. We shutterbugged for some and got back to camp. We were out by 2000 after the combini meal.

Day 7:
Cloudy skies and damp grass on the morning were pretty good indicators for the rest of the day to come.
We took the bus out to Kamuiwaka Falls, which is basically a water fall over 5 levels forming a natural rotenburo. The water at the top originated from a hot spring, so the water at the bottom levels is still pretty warm.

We then came down to the 5 lakes, to find that we could not go to three of them since the route was closed because of bear sightings....grrr..

We walked the 14 km back to the camp from the lakes. A long long walk, but the greenery makes it worthwhile. Climbed the Oronoko Rock at the harbour after the return..

We hit the bed early. This is pretty much a one horse town, not the kind where you go out and let your hair down and party. At 2000, the place completely closes down...

Day 8:
With the weather finally clearing up, we decided to climb Mt.Rausudake a 15 km hike from the base.This is one of the must do hikes , the most scenic one by far amongst all my treks.. The trail is well marked, but gets steep in a couple of places, and has a final rocky incline which is tricky to negotiate. I was half dead on the way up with all the inclines... Downhill was much easier, but the gravel trail is slippery in bits. The views from the top are stunning to say the least. The Pacific covered with a cotton candy layer of low lying clouds on one side and the Okhotsk on the other. Totally worth the painful knees and sore tendons.

There is a rotenburo onsen, a konnyaku at the base of the climb. We did the full monty and jumped into the hot water and boy was it relaxing... We chatted up a couple of old Japanese men, who were curious to know if we were Brahmins ...Duh....

We came back to camp, packed up and took the night bus out to Sapporo after watching a perfect sunset from the view point at our campsite.

Day 9:
We took the first available train outta Sapporo to Otaru and then onto Oshamamabe and Hakodate. At Hakodate, we caught up on shopping for souvenirs and gifts for people back in Honshu and took a taxi to the Ferry terminal. We caught the evening ferry to Aomori and we spent a good bit of the first hour on it catching the different shades of the setting sun.

We arrived at Aomori at about 2130 and took the train out to Hirosaki, where we spent the night with a Nomihodai deal at a Skylark Gusto All nighter....

Day 10:
We trudged out early morning around 5AM and went lugging our backpacks et al to the Hirosaki-jo. The castle is kinda Ok, but the grounds are pleasant and make for a good place for a morning walk.
We started back on the return journey retracing our route back to Tokyo from Hirosaki

Hirosaki-Odate-Morioka-Kitakami-Sendai-Ichinoseki-Fukushima-Kuroiso-Utsunomiya-Ueno-Ikebukuro-Higashimatsuyama.
I dont remember much of the return journey cos I was basically in a state of suspended animation.

Overall an extremely fun trip. Lotsa things to remember years from now.

Adios Amigos.

Cheers

Misty Window Panes

2007-07-30T20:12:00.000+05:30

The rains started sometime when he had fallen asleep on the couch, the hum of the air conditioner lulling him into an uneasy sleep. He nuzzled his head on the pillow, trying unconsciously, to cradle it into that sweet spot.
He was woken up by the distant rumble of the approaching thunderstorm,feeling a vague uneasiness. A throat parched and with a heavy head, he placed his bare feet on the cold vinyl floor and felt the chill run up his spine pushing him into the realms of wakefulness. He walked across the room and ran the water from the tap into his favorite jet black cup. He liked the cup. He drank half the cup, suddenly no longer thirsty, unhurriedly emptied the remaining half into the sink.Watching the water etch its way across the metal at the bottom, disappearing in a half murmured gurgled sigh.
His eyes adjusted to the dim light, he went to the window sill and pulled back the curtains,just a bit, and rested his head against the cold glass window. The sky was a tortured canvas of grey with the last rays of the sun, desperately trying to hold sway from the far horizon. The rays were fighting a losing battle. The lightning bolts streaked across the southern skies, lighting up the heavens in a flash of cosmic brilliance followed by the rumble that shook the glass against which his cheek rested. He stood there for a long time, staring unblinkingly at the rain drops falling off the sill. A steady patter almost in sync with his silently beating heart. He stood there until he could not longer see with his breath condensing in a translucent mosaic on the glass. He stood back and painted a squiggle on the misty canvas with his finger. He spent a long while admiring it,until the squiggle disappeared into a meaningless sludge.

He sighed and wondered, what if he had not taken the chances that he took, in the blind belief that whatever the outcome, he could rest assured that he did all he could?
With the benefit of hindsight, he thought ...it would have been easier not knowing.....

He closed the curtains tight and walked back to the couch and snuggled into its deep cushions hoping for sleep to wash over.

Of Fireworks and Crowded Metros.

2007-07-29T10:46:00.000+05:30

Half of Sunday has already been spent in bed. Breakfast comprised of all of 4 chocolate chip biscuits and am contemplating my options for lunch. The newly opened Indian restaurant is bout 20 min on cycle from my place and the Pakistani joint is bout 10 away. The other option, the cheapest and by far the the most nutritious is to cook a meal by myself,but needless to say it's the most least appealing option.I am tired of surviving on Avalakki ,but yeah with the range of culinary skills at my disposal, I dont have the luxury of ticking off from a list of exotic dishes,what I plan to conjure today.

Yesterday was particularly tiring. We were not the only people who thought that the Asakusa fireworks were a good distraction from the grindmill of our daily lives. The place was like Chickpet on a day when all cloth merchants decide to give away their wares at half price.
We had to walk for a good hour before we found ourselves a 20 cm gap in the line for the couple of us to fit in.After an hour of staring at the sky at a particularly awkward angle owing to the barricades and a few boughs of a goddamed tree obstructing my peripheral vision, we decided to call it a night and boarded the overcrowded trains back to central Tokyo,nursing the back of my neck on the way home,sweating buckets...

Dinner was a doughnut and a Banana-something in Italian-Frappe at a Starbucks in Ikebukuro.

Finished a few more pages of the Bertrand Russell book on the train ride.

Of Lazy Weekends and English Weather

2007-07-28T09:12:00.000+05:30

The past few weekends have been not too different from from what my more illustrious countrymen in white flannels have been seeing in the ol Blighty. More or less rained off .

In a desperate attempt to retain a sense of connectivity with the world where I come from aka where every one,including the overweight techie project manager(whose idea of exertion is a stomp on the aspirations and personal lives of the minions working under him) to the doodhwala, knows better than Rahul Dravid, who should be in the team and which shot to play to the ball pitched on middle and leg,swinging in and seaming out, I have been up quite late these last few nights following the progress of the Indian team losing the script of the "How to win a Series Victory in England" manual and occasionally finding a few pages.

Btw , in a moment of quiet reflection, I am sitting back and just wondering if the above sentence was the longest I've ever written in my life.
The story of my life these days..these Moments of utterly pointless mental excursions :)

Anyways watching Cricket in England has its own moments, the sartorially elegant crowd, with everybody from the village idiot to the mayor turning out in their best hats and ties to watch the progress with emotionless blank faces. Compare this with the atmosphere in Eden Gardens or Sabina Park, you know why there was/is/will be so much talk about the British stiff upper lip.

Have been reading Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy for ages now. It's a pretty heavy tome written in tight English prose. Anyway this is not light reading, and being a Cambridge grad, he has quite a reputation to live up to, so I will not complain bout the rather bland writing style . I must say that, this is pretty informative guide to the Western thought process.
Have Haruki Murakami's "Dance Dance Dance" next in line.

In other (rather stale) news, I fooled around at the Disney Sea Resort(got hold of some free passes from my manager here :) ) a month ago and went on another weekend jaunt to Karuizawa and pottered around a volcano. The 21 km hike had long lasting after effects
though.. Limped my way through most of the week after.

Have a weekend(a sunny one for a change) of lazy reading and train trips to central Tokyo in store.....Fireworks display in Asakusa tonite.

Schönes Wochenende
Cheers

Trek to Kumotori-san(45th Highest Mountain in Zapan..Applause..)

2007-06-06T19:04:00.001+05:30

Its 2230 on a cool Wednesday nite, but its not what I plan to blog about.
A couple of weekends ago, 26th and 27th of May, we peeps decided to catch up on a long pending trek, which we had to postpone for various reasons in the past...
A 20% chance of rains were pretty good odds and we took the train out of Higashimatsuyama to Yorii on Tobu Tojo at 0700. We changed over to the Chichibu Line and got off at Mitsumineguchi. The plan was for a two day trek, so we were pretty loaded up with the ubiquitous MTR Bisi Bele Baths and Palak Paneers along with a clutch of boiled eggs.
We did not take the Lonely Planet Route, where we came across the trek in the first place.

A slight digression from the subject at hand...
Speaking of Lonely Planet, I cant but wonder at the genius that conjured up the whole idea of the travel guide in the first place. I would place it in the forefront of ideas that have changed the way we travel. "Recommended by Lonely Planet" has become the Travel Industry's equivalent of Michelin Stars. I am pretty sure that if a funny Lonely Planet scribe were to conjure up a story claiming that the island of Bora Jora has this wonderful culture, where if the visitor to the famous Wooden Bridge, stands in the middle of the bridge and takes his shirt off, twirls it 3 times over his head and screams "Jiklatoobooga, ilikeyourmoogamooga", the local girls living in the huts near the bridge would troop out and dance the Giligga Dance in their handcrafted coconut shell bras. You can be sure as hell, that the first few visitors will be met with weird stares for their rendition of "Jiklatoobooga, ilikeyourmoogamooga" at the first bridge in sight, but soon the locals will learn about their famous culture which by now would have got pages written about in travel sites ,all of which ofcourse, will be "Recommended by Lonely Planet" and they will build a new Famous Wooden Bridge(the direction to which will be signboarded every 300mts all the way from the aiport),and the huts and will import Coconut Bras from Hawaii, and dance the Giligga Dance..
As to how does one dance the Giligga in Coconut Bras,I leave it to your fertile imaginations....

Getting back to the subject at hand. We had to take the 0850 bus from Mitsumine-guchi Sta. to Owa, where we were to be whisked up 1000 mts by the Cable Car.A conversation with the Bus Driver in my stone age Japanese, indicated that something bad had happened to the cable car in question.
We got off at Owa at 0905 and started looking for the trail in the one horse town. An old lady from the nearby store told us that the trail upto the final destination of the cable car was 3km and would take us 2 hours,since well...something bad had happened to the cable car.
So we started the trudge, and after a not so long time, we arrived at a Waterfall, where we stopped for a much needed break. Not to say that we hadnt taken breaks before that,but this was a pretty big break.
We moved on and at around 1145, we reached the Top of the cable car station, where decided to launch into our lunches. A gaggle of girls of mixed nationalities were climbing down and looked positively lost. One Oriental looking lady, gingerly came up to us, with a "Sumimasen". I was ready to reply with my most polished "Hain", when she "Can you speak English"ed us...They were relieved that we could as much as we were relieved that they could. They just wanted to know how long it took to descend.
We moved butt, after lunch into the Mistumine Jinja grounds, in and around which we shutterbugged in all and sundry poses.
We then commenced the 10.3 km to the top of Kumotori peak. Just outta the grounds, I had my first encounter with wild life in Japan. Maybe "encounter with wildlife" is a hyper dramatic term to use, but yeah, I did see my first snake in the wild in Japan. It was sitting in the shade beside the trail, when I caught its rustle.
The climb was pretty smooth for the first couple of kilometers. Soon, we encountered the first steep inclines, which I so hate climbing for long intervals because of what they end up doing to my lungs and knees. This stretch was inclines all the way up. After bout the first 1/3 we did get to run down a pretty steep decline, and then it was all the way up again. There are some points along the route with superb views of the valley. We had to break for another grub break,where we cleaned up the rest of the eggs with pepper and salt.
We trekked and we trekked,and we trekked more, but every trail marker indicated,we'd covered 500mts, when it looked like we'd done a good couple of kilometers.
We finally came upon our first sight of habitation, a dilapidated rundown wutever, which we assumed to be the mountain hut, we'd booked. Gentle tapping, followed by violent tapping on the windows confirmed that we had to move on. Another 500mts up the hill, we finally came a bunch of tents, which confirmed that we had made it to the Kumotori-sanso camp grounds.

Its close to dusk when we walked in to the Mountain hut, where we had reserved a room the previous night. It might be spring down in Tokyo, but up in the hills at 2000mts, its bloody cold this time of the year, and I was gallivanting the slopes in my Woodland Sandals,which made for some pretty sensationless toes.I caught up on some reading,after chatting(again in Stone Age japanese) with our nearly 60 year old roommate. We were the only people below 30 in the goddamn place.We had tasteless Soba with Tofu for dinner, for which we paid 1000yen. The room cost 5000Yen. We shared it with three other people.
We got up at 0415 to catch the sunrise.The whole camp was awake and running,by the time we moved out shivering in my chuddies and sandals. We had a breakfast with a couple of Japanese girls from Tokyo and a bunch of old ladies from wherever old ladies who climb hills at 60 come from. The breakfast was certainly not going to be the high point of the day. We moved out at 0600 for the peak still "a short climb away"(once again, a quote from the Lonely Planet). We had not yet warmed up and it was bloody goddamn windy. The trudge was slow and painful.
We finally made it to the peak and took some Edmund Hillary/Tenzing Norgay style snaps on the peak(2017mts) and went to check the free mountain hut, where we could camp if we had sleeping bags. We were loafing around the hut,when a elderly Japanese gentleman mumbled something is Japanese. Unable to catch him, we mumbled our apologies in equally incoherent mumbles,when with a blustery Aussie accent, he went "That's a bloody awfully long way to climb up". The bloke was climbing with a 25 kg backpack.For the unitiated, that a bloody big bag..and as he sermoned "Only a bloody bastard would carry a 25 kg bag up this bloody hill"
We clicked some snaps and went into the hut, where we met a couple of Japanese ladies, we had seen in the hut the previous night. They were friends from Tokyo and Yokohama and one lady has visited Rajasthan and Nepal.We chatted for some more time, when the Aussie-Japanese came up and told Arjun who was outside, to click a snap of his on the peak to show his wife. He apparently peeped in and commented to Arjun, "Lazy Bastards,　still here chattin up the gals"
The down hill climb is a long one, but not too difficult, we finished the Bisi bele baths at 1100 and then reached a village from where we walked another 30 min to the bus stop and figured that the next bus was a long time away and we walked another 3km to the main road. Point is, we walked a long long way...Around 20 km is my guess...

We took the bus back into Okutama city, and then back into Tokyo,for dinner at our usual weekend haunt,the South Indian restaurant.

The trek is moderately difficult, but the views esp. on the way down make up for all the aching joints.

Ciao.
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A long pending blog entry......

2007-06-02T13:38:00.000+05:30

Long time , no blog. Guilty as charged....

Seems like ages since Day3 in Chaweng. There were a few more days in Thailand followed by a couple of weeks in India and a couple of weeks in Japan hence. So much has happened since, that the very thought of sitting and bloggin all of that without missing details actually puts one off.

When you sit to recall a really hectic vacation, a month later, chronology is something that's hard to stick to or recall.The memories that remain are not the mundane that you recall at the end of the day, but stuff that's gonna stay with you for a long long time to come.

Some random snapshots from the rest of the days of the vacation.....

I gulped half the Gulf of Thailand and was at the risk of becoming the first drowning incident in the history of snorkelling with a Life jacket on.Frankly I hate any activity that gets me to part with my beloved spectacles, and given that I lose all motor abilities in a water body where my feet do not touch the floor, I am reduced to clenching and unclenching my butt muscles at random frequencies to convince myself that I am still in control of the situation .. but anyways , a visit to the Emerald Lake a while later made up for that. Thailand is really full of nice surprises where sometimes the wares turn out better than advertised. Angthong Marine National park is one of em.....

A long walk on a beach in Lamai,with the occasional gust of sea breeze giving you the chills when you are sweating buckets, and the sun set ambience, sitting on a few craggy boulders, watching the sea mindlessly break itself against the rocks...
Walking on the beach, you have a very thin band to walk comfortably on. If you walk too close to the sea, you go all squishy squishy in the wet sand.. Fun for sometime, but gets to you... You walk too far away, your feet sink right into the sand, no traction, lots of shells to prick your feet.. The beach ..like life...has this small zone .. nice, warm yet cool, compact stretch where you can make the perfect footprint..... And like the beach, Life aint a straight line.......

Another memory that has stayed is a random act of kindness that only travelling can give you a chance to experience. We were waiting on the Pier to catch a boat on our way to Patpong from the Grand Palace, where we asked a bloke in a uniform standing there, the number of the ferry which would get us there. The Thai Navy dude actually paid for our tickets, the next thing we know.... He told us he had a daughter who was 5 years old and that he likes playing with her on weekends....
I haven't met her, but I can almost imagine, how sweet she probably looks......

India was a really draining two week vacation this time round... Covered a bunch of places I`d been meaning to cover..or uncover....
But there are some places, you just just cant seem to reach... However well connected the road,however quick your steed, however strong your will..... Ran into a couple of em.... Another day,another time...

Anyways drinking beer from a huge burette was a first for me.. That was in Leopold in Mumbai. Music was too 1980s to write about.
Usha's wedding and an old boys(and gals) meet in Mumbai was pretty good fun.

Managed a solo climb to Lohagad fort in Lonavala. The view from the top is worth the 9 km climb from Malavli railway station. The trek was something I really needed to do to clear my head. There is a certain catharsis in this whole business of trekking .. It does not solve any problems but gives you a much needed break from em. 18km in 3.5 hours was bliss.
Btw dont go to Khandala if it aint been raining for sometime yet.. Not worth it....

Last weekend was spent communing with nature ,climbing the 45th highest peak in Japan(for those going Thbbt!thhbbt! Snicker! ... Byatches! the inclination is not a function of the height:)) )
Will put up a detailed write up on that in the next blog.

Ciao
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The Thailand Diaries -Day 2 and 3.

2007-04-24T21:52:00.000+05:30

Blogging this entry from a Travel Agents office on Chaweng Beach, Ko Samui :)

Yesterday morning, we got up nice and early and went to Wiang Kum Kam, bout 6 km outta Chiang Mai Inner City . This place is a bunch of ruins dating back quite some time....700 years ago..Not exactly Macchu Picchu though.. We were the only foreigners in the place..We went around a few of the ruins and were chased out of one by Soi dogs.. We walked to the Highway after getting hopelessly lost among the deserted Wats.. We finally managed to snare a Tuk tuk back into town after a long trudge in the heat... We went to the same Arabic Restaurant for lunch and we had a long chat with the Pakistani owner, who was born in Amritsar bout the travails of life in the Sub continent. Afternoon, we rode on a Songthaew to Doi Suthep and did the usual touristy stuff on the peak..After a zillion pictures of Buddha in sundry poses, we went back to the room to get some shut eye.
The hotel we were staying had a decent pool,so to do full paisa vasool, I slipped into it after a small siesta... After bout an hour in the pool, went down to the place where on Sunday we loafed aound in that amazing market and found a bunch of stray dogs and some locals loitering around in the street... The market apparently is not a perennial feature...Just a Sunday thingy...kicking myself in the butt for not having bought some of the stuff on display, thinking I could I have done it today :(

Anyways, we retired for the night after a visit to the Night Market,not exactly the same thing as the one on Ratchadamnoen Rd on Sunday...

Decided we had enough of Chiang Mai and went to the Airport early morning today on One-Two-Go Airlines from Cnx to Don Muang airport in Bkk.From there we took a shuttle into Suvarna Bhoomi and we took off for Ko Samui on Bangkok Airways flight. Had originally planned to take the chaper option of going into Surat Thani and then take a Ferry into Ko Samui. We landed in Ko Samui at about 1PM .... Kinda cute airport(if you can call an airport cute that is..)... Its completely open air and apparently run by Bangkok airways..who have the monopoly on this route.
Took a Taxi into Chaweng and checked into Silver Sands Resort... The room is a fan cooled deal..and is horribly hot, but it is made more habitable by the fact that the AC Rooms cost 3 times higher... Anyways the plan is not to spend much time in the room.
Went to an Indian Restaurant for Lunch...and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach.

Returned for a afternnon siesta and slept unti 1900... Went out and booked a boat into Angthong Marine National Park..The setting for the movie "The Beach ". Just coming off a dinner in a real cool joint, with a very hip laidback Goan ambience. 4 Margaritas and a Pizza.

Retiring for the night.

Ciao

Thailand Diaries -Day 1

2007-04-22T23:03:00.000+05:30

A post from Northern Thailand this one :)

Yesterday i.e 21st Apr,Sat we(Arjun and myself) left Higashimatsuyama for Narita by the 10:45 express to Ikebukuro. After a lunch in the before mentioned Nepali restaurant, we went on to Narita by the 1304 NEX to the airport. We flew outta Narita at 1825 and reached Suvarnabhoomi Airport at 12 midnight courtesy North West airlines. Since we had not bothered to update the airline with our meal preferences, we had to choose between Fish noodles and chicken..Not a difficult choice to make for a veggie :).. However, I managed to wrangle some extra slices of bread outta their pantry. Watched a British movie, Notes of a Scandal, starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett followed by The Holiday, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet et al...Decent stuff both... The turbulence for the first couple of hours was beginning to tell on my bowels..and was more than pretty relieved when we finally managed to skirt the storm.

We went out of the airport to book a hotel room for the night. But the humid hot night air hit us like a wall and we traced our footsteps back into the cooler confines of the airport.
We decided to change our initial plan of taking a night train from Bangkok's weirdly named Railway station on Sunday night and decide to take a flight into Chiang Mai early today morning. I half slept the night on a very uncomfortable bench. Early morning we bought a ticket outta Bkk to Cnx on a Air Asia flight cost us 1620 baht each . A couple of hours later at 0800 AM today, we plonked into a hotel, randomly pulled outta my trusty Lonely Planet. Don't ask me whats Top North Hotel supposed to mean. We checked in after a horrendous breakfast in a "Indian Vegetarian Restaurant" (Yup..That was the name) ...We ordered a Full Thali costing bout 90 baht,obviously famished after the North West meal debacle. My Lonely Planet(not so trusty sometimes) promised "adequate portions", which there were, but the food tasted like it had come straight outta my cookbook.. We left the place in a hurry to take a short nap, which extended pretty much into late afternoon. Finally acclimatised to the heat of Thailand(remember, I am just comin outta a Japanese winter) we ventured into the Inner City, visiting a bunch of Wats including Chiang Man Wat and Wat Phra Singh, the most popular ones, we even managed to find a Hindu Devi Temple on the outskirts of the Inner City.

As the sun set behind the hills of Chiang Mai, we went down Th Ratchadamnoen , where a superb Market sprung up outta nowhere... Today morning, there wasn't a soul in sight on these streets.. This city springs to life after sundown. So we went checking out the wares and bought some trinkets here and there. We returned to the rooms to dump the stuff and set out again at 2100 into the other side of the city walking along Th Loi Kroh. I finally bought the Che Guevara T Shirt which I have been looking for, for ages now. Dinner was an uneventful event in an Arabic Restaurant unimaginatively called Arabia. A couple of Allo Paranthas later, we came to a pub with some live moojik had a cocktail and after this blog entry, am headed straight for bed.
Btw there were these cool Paper balloons which they were playing around with around our hotel. They use a small fire to fill out the balloon and the paper lantern lifts up into the sky, looks darn pretty in the night sky....friend caught it on video.Will post later.
If not anything,the night market makes this place totally worth a visit..
its 1 AM on Monday now.Have a long day tomorrow...
Ciao

Wanderlust

2007-04-15T20:17:00.000+05:30

Someday..Eventually..I hope to be a traveller and stop being a tourist.....Eventually ..Someday.

I know I will be one....I just know..

Of Da Vinci and Dosas In Tokyo......

2007-04-09T20:15:00.000+05:30

Howdy peepuls. Yet another blog entry from a very untidy room somewhere in the orient.

Last weekend too was spent loitering the labyrinth that is Tokyo.
Had actually planned to climb Kumotori-san(the highest peak in this area), but the weather wasn't exactly picture perfect(rains predicted) and though I am hopeless nature freak, I certainly did not fancy dying of hypothermia trying to climb a mountain in a cold place far,far away from home(Not that I fancy dying anyplace warm near home , but I hope the point was conveyed).

To cut a long story short, I took a train out to Tokyo and and had brunch at an Indian restaurant in Ikebukuro.
This was followed by a trip to the Tokyo National Museum. My friend Avinash's Lonely Planet guide book promised that on the first Saturday of every month, the entry fee to the museum is magnanimously waived off. Congratulating ourselves on our foresight and great skills at yenny pinching, we went forth to the gates of the museum only to find that the Lonely Planet guide was just f*&^ing with our minds. There was no such magnanimity on display. We took a combined ticket to the museums permanent display and the Leonardo Da Vinci travelling display after paying a grand total of 1500Yen. I can visit all museums in India three times over and still have enough left to erase the fiscal deficit of Sierra Leone for that kinda money.
Da Vinci's celebrated Annunciation (okay!! not so celebrated..But it is a Da Vinci..How many have seen one anyways..quip) was on display on loan from a museum in Florence.
Beyond the spelling of ART and associated trivia, I must confess I know little else about it. Hence I will desist from any further elaboration about the intentions of the master.

We then went to the museum with the stuff right from the Jomon-era (that's like zillions of years ago)through the Edo-period to stuff from the 2oth century. Its got the usual museum stuff like scrolls, pottery,sharp weapons, blunt weapons, stone age underwear et al . All in all ... A day well spent.

The last of the Sakura are withering way in the blustery early spring winds......

Went down to Takadanobaba(yeah..that's the correct spelling) to a second hand book store there and bought a bunch of books and a DVD -Wild Things 2. (For the uninitiated ..That's not an educational wildlife video.Btw the first part wasn't either)

One of the books was Will Ferguson's Hokkaido Highway Blues. One of the best books about Japan I've come across thus far. I finished it in 2 days flat. Absolutely unputdownable.

The high point of the day was a visit to a South Indian restaurant in Tokyo. We had to wait in a queue to catch a table. The combination of the smell of masala dosa and the intoxicating aroma of the sambar from the kitchen was driving us into a frenzy. A couple more minutes of this, I was pretty much ready to do a la Vidhyarthi Bhavan(Only peepuls with roots in Bangalore are gonna get that).Thankfully a Japanese couple decided they'd had enough of inflicting their rectums with third degree burns and we didnt not have to intimidate hapless patrons by staring unblinkingly at their dosa.

We attacked the Masala Dosa(Large) and the Vada(dont remember the size) with a grace that would have made most tribes of Amazon look like genteel ,cultured ,Victorian mannered denizens. That was followed by a encore with a By-two vegetable biryani and Madras Filter kaapi :). The French guys on the next table are probably writing about the Great Dosa Massacre in their blog...La crêpe pauvre n'a pas eu une chance...Sob! Sob!

The next weekend seems light years away...A whole goddamn work week to clear before that.

Peace

March Past

2007-04-02T18:55:00.000+05:30

March was a particularly nibbly month and hope to take my current form through to the next months.

March was also a particularly eventful month, what with the World Cup(Ok,ok!!... No more references to that anymore in this blog entry..Read On!), the St.Patrick Day thingy and of course the coming of spring (For the theatrically inclined...that was not metaphorical) .

St.Patricks Day ,for the uninitiated, is just an excuse to dress up in green and drink Guinness until you start

1)to think you are a leprechaun and pinch the buxom blondes' butt just because she aint wearing green and ...think she's gonna show you the other cheek just cos you are 2ft 4in and real cute.

2)to think that the brown guy who wrote this blog is atrociously attractive.

We had a nice little parade happening in Harajuku,Tokyo and dropped in on the festivities.

The evening was spent in Yoyogi Koen with the usual hangers on, the Free Hugs Brigade et al.

The previous weekend was also spent in Tokyo.. We went down to Kudanshita to check out the Sakura trees in full bloom. For a guy from the Tropics where we have Hot n Rainy/ Just plain Hot, the four season cycle never stops surprising me

After that we went to a racous Indian Bazaar kinda thingy at the Indian embassy. Did a little jiggy with the desi and pardesi crowd, dancing to total "chindi" Taamil saangs and ofcourse the bhangra. An atrociously expensive and an equally pathethic Masala Dosa and a Chole Bhature were consumed(note: I dont say eaten).

I also had a goli soda(check below pic) :D in the Yasukuni Jinja after which I checked out the War Museum there.

I proudly announce that I can play the E,Em,A and Am chords on my guitar (..canned laughter..).

In other news, a man has been jailed by the police after stealing 1500 pairs of women's underwear(of course,where else but in the United States). Dont think people would be actually giving interviews on evening TV stating ,How happy they are to get back their underwear and how much the Red thong meant to them(but this being the US...you never know..quip).

Spare a thought for this low self esteem criminal though.

Prisoner 1: Yo Bro, I'm in the can for 15 years on manslaughter.
Prisoner 2: I am the Enron guy.

Pathethic Underwear Guy : I stole underwear..1500 of em.

All Prisoners: Tsk..Tsk..har..har... Phbbbt phbbt .

Ciao and Cheers

Brown Man in Tokyo

Silent Illusions

2007-03-24T17:04:00.000+05:30

The evening mist, the glistening dale,
In the twilight,shimmers her veil.

She smiles beneath, the heavens sigh,
The curls askew, the twinkling eye.

The silent gaze, the fleeting illusion,
Its all a haze, a frantic delusion.

The setting sun, the hue on the horizon,
The fading sound of a distant clarion

The night sets in, the pole star bright,
Her veil still shimmers, the face still alight.

The dancing shadows on her face,
She stands framed against the star knit lace.

The timbre of her voice,drowns out the noise,
A mere mortal, Did I ever have a choice?

Will the veil ever be raised?
Will the heavens ever be shamed?

I wait in the hope of the promised moment,
I ...shall always be her unheard lament

Kitschen Blues

2007-03-14T17:17:00.000+05:30

I've got back home at reasonably earthly hours for the first time this week.. That alone would be reason enough for a long rambling blog entry about the "joys" of work.

I'll save that for a crappy day :) This one is not worth ruining.

But this whole business of getting home early is more of a double edged sword kinda thingy...

While the pros are

-I get to listen to Clapton and Dylan like they should be listened to.

-I get to fiddle around with the blog.

-I get to stalk profiles of random pretty looking females on Orkut.

-I get to catch up on my reading...Gotta finish the John Gribbin I've picked up.. like ages ago.

-I get to put on leather stockings,play death metal, get my fetish whip outta my closet and play "Whose your papa,bitch!!" with my atrociously kinky Japanese neighbour... (With pros like these, what kinda loser even thinks of cons" :P)

Now the Cons....

When you get back home at 1130 PM, you dont have to make much of a choice..

More like

1130: Return Home.. Swear bout job.

1132: Remove three layers of clothing.

1135: Still swearing bout job.

1140: Switch on comp. Open the packet of bread.

1141: Eating bread. Reading mails.

1143: Login to Orkut. Finish eating bread.

1145: Take a leak..Conjure witty reply to those scraps whilst at it...close zipper.

1147: Send witty replies.

1149: Strip

1149, 20 sec:Snore.

But you get back anytime before 9PM..

There's the bane of every Godamn Veggie Desi Software Engineer in Pardes(True to my profession,we'll abbrev. to GVDSEP for further references) to be confronted....

GVDSEPs, who usually need a map to the kitchen during their comfortable formative years in India , get a rude wake-up call when confronted with the ground realities.(also chopped realities, mashed realities, burnt realities). While trained to confront most challenges in life head on , GVDSEPs have been known to breakdown after being confronted with the "Scrape Charred Rice outta your Burnt Pressure Cooker (SCROBPR)" problem, especially when accompanied by "WTF is burning in the Microwave"(WTFIBIM) situation.

With only a solitary Pakistani Restaurant close to where I live.... most days I have to cry, bludgeon,chop, fry, burn(thats unintentional), toast,roast in the kitchen to ensure that my daily nutritional needs are met....

On that note..

Ciao..

Hungry GVDSEP.

PS: If you meet me on the street, dont ask "Whats Cooking in ur life?" ...Expect violent reactions.Dont tell me I didnt warn you, but then look a the pros...You'd probably be the topic of my next blog entry..."One Liners Can Kill"

The French Connection

2007-03-11T18:01:00.000+05:30

Weekend almost bout to end ... Another weekend dedicated to the Patron God of Sloths and other such maligned animals , who are just abiding by laws of natural physics... Principle of Least Action. All of you who spent it climbing mountains,worked on your 1 mile run time or working out at the neighbourhood gym..

Watch out!! ..You mess with Nature...She'll mess with you ..Buhahaha...

<..Quip..>Atleast that's what Al Gore has been claiming , and he got an Oscar for that!

Going on to less apocalyptic peeves, I just added a new one to my "Lousy Weekend Dos List"... Watch (F)Arty French Movies...

The French have convinced themselves(and most of the rest of the world), that to be considered as avantgarde they need have a plot with mandatory frontal nudity ,a nubile 18 year old and a sad 40+ male, and of course the Eiffel Tower where lovers hold hands, lock lips or generally violently grope each other.... Hollywood has convinced me that you can see the Eiffel Tower through any damn window of any damn house in Paris!

The movie in question is The Last Tango in Paris. An Italian Parentage, and a name that goes..Burrnaarrdho Berthaloochi,(If you picture Penelope Cruz saying that!!Brother, you would be salivating, with your tongue substituting for a neck tie, even if your name is not Bernardo Bertalucci) is apparently all you need to be qualified for this movie making job...

Anyway, I thought Swimming Pool was an aberration, until I watched this.... Total weirdo movie...or may be I aint Intellectually capable enough to appreciate the hidden implications(They must have been pretty well hidden, coz I never found a hint of any..quip quip)

Atleast I'd watched Swimming Pool on a Singapore Airlines flight from Changi to Narita...A kinda perverse pleasure, that my company was paying for a flight where I got to watch free porn!! One of the few moments when I deeply felt... that the slog was worth it...

But on this occasion, the sight of Marlon Brando...and a suggestion "The Complete and Uncensored Version" in italics on the cover, proved my undoing ...I shelled out my Yen gleefully, hoping for a snazzy story, with a bit of perversion thrown in....

An hour into the movie...I was like "what the @@##$" or as the French would say "Qu'est-ce que c'est"?

Other than that...Have spent a neat packet on a pair of Timberland Climbing boots, a snazzy evening jacket and a bunch of other stuff that I really dont need!

...I'd wager that the bill would easily surpass the GDP of most South American Countries......

Some fait accompli that....

Adieu!Mon amis..

Mystic Valley

2007-03-07T20:54:00.000+05:30

Statutory Warning: Reading this post may cause acute nostalgia, and considerable de-stress. Reader discretion is advised if you are from Manipal.

As I sit here writing this blog at a place far away from home, in a place where sometimes the only conversations I have all day is a couple of words in Japanese with the neighbourhood grocer,it's but natural that I jog along one of those old memory lanes..Lanes that are clouded by sights and sounds of Bangalore's traffic, malls and sundry coffee shops.

To cut to the chase, a few random googling incidents led to a link to one of the Manipal videos uploaded on YouTube.. A grainy amateur video, not the nice ,jazzy commercial bout life in Manipal.

Boy...Did it all come back in a rush...

Random Images flash as I close my eyes and roll back the years..Images which defy expression, with just a keyboard at your disposal.
Images that need to be painted in the hues of the soft subtle colouring of shades by a Monet, the sweeping brushwork of Hussain, the timbre of Paul Simon in the background, the guitar piece by a inspired Clapton to put across the point.

Manipal becomes(became) what we wanted it to be.... our moment of joy, the sweet painful pangs of unspoken love, the Ecstasy of youth, the promise of discovery, the challenge of the unknown, and to some ..our Waterloo..... Each one of us has our own Manipal.

Cos somewhere along ...we became Manipal...Part of us was left behind with the peeling white wash near the grills of the window in the library, the much graffitied desks of the zillion classes attended, the smell of ammonia in the first year Chemistry Lab..probably still wandering the myriad labyrinth of the New Building (Remember NOOL1 :) )

Considering how much we slogged to get the hell outta the place in four years,dreaming of that cozy job, that wad of money..our wad of money, the delightful trappings of our idea of nascent fame.... Boy!!Guess What!!I got all that and I soooooo want to go back to being a kid with starry eyes, worrying about sessionals ..the acidic bile rising up the throat after a really really screwed up exam, the nervous breakdown with the suspense associated with "Who is the examiner?" before the lab exams.

I leave this blog entry without much more ado, with a few of my most poignant memories from MY Manipal...

-Manipal Monsoons , green wet grass, muddy puddles, the drip drip along the window pane as you look in to the valley from the open library in the 3.5 Floor(the one they opened up only for exams),the "What good is an umbrella in this downpour look", wet shoes, socks left to dry...

-MIT Library - Whoooo...Wheee.... That exchanged glance..Those sublime equations(not referring to ones in the ilk of Binomials :) )... The night canteen, the smell of Xerox ink,musty books...

-Juice Junction -The 7 buck cold coffee, the 3 buck "laime juice", the hope of a chance to make something of that glance, the ice lollies, the cherry tree, the 1000 AM break..

-MIT Quizzes and Dumb Cs - The question almost answered, but not quite there, the adrenalin surge, the heady joys, the clenched fists and high fives, the mimes and dimes(made a neat buck with my meagre talents there :) )..Inspired JAM moments... Kick NITK butt...

-Revels, Timmys,Devas, 9th Block, 10th Block, KMC Greens, The BQ Mess, the Messy Mess, College Quadrangle, that mermaid in the pool, the twisted Pine tree next to it, the Notice Boards at the Results,the queve for the clearance for Hall Tickets...Exam fees at the Bank...Proxies in class ..Paper fights.....Rubber band fights, the 7Rs meal at the canteen.. Downtown, Dollops, Pandeys,End point, the 20 buck movies,The parathas at the place opp. the MIT Basketball court....and a zillion lot more of those frames flickering past in my head ....old sepia ...whirring projector.....

Man what I'd give to get back that slice of my life.....That chance at being ME..
Find your own Manipal :)

Cheers
In Peace.
Bhatta(my Manipal Nom-de-guerre)

Weekend Hike to Mt.Otake.

2007-03-03T08:29:00.000+05:30

Yet another travel post. A hike to Otake-san.

Last weekend, after a fairly hectic week, on Friday night, just after midnite, decided to spend the weekend communing with nature. Three peepuls..Yours truly, Arjun and Avinash are the protagonists in question.

Had watched a particularly gory Quentin Tarantino movie(Hostel), which apparently left indelible marks on the psyche of Arjun, but I found the movie particularly amusing(watched it twice actually), before dropping off to bed at 0100 Sat.
The incessant clamor of my 3 Alarm clocks got me outta bed by 0515 and spent the the first minutes, preparing boiled eggs for the trip. The bath concluded, the bag loaded with the essentials(the deal..clean underwear et al), we departed from Higashimatsuyama to Shinjuku, a long 1hour train ride. A brief stop at the local 7-11 for the breakfast shopping. A couple of torches were purchased just in case things got interesting and we get lost in the woods.
We encountered the remaining bunch of desis from Bosch on their way to Kamakura(replete with full winter battle gear) and parted ways at Ikebukuro, where we went forth to Shinjuku, via Yamanote line and next through to Tachikawa a 40 min journey from Shinjuku on Chuo line. From here, we changed lines on to Ome, where we took the train to Mitake. The tickets paid for, we went to the Mitake Information Center, where we managed to figure a route up to the Mitake peak. A bus ride,a cable car ride up and a short walk to the Visitor Center up on Mitake for more details. My Japanese is scaling hitherto unknown heights :) I can actually figure my way around this place now :)
The cable car itself was a relic from the pre-war era at 1930s tackily painted thingy, but makes for a interesting ride, if you are interested in the mechanics of the pulley arrangements :)

The view from the top is pretty good though. You can see Tokyo in all its megapolistic grandeur and a huge bit of the Kanto plains from there. We moved on to the Visitor center, where we were given maps in English(still need em :) ) and after being shown a warning in English about the "Alpine Gravel Slopes" and "dont climb if you are inexperienced", we went to the nearby Youth Hostel to make arrangements for the Night. After having spent some time in Youth Hostels in Japan(Nara, Miyajima-guchi, Hiroshima), this one came as a pleasant surprise. Its a typical Japanese place, replete with tatami mats and the sliding translucent siding doors. We paid the lady our dues and went forth to the hike. Japanese people never fail to amuse me.
In a Tokyo Subway rush hour train, you'd sometimes find the silence deafening. The people never seem to open their mouths ..small talk, big talk..nothing. But when they don their climbing gear, you'd be sure to be responding to a steady stream of Konnichiwas!
The climb itself was pleasant except for a few zones with pretty steep ascents. My current diet isnt what you should be eating if you aspire to be a mountaineer, so that was expected.
We left for the climb from the Mitake peak at 1130 AM and we were on the top of the peak of Otake-san by 1300 , a hour ahead of schedule. A hearty lunch( aforementioned eggs, bread, cheese and orange juice) and a few photographs later, we began the descent and we took our time bout it.
We took a detour through the rock garden , basically a trail which cuts back and forth across a bubbling quiet brook. There's a small waterfall at the beginning, where we stopped for goofy pics. I think a visit in the fag end of summer should be rewarding, the water levels would have been burgeoned by the rains. We took a steeper detour towards the Nanajo falls which was not so rewarding cos we could hear the falls, but not see it ..Weird..
We climbed back up on the steep steel ladders and the final push home. We reached the town and were greeted with the sight which is very familiar in the wild west movies...Three blokes walk in town, stand spread eagled, survey the scene, spit the toothpicks, unholster their guns, cock em and shoot the poor farmer, adjust their caps, have some beer ....But in our case it was just a village closing shop for early Sat eve. There went our chance to grab some non bakery,dairy based grub!
We then decided to make do with a home cooked meal(hopefully vegetarian) at the YH and went down to the spa for a hot and much needed dunk in the communal tub...Something that takes getting used to for non-Japanese, especially Indian types.
The bath completed, we went back to our delectable room, to chill out.
The dinner was an experience in itself. The intricate preparation of the tray, the service was spectacular. This facet of Japan is not something, you'd see in the Tokyos of Japan.
The gas heater ran out with a "No Ventilation" warning and we spent the night under layers of quilts.
The next morning after the ablutions performed, we moved on to Okutama, visited and got lost and found our way out of Nippara Caves, went to the Okutamako, where our enthusiasm started dipping in the biting cold, cracked fingertips , chapped lips , the deal.

After asking the sterotype humble, helpful guide at the Visitor Center(She actually came out to the street to show us where to catch the bus to the Floating bridge :)

Once she was inside, we took the bus back to Okutama station and out to Shinjuku.

We grabbed grub at the Indian Restaurant and we chugged back home to conk out at 1100.

All in all, a weekend well-spent.
This weekend, plan to chill Sat out in Hig, Tomorrow...could venture into Tokyo.
Got a room to clean up.

Ciao
Cheers

Nooounununungie..Nooounununungie!!!!

2007-02-22T16:09:00.000+05:30

Sometimes I wonder, what's the easiest route to take if I wanna become filthy rich inspite of my meagre talents. ..
Lets see...
My vocal talents are positively an encouragement to the likes of Britney and her ilk, besides,my breasts are real.
I could try to be a politician, but George Bush has set such impossibly high standards of stupidity, that I've got to dumb my IQ down to the level of a flea high on cocaine to be any good.
I could try being a actor, but last I heard, Bollywood's gotten queer...Earlier the women had to sleep with the directors for the plum roles, but now I hear actors gotta do the same<..Shudder..>

But I do figure I can get into this business of selp-help books. Seems to be a lucrative business if you are a unethical, egoistic and kleptomaniac bag of cheap tricks who can lie through his/her dentures*.
*Dentures- To accentuate the fact that everything is phony about the bag of cheap tricks under consideration.

Now now now ..Thats not too difficult a criteria to match eh! A couple of years in the corporate business and.. well.. you meet most of the above criteria without even knowing that you qualify.
Ye ye ye ..Dont go all sanctimonious on me and say, "I aint like thaaaat" .... Your kids probably went hungry because you left the kitchen knife in my back.

My favorite bunnies are the ones who prophesise that going through their pearls of wisdom probably penned
a)In the office loo on the toilet paper
b)In the office loo on the used toilet paper
will get you out of your misery, get you the bumping Bill Gates outta the Top Salubrious Pricks list, get you humping outta your miserable sex life und so wieter.

Seriously theres a awful lot of money being made outta this hugely miserable,"I need to read a book to be happy, Here's my money" lot.

So here's my free Instant Feel Good Advice to make your existence a little surreal.

1)Tickle-yer-Palate:
This works particularly well if you are stuck in a a corporate meeting where you are expected to keep your mouth shut and let the Niagara of wisdom flow forth from those higher than you in the pecking order..You can be the happiest person in there by using the Tickle-yer-palate routine.
Limber your tongue, curl it up backwards and start tickling your upper palate...Tickle with a vigor to get a soothing itch started at the back of your palate, but not too much so that you dont end up with a paralysed tongue after the callisthenics. You'd be the happiest cheapo* in the room.
*You got all this for free you sucker.
Tip: Remember to keep your mouth shut for the entire exercise. You dont want to look like a cross between an orangutan and Arnold Schwarzenegger while you are at it .

2)Say-Noounununununuugie-Noounununununuugie
This one is even better. Works great to soothe those frayed nerves after a hard days work in office..
All you need is to relax, take a deep breath and slowly say ....Noounununununuugie-Noounununununuugie slowly...real slowly. Here's the catch, you gotta use your nose for this, not your mouth(remmebr your mouth will be a bit sore after excercise 1!!!)
Feel that vibration from the "ununununununun" oscillate every one of those unsightly nasal hairs which you braid up before sleeping.
Keep doing it until your eyes start watering with pleasure.
Tip: You can substitute the "Noo" and "gie" with whatever you are comfortable with. This one is used by my nieghbour of Chinese-Malayali ancestry whose fav song is Limp Bizkit's Nookie.

You can find this and more in my forthcoming book ....
"Happiness for Dummies!"

Reviews by people who found happiness and more....
I feel a strange feeling of unbounded joy, like I was heading straight to heaven after I read this bo...
-Anna Nicole Smith

I was sad enough to attack Iran, but reading this has made me so much happier. I will Nooununugie with the Shah* to solve the world's problems.
-George.W.Bush.
*All those politically knowledgeable pricks who are snickering ..The Shah was deposed ages ago.. You are forgetting , this is George.W.Bush.

Grab a copy now!!!!!

www.el.com to my new Home.

2007-02-21T18:47:00.000+05:30

Holla u jobless peepuls!

If you are reading this blog entry, you've got too much time on your hands and your life stinks of boredom..Go play in traffic!

Ok...For those of you who actually played in traffic and got back to reading this ..You belong in the friggin White House! Go for it !! Election just around the corner.

This is my first real blog entry on Blogger. The ones earlier to this have been painfuly migrated from my old Yahoo blog, but its worth the effort...not much of a literary legacy but I've been told that the stuff is readable..

Have'nt really let my literary talent rip through blogosphere in the recent past, but have been way too busy since the last big entry in September 2006.

To cut the long story short....
I've got outta the hospital, hiked 25 kms in two days which included climbing Thadiyendamol in Coorg, finished my exams, took a flight to Kuala Lumpur..set a world record for most number of telephone cards used up in 48 hours....Hiked in a rainforest in the center of the city, slept in a park outside the Petronas ..Took a flight to Tokyo and been here since...

I stay in Higashimatsuyama(means "This place is a dead town outside Tokyo")..bout an hour from Tokyo by train and have been relying on my fat reserves to drag me through what remains of the winter, which thankfully has been mercifully the warmest in the last century.. Global warming saves the day!!

Since I've been here..6th Nov 2006, I've done a fair bit of travelling ....Autumn colors in Nikko and Nagatoro ...Spent the New Year on a train to Kyoto... Spent a week soloing across Kansai with a backpack. Did the Kyoto,Nara, Hiroshima, Miyajima scene....
Restaurant hoppin in Tokyo is my new found past time..the drive for the same being primarily stoked by my rudimentary culinary skills...

Although I've travelled to places I havent been to before on a geographical dimension , I've plumbed emotional depths that did not know existed, rollercoastered across the diaspora of mental imagery conjured by a confused(still so goddamn confused) psyche..Teteering on the thin line between hope and denial...But as the cliche goes.... Life goes on........

So Kiss my A** if you were thinking ..That really was'nt a good attempt at cutting a long story short...Take your issues off my blaahg! :P

And oh! ....I actually watched Clapton play live(Beat that !!you suckers !!) and seen Martina Hingis cream Ana Ivanovic in the Tokyo Gymnasium(at a game of tennis for those with kinky imaginations). I had blogged about Clapton long ago, and listed his concert as a top 100 things-to-do thingy....So theres just 99 more of those thingys to go....
Also just FYI, he's called Slowhand because, he used to play the guitar so damn passionately, that he used to end up breaking strings on stage and while the crowd waited for him to restring em, they used to clap in a slow rhythm...Hence the name Slowhand!

Ciao peepuls.
I promise to be back with more.

Puppets Galore

2007-01-22T23:55:00.000+05:30

What are men,
but puppets on a string

Contemplations, every now and then,
Dya hear the hollow ring.

Hours go by, days fly by,
Lost in asking, who am I

A conjured image, a stifled sigh.
Chagrined delusions, a yellow lie.

Do I dare visit my spring ,
In the autumn of my life.

What memories that shalt bring,
How bad could be the strife?

Lost in the whirpools, sands of time,
Innocence lost, a vocal mime.

Just puppets on a string,
That stone in the sling,
By my fingertips... I barely cling ...

The Joys of Sadness

2006-10-20T23:47:00.000+05:30

Saturday October 21, 2006 - 07:48pm (IST)

A heart not bared,
For he not dared.

For all he cared,
A hope not shared.

Betwixt hope and fear,
He hoped for his vision to clear.

He then saw the Princess dear,
So far, yet so near.

Faltering words, his thoughts askew,
He decided , a man anew.

He told her , and the next moment he knew,
The sad twinkle in his eyes was not morning dew.

A moment captured,
He enraptured.

With trepidation he ventured,
Pearls and Crystals, albeit a heart shattered.

The hope still lives,
Despite the many webs she weaves.

With memories of the sparkle of her mirth,
He hoped for a miracle.......or a rebirth.

The Hospital Diaries

2006-09-21T23:42:00.000+05:30

Friday September 22, 2006 - 01:23pm (IST)

As the title suggests there are certain events that culminated in my spending some time in the precincts of a hospital. What started as a sharp ache in the lower right abdomen on a quiet Sunday morning turned out to be a 4mm*3mm calculi in the right ureter.

Repeated attempts to flush out the same using Hydrotherapy(a glorified medical term for inundating my body with water , intravenous and oral) failed to budge the stone and hence the had to take the other surgery option, the gory details of which we will leave aside for a personal tête-à-tête over dinner sometime .

All in all I spent 72 hours (as my hefty hospital bill puts it) in the confines of room 113B in Sagar Apollo Hospital, Jayanagar Extn. Although confined to the bed and the bathroom(side effects of Hydrotherapy) for the entire duration, did manage to finally complete the biography of Che Guevara. I was never a big fan of the Marxist-Leninist types. After seeing the failed experiments of the Russkies and the horrors of the past Chinese Regimes and the rants of our own desi communists. Communism was something that I had relegated to the same dustbin as fascism.

Reading about Guevara however has given me a new insight into the whole concept. I must confess that I have the least ideas about the works of Marx, Engels or Trotsky. Lenin, Stalin and Mao are among the few people I have read about and all of them have been fairly or unfairly demonized by the multitude of the Western Authors whom I've been reading. I must though, intuitively agree with a friend of mine who stated that Communism that is practiced is far too removed from the theoretical roots espoused by the founding fathers of the school of thought.

What clearly separated Che from the plethora of the political and social figures from the Communist school of thought is the clarity and purity of his vision and thought.

While the so called "proletariat" of the communist leadership spent their holidays in dachas around Black Sea, Che spent his, doing voluntary labor in the grain silos and the port.

Probably the only accusation we can level at him is one of Extreme Idealism. His concept for New Socialist Man who would conquer his innate materialistic needs for the greater good of society, a utopian view of a classless society, is patently against the grain of the mentality of humankind. But then if one cannot crystallize his views into the purest form, he would be another homo-sapien, like most of us, who spend our lives clothed in a cloak of falsehood and go to the grave with a shroud of bigotry and leaving a legacy of profound nothingness.

Frankly how many of us will be remembered beyond our grand-children's generation and they too are bound to us by filial ties????????...

Che was in all probability , by far, in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre,” The most complete human being of our times".

Overall, although my views about communism as an ideology are a lot clearer, I still would not espouse it as a way ahead for the world.

Book: Che Guevara - A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson

Judgement : Good Read. Very Insightful. Che Rocks ..Che is relevant ...

Other than these, I've completed a few other books of f late:
Humour:

Merde Actually - Stephen Clarke -Excellent Read

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction- Sue Townsend -Read it if you get the book for free.

What would Wally Do? - Scott Adams. - Evergreen

Biographies:

Genius- Richard Feynman, James Gleick.

Physics:
In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat - Gribbin ..Neatly written

Novels:
The Runner - Christopher Reich. Good Pace, but the end is a bit anti climactic.

In the pipeline are biographies of Eisenhower, Einstein, Paul McCartney.. Marcel Proust's Sodom and Gomorrah and a helluva lot more .

Raring to go to the office on Monday after a week long forced vacation. Wanna start working and erase the sordid memories of the white walls, the sterile environment of the hospital, the drip-drip-drip of the Intravenous Saline Solution, the blue-checked hospital uniform and all things related outta my system.

Ciao.

@Pic : Alberto Korda, 1960

Random Thoughts II

2006-07-10T23:23:00.000+05:30

Tuesday July 11, 2006 - 01:15am (IST)

Was initially planning to complete my travelogue, but honestly speaking, I don’t think I can pen down stuff doing justice to the places I've been to with my prose ...and also I am feeling fuzzily lazy...The kind of nice lazy feeling you get when you sit on a real comfy couch on a cloudy breezy Bangalore evening, sipping hot chocolate..the aroma of imminent rain showers wafting in the air. ..Goose pimples pricking up in that sudden burst of chill air..Seriously off late Bangalore's been enjoying an absolutely beautiful stretch of weather.

.. But to get on with unfinished business of the travelogue, Darjiling is a neat place to visit..A idyllic place for that long walk you wanted to take in a shroud of mist, for the brook you wanted to sit by reading your Classics.. But my vote to the best destination in this tour goes to Gangtok ... Sikkim will certainly go down in my books in the must visit again list . It easily takes the second spot in my list of favorite cities in India... Shimla with all the conifers and the Raj style grandiose classics still retains it's Numero Uno position.

Football-

The curtain finally falls on what is alleged to be the "Greatest Show on Earth"(a much parodied cliché.. They use it for everything, from the Oscars to the Khandivili Residents Association Sports Day)…The FIFA World Cup

One thing that's gonna stay with me is the Zidane head-butt.

Arguably the greatest player of his generation going out the way he did, not being allowed on the podium to take his hard earned medal...Real sad.. I am no big soccer fan, but I respect individual achievements of this magnitude...To inspire a nation takes some stuff... Dude had dat .. Have been hearing all kinda reasons ranging from Materazzi fondled his breasts.. to ..he called his Momma names ..for his action.... We'll never know what the truth is..

My Reading-

Just finished Jim Morrisons biography by Stephen Davis ,an extremely well researched and well presented specimen. Did give me a new perspective into the 1970's music scene in Europe and America...Also am growing to like The Doors' music a lot more now.

After that, finished another of Scott Adams’ work of Art ..The Dilbert Future.

The last chapter, is actually a serious discussion on Perception and a whole lot of stuff ..Parallel universe et al...

But there's one point that truly piqued my interest.....

Not more than a few centuries ago, everyone believed the Earth was flat and the Sun actually revolved around the Earth.. A perception, which needed the talent and the willpower of enlightened souls like Copernicus, Galileo and Columbus to break ..

Each generation of Homo Sapiens goes on with Life thinking they have discovered all there is to be discovered..And here I am not talking about Rocket Science, I am talking about the basic elemental beliefs which we take for granted ... a la, the Earth is flat...

But rest assured, a few centuries from now, our generation will certainly looked upon as a mass of ignoratti, with a few geniuses, who got us out of the dark ages..

The next Dilbert Book, I've started off with is The Way of The Weasel .. Promises much already, a couple of chapters into the book.

My Music:

Currently hooked on to the fabulous duo of Simon and Garfunkel. Their music grows on you, like it's nobody's business ...The sheer tapestry of poetry, emotions, elegance and mellifluous melancholy takes all the poison outta my system, gets me loose, makes life seem a lot more nicer inspite of all the inevitable not-so-nice stuff happening

That’s it for the day, another typical one in the life of the software techie.

Until the next post ..

Auf Widersehn

Of "Fallen" Angels on the Ramp and The Jobless Neta Camp...

2006-04-23T22:40:00.000+05:30

Monday April 24, 2006 - 10:01pm (IST)

@Carol Gracias and Gauhar Khan and All that Jazz in the India Fashion Week

If you are expecting me to give you my opinion on how I find Gauhar Khan's derriere, then you are at the wrong web page.

My reason for interest in this affair happens to be because a lot of my money is getting wasted , cos a couple of models had a bad day on the ramp..

It's understandable if an adolescent gets all excited over this and zips out a million e-mails to his pals with the links to the aforementioned fiascos, both of which were caught on camera..

It's understandable if you decide to use this as an after dinner conversation topic to keep the mood light or delve into the changes that happened in the Indian Fashion Scene, or bloody discuss how much you liked the full frontal view of the very topless Carol Gracias ..

We live in a democracy and each is entitled to his/her opinion..

But what I frigging dont understand is :

Why is the honest, hardworking taxpayers money being spent in discussing this issue in the Legislature????

Dont we have some real problems already.. Bad roads, Power Cuts, Female Infanticide, malnutrition ..the list goes on....??????

But no our politicos want to get to the bottom(er...pun unintended) of this affair and find the real culprit ...So we have the great Indian Public Enquiry ...spend spend spend the taxpayers money, chop up half the trees in the world for the reams of paper which are used to pen the expert opinions, witness accounts ,umpteen testimonials blah blah ..

Duh!! Buttons go kaput, zippers can be defective or the butt could be too big..Who gives a damn..

Why do we have to get into a place where we are trying to solve problems that are not there and along the way create problems which wouldn't have been there if the concerned specimens' parents had used some form of family planning!!!!!!!

My next grouse is against the armchair cultural activists, Bachao Bharatiya Sanskriti Brigade and the vitriolic Indian Nari ki Izzat Ka Kya Hoga types...

Indian Culture is resilient and ancient and steeped in a greatness that transcends every imaginable adjective for its description.

Whoever thinks that a event like this will somehow tarnish "Indian Culture" ..Phhooi..You dont understand either of the words. If you really wanna belt someone, try the blokes who scrawl Rahul Loves Ramkali on the walls of the umpteen ambassadors of our culture ..Our historical monuments..I'll join in with all my heart.

As for Nari Izzat Raksha brigade, please try doing something about the foeticide, the bride burnings, the rapes... Once we have a solution to the above problems, we could discuss the wardrobe malfunctions over high tea...

As for the fashion designers who actually came up with those outfits ...

A Stitch in Time saves Nine...

Anyway, waiting with bated breath for the Enquiry Report .... which will probably(hopefully) be ready in 202o ...

@Pic by Ashok Dongre

Ravings of a Lone Ranger

2006-04-17T22:37:00.000+05:30

Tuesday April 18, 2006 - 07:22am (IST)

There are some things that I am asked on a irritatingly regular basis ..Other than "How the hell did you end up like a stud you are??" (Ok..Ok..I know this is worse than the worst fiction you've read ).., the most frequent question I am asked is ..

"Hey Man, You stay ALONE in Bangalore?? Isn’t that boring..How do you kill time?"

Initially, that was about 3 years ago, when I was first asked this question by everyone from my grandmother, to the neighbours doodwaala..I had a standard answer..Pretty imaginative for my wit.. "The place is pretty close to my office, the bus stand is next to my house gate ....and I like the view of the smoke and the pollution from the terrace .."

Let me give you of a run down of the place I currently live in..

Its' small ..Period ...

It's a 12ft-by-15ft affair.. Pretty difficult to grandiosely be expressive with your body language without knocking something over...

On one end of the room is a almirah,..Thats my favorite piece of furniture, cos it admirably performs the task of storing all my smelly used clothes, when my Mom happens to be in town...

Next to that is a clothes stand which I purchased from a shop in Koramangala.. Boy did I bargain for that , he quoted 475 Rs and I shamelessly argued with him for half an hour to take it home after paying him a grand sum of 445 Rs..A couple of minutes more, he would have given it to me for free...

In the corner opposite to that of the almirah is my study table.. I have done every thing else but study here... Ok Ok dont get any wrong ideas!!! ...The table is really too small to be of any use for anything substantially kinky . On that I keep my Laptop along with my comp speakers..

On the adjacent corner is a dustbin, the funky types whose lid opens with a foot pedal ...This is the least used contraption in the room.. It's difficult to put something in a area of 200sq cm when you have an entire (180sq ft - 200 sq cm) of area to throw your garbage in...

Next to that is my carpenters interpretation of a book shelf.... he either lacked imagination or was the abstract painter equivalent in the field of carpentry .. It totally has 5 planks nailed together, and looks like a complex problem from 1st Semester Engineering Strength of Materials...

In the final corner, right at the entrance to my bathroom is a Bean Bag which I bought from Big Bazaar.. I've sat on it for a total of 5 hours just to convince myself that I hadnt wasted all that money to buy this crap..It is too small to be of any use, but too big in the context of space utilization in my room ..

And right in the middle of all this is my bed... This is where I spend 99% of my time in my room (the other 1% in the loo).. It's warm, it's cosy and the only thing that is close to the classical definitions of neat and clean in my room.. The remaining area between the walls and the bed, is for my books and an assortment of paraphernalia like my laptop bag, my office bag etc etc..

At this very moment I can see a couple of editions of Outlook Money on the left of my bed, The Code Book by Simon Singh, Scientific Progress goes "Boink" from the venerable Bill Watterson ..on the right ..a couple from the of Tintin series, the IIT write-up Five Point Something, and my newest aquisition "Hitch-hikers guide to the Galaxy"

I have 6 pairs of footwear including the ubiquitous and absolutely essential Blue Paragon Hawaii chappals ..each apart from it's twin in different areas of the room ...

I will not go into details of the state of my bathroom... You will be glad for this magnanimous gesture...

That ladies and gentleman is my room ..the perfect bachelor pad.. my piece of some quiet real-estate in this mad world.

I generally come back home at about 1930 in the evening, after a quiet dinner in one of the restaurants that I regularly haunt... or a sandwich from the neighborhood joint..

(PS: I am not paid enough to be lounging in the cocktail bars with scantily clad women with loose morals.. How I hope though!!!..... )

When I come back home, after a hard days work ..(Believe me ..I work hard!!) .. I need the space and the time to contemplate the events of the day and to get the big picture of how I make a difference to the people I've met, to myself , the work I've done, the works......

This is my way of unwinding. I like having conversations with my alter-egos....The whole bunch of em'... It keeps me honest, It gives me direction .. I like staring the ceiling fan go round and round with the light reflecting from the lamp post being converted to myriad patterns by the fluttering curtain ..

There are times when I crave for company but more times that I crave for solitude..

Getting to know what you want and what you are is in my opinion a more intellectually challenging job than writing code to send a rocket to another planet, which we cant wait to pollute...

So peepuls out there who still question the wisdom of staying ALONE.. hope you get the point.

5 Reasons why you should stay alone :

1)I don’t have to explain to my roomie how miserable my day and live through the whole thing once again.. and worse end up depressing him too..

2)I can dig my nose and scratch my ass at the same time , and still be the sophisticated prick in high society.

3)I can play Age of Empires butt naked (Ok..I really don’t do that, but figured it's kinda nice to have this kind of freedom.)

4)I can have my bath with the door wide open so that I can better hear Clapton above the din of the water pattering on the floor.. My singing has my neighbours grossed out , but heh I Like it baby!!! ...

5) Man to be really honest, it's great to be this way..The master of your den ..The abandoner of used underwear in the center of the room ..

So on that note, I rest my case ...

I guess a helluva lot of people will have a helluva lot of definitions and interpretations of this whole issue of solitude and the whole gamut of associated complexities of the solitary mind....

Feel free to leave your comment ...

Feni, Vidi, Vici

2006-04-12T22:31:00.000+05:30

Thursday April 13, 2006 - 08:28pm (IST)

Holla Folks,

Myself Bhatta, Goa Returned

....Been about 4 days since I have come back to Bangalore and am having some serious difficulties in controllin my urge to take my pants off and jump into the first available water body

Decided to put the entire trip down for Eternity in this blog entry..Non MITians may find some bits of it cryptic, but there's enough and more in it for everybody ...

Cast :

Aneesh D'Souza aka GS aka Robot aka The Driver

Jayarama Ubaradka aka Jai aka The Barber

LingaPrasad aka Landu aka MLA

Sandeep aka Bhatta

Best Supporting Role:

Basanti. GS's Hyundai Accent, which held it's own for the trip, protectin us from the Konkan heat, never complainin once ..OK.. Jus once, when it needed a blowjob(sic) ..details below.

Day 0 : April 5th, 2006

Scene 1- Jai books a ticket to Manipal in the 10 PM bus and tells Landu that the bus leaves at 9:45 , Duh..Just to be on the safer side. Landu calls me up and tells me the bus leaves at 9:30 ..DUUUUHHHH...JUST TO BE ON THE SAFER SIDE ..

And that left me the friggin bakra leaving office in Koramangala at 8:30 PM..Runnin home to pack my bags ....Runnin from there to LandMark to pick up the maps and Guides and then rush to Jayanagar, with a heavy laundry bag, which I intended get washed at home..

After reaching Jaynagar at 9:25 and after a round of high-5s and congratulations with my alter-ego on havin made it in time.....

Surprise , I am the only sucker waitin for a bus that was gonna be leavin a good 30 min later ..

PPPPpppppsssssssssssssSSSSSSSS.. Pressure Cooker lettin out some serious stream !!!

Scene 2: Landu yakkin away with his Galfriends for the rest of the nite

And dat was the start of a cracker jack trippy trip ...

Day1:April 6th, 2006

Scene1: GS arrives at my place at 9:00 in with his shiny baby ..Ladies and Gentleman ..Presenting to you the vehicle which in Binaisha's words , " GS drives it like a horse ". ..The Hyundai Accent Viva, Color Black.

For more specifications pls refer

Hyundai Accent Viva Tech Specs.

We do a serious demolition job on a set of delightful Masala Dosas my mom conjured up and go down to MIT.

With the aroma of the Paan masala to guide us, we enter TGSCs cubicle.. After an entertaining 5 min we take leave to meet Landus Prozect Guide ..Da peeing Tom KPN

..poor man's really findin it difficult after the recent mandate that PPT presentations are mandatory ..Cant figure out how to peep into em!!

..After a dreary conversation, which was interjected ,by a gal poppin in to check her sessional marks, being asked in typical KPN style to "Come tomaarrow!!" , we took leave.

With the customary despo round to the Juice Center which was ..as usual ..friggin crowded with peepuls sipping Kamath's "Laime juice".. we got back to my place to change into somethin appropriate..something Goan....

Scene2:With my Camera and Tripod in the boot along with the rest of our baggage, mostly filled with an assortment of beach trunks(like the one I wear in the above pic.) and helluva lot of spare undies and after being told by mom for the 14,456^thtime to make sure GS doesn’t drive faster than 60 kmph and not to get into the water if it is too rough , we roll outta Udupi at 11:oo AM.

We soon reach Bramhavar with GS's alternate rock playin in the background... We decide to change the Tempo..CD Change ..Rang De Basanti ...Paathshala playin we get into da mood...

First Stop Murudeshwar : After a few snaps of the vista and the Shiva Idol, we continue on the NH17 ..

An hour later ..we stop for a break after I started to hallucinate commodes all over the car ..After a customary snap of peepuls takin a leak, we move on to the next stop ..

A Kamath Restaurant, where we had Pulao (more due to lack of choice..than by design).

After lunch and stoppin at various points to take snaps esp. the Naval Base at Karwar, the pics of which will not be put up in the best interests of National Security ,we are totally into the holiday mood...

Scene 3:At about 4:30 in the evening, we reach the Goa Border and after the License Check , we get into Goa, but not before a seriously funny altercation with the guy manning the checkpost. Bloke was totally paranoid about us taking snaps of the First Steps into Goa.. Crazy Chap.."Gate ka Photo nahin lene ka" ..wuts his problem ????

..but anyway GS managed a hilarious "clandestine" pic of the whole jhamela.. Complete with me flumoxxed and arguing with the guy in my Blue swimming trunks

We reached our first destination Palolem Beach an hour later at 5:40 ..a scenic and a quiet beach in South Goa...

What strikes you about Palolem other than the great scenery is the ambience..it's a completely laid-back beach..off the beaten track of the regular tourist...We quickly get back to the car ..Haggle with a guest house owner for a couple of rooms in the mysteriously named Maria Guest House , not exactly your picture of a luxurious retreat, but who gave a damn..Dump our baggage.. strip down to the bare essentials and drive to the beach... We watch the sunset from the water .. After dryin out and goin back to the room for a bath, we get back to beach at 7:30 PM..

After an hour of leavin each other to ourselves , we decide to hop into Havana's on the beach front.. Reason for the choice: Great music and ambience.. After a dinner sponsored by me, which included some pretty good food and a couple 90ml Smirnoffs,GS and the rest stickin to Bacardi..

we get back to our rooms at bout 12:30AM and promptly conk off.. ofcourse after leavin out our wet undies and the towels to dry out under a fan ...which incidentally would probably have turned faster if Jai and me had taken turns to turn it around durin the course of the night

We have exhausted 4 of GS's CDs ...Rasmus being the best of the lot..

Day 2: April7, 2006

Scene 1:We get up at 6:30 AM and figure that none of us have packed in Toothpaste !!!!.

A frantic effort by me and Jai to find a shop at 7:30 AM ended up with both of us reachin the beach ..and we took some snaps in all and sundry poses...

Wut the hell ..A little bit of halitosis never killed anybody .We came to Goa to have "stinkin" loads of fun ..not to find a bride..So we move on...

Goa Rule 1: Thy shalt not expect a Goan to open a shop at unearthly hours like 9 in the morning. Jerks like you and me keep him awake for most the night, so if you are up and running at 9 AM , Get a Life Loser ..Go to Bed .

We scoot from the Maria Guest House(never figured out who Maria was.), at bout 8:00 in the morning and head towards the first destination..Cabo De Rama, a Portuguese Fort. After a detour off the highway and driving for about an hour, we reach the place ..A short climb up to the ramparts.. We are the only souls around, other than a few our simian counterparts, who were not exactly amused with a bunch of Homo Sapiens barging into their adda.. 15 min and 30 snaps later (digital camera..whose father, what goes), we hop in to the car, for a long drive to Madgaon.

Breakfast at Longuinhos, an old 1950s establishment, with a 1950's decor and a 1940's waiter. What was planned to be a dunk and scoot turned out to be a elaborate ritual, with us having to repeat every order twice to the the gentleman taking ours orders and we spending a good part of an hour in there...

Goa Rule 2:Thou shalt not expect your waiter to buzz around you ensuring that your orders are taken in real-time with hard deadline expectations. You are a friggin tourist come here to have a good time and relax. Hurrying things up screws up the fundamental agenda of your being in Goa..

Scene 2: We buy a few apples in Madgaon and drive down to Vasco to meet my Uncle and Aunt, who've stayed here rite from 1966.. the time the hippies actually invaded Goa.

We spent 1 hour there , a better part of it spent laughing at my Uncles incredible sense of humor ..And with me joinin into the fray along with my aunt, we had a veritable Rivers of Babble-On flowing ...

We then push forth to the Mormugao port, only to be told by the watchman.."Kya dekhne ka hai, idhar kuch nahin hain" ....So taking his advice, we leave the port go to Old Goa.

A couple of interesting churches including the Bom Jesus Basilica and another 30 snaps later, we go to Panjim ..Have lunch at Shiv Sagars. The lunch does not merit any further blog space

After a couple more of GS's Alternate Rock CD's since Day 1.. Landu was at the breaking point and decided to take things into his own hands and went into the first available CD shop to buy a copy of the latest Bollywood Hits Remixed... The main protagonist of the collection being the inimitible Himesh Reshammiya..Yea Yea , the same guy who sings from all the wrong orifices...2 songs into the CD , we managed to "convince" Landu, that we'd be better off with me singing and changed back to Rock Love Ballads.

After Lunch , we went to Dona Paula. Mom's Trivia: Ek Duje Ke Liye was shot here...So after we were left figuring, why in the world would the director come here with another few zillion squares miles of sylvan settings in Goa going abegging ..and Landu still fuming about his worthless investment, we move on to Calangute

Scene 3: Reaching Calangute, at about 4:30, we check into our second refuge for the trip, a pretty decent joint with full phirangs in swimming pool and all , Senhor Angelo.

After negotiating a deal for xtra bed yada yada in same room, we go down to the beach only to be greeted by a huge swathe of humanity in all its colors of diversity ..the crowd is an eclectic bunch of desis and phirangs in an assortment of bathing gear..rite from the ubiquitous VIP underwear, to ladies in full head to toe burkha frolickin in the waters... Since we had already stripped down to our chuddies(GS and Jai purchased them at Palolem), we joined in ..

After trying to pretend to be enjoying the surf, we get out to find out clothes and footwear all soggy wet.. The culprit..Landu. he was supposed to be doing the looking after job, but somehow managed to slink away.We still dont know where he disappeared to.

Had it not been for a couple cootchie cooing next to the spot where we left our gear, rescuing it , we'd have lost it to the Arabian Sea...

An hour long walk towards the less crowded area of Calangute and a beautiful sunset later, we get back to our room to shower and freshen up for the nite...

We leave Calangute towards Bagga reachin there at around 9 PM... Figured all the best places open only at 11:30 , so decided to go to Anjuna. After a few minutes of watching the surf crash into the rocks below, we head back to Bagga for dinner in one of the beach shacks.. After encountering many pushy dicks asking us to come to their hotels, we settle in one of the places, playin some decent music... Dont go to Bagga if you are looking for Solitude..

We decide to go to Tito's after a less than satisfactory dinner.

The entry free..An astronomical 800 bucks.. Show the middle finger to the big bouncer(of course ...when his back was turned ) and decided to head for CoffeeDay, which decided to down it's shutters the moment we arrived at it's doorstep..

Full frustru, we got back to our hotel, only to find the bar closed..

Wut the %^&*, the whole universe is conspiring against us.. At 12 AM, we decide to go down to a very deserted Calangute Beach and check if there's any decent nightlife ...

Our luck changes for the better. We see a place with all its lights still on, with a string of Indian marriage lights also thrown in...

This is indeed a decent joint... there's one awfully pretty Indian gal and about 5 phirangs on our side of the place, and a handful of locals havin a ball on the other side. Excellent ambience and music , full melancholy ..A dead dolphin turns up on the beach to create a brief flutter, but everybody soon settles down..

Jai and GS order a couple of tequilas...Me being the most sophisticated of the lot decided to go for a White Wine .A glass of that later, have a Smirnoff on the rocks(balls to sophistication!!) ..And after GS in a magnanimous(or drunk ..not sure which) gesture announced that he would foot the bill, ordered another Smirnoff on the rocks... The live music was excellent. The singer was simply too good..Layla, Tears In Heaven, the works... After the lastest song..that being Hey Jude from the Beatles, we stagger into our beds, only for me to be in the mood to purge a lot of stuff from my insides, and so the Rivers of Babble-on flowed again for a good part of an hour, until GS, cut me off and prevented any more scams from being exposed.. (GS..I owe u one for dat)

Curtains on an eventful day 2.

Day 3:April 8th,2006

Scene1:We wake up at 7 and after the ablutions are performed, check out of Senhor Angelo(didnt meet him either !! ).

Our first stop for the day...The Chapora Fort..The one where our protagonists from DCH philosophise about life and it's uncertainties... The view from up there is zimbly phenomenal ... And at a few places vertigo inducing... The view is better than anything I'd seen even in Phuket .. We spent another hour, scaling the ramparts and taking scores of snaps. Best part is once again that we were the only junta for the entire time we were there.

Too cool.

Next stop Vagator. We drive down from Chapora to Vagator and stop along the way at a breakfast joint.

The waiter was still in his night dress and still brushing his teeth, when we crashed into his place at that unearthly hour(once again 9AM)!!

After a nondescript "English" breakfast punctuated with us trying to multiplex eating and leching at a Spanish hippy,"Iwear a bikini to office types" senorita yakking on the phone..... and footing a hefty bill , we left for Vagator..

Scene2:Vagator, which we managed to reach with a little help from the locals(not before GS confusing them thoroughly askin em for Wegeter .a highly angliscised and GS'd version of the local Vaagathur ).

This wins the Best Beach for Photography Award pants down...

It's got everything a classic beach should have and at the time we arrived did not have what almost every classsic beach has ...Crowds.

After shoppin for a few trinkets and souvenirs and another round of shutterbugging.. Off we went to Morijim... towards the north..

White sands, smooth beach, gentle surf, genteel crowd.. Off the beaten path. This would be the beach I would certainly come to again... The only sound around is that of the seagulls chirping and waves gently kissing the shore.. Bliss!!!!

Tempting as it was to get into the sea, we refrained in order to prevent GS's car from turning into an olfactory challenge..

Next stop Aarambol Beach, but somehow managed to reach Harmal Beach ..With Landu preferring the cool confines of the Car to the heat of the beach(byatch was worried about his complextion ..wut with haat date and all scheduled for Sun in Manipal ),

Jai, GS and me venture into the beach. Another beach with lots of space and couple of phirangs frolicking topless in the waters... Must be European I guess..

After photgraphin a couple of buggers kite-surfin and walkin the length of the beach, we come back to find Landu under a tree.. courtesy the Green House Effect..

This done, we scoot of Fort Aguada and Sinquierim Beach and ..surprise..we take a few more snaps there .

We drive down straight to Madgaon..and on the way realise that the car's tyres need some filling..After a veritable nitemare, getting the blow job () done , we go to Woodlands, to find it closed for renovation, then settle for a wayside restaurant peddling some seriously pededstrian stuff..

After eating what was passing off as a real bad excuse for Dahi Sev Poori, we hopped in for the long haul back to Palolem..

Scene3:We arrive at Palolem at 5 in the evening after over shooting the junction by 200 metres , me saving the day, by screamin "Palolem!!Palolem" .GS pls give the gory details later.. and dont forget to add the "Wut if I had gone ahead and the Board wasnt there!!!!" bit...

Deciding to give a wide berth to the idea of staying on in Maria Cottage again, we check out a lodge closer to the beach, and once again haggle,haggle,haggle to get a couple of rooms ..with full TV and all ..

Change into my now famous blue chuddies and scoot to the waterfront... The water was surprisingly cold, but great fun...a wee bit choppy... Me almost losing my boxers and my specs when a big wave came along..

After dryin out in the cool breeze..we get back to the lodge, dress up and get back to our hangout ..Havana's ...the waiter is more than happy to see us after the generous tip we left a couple of nights ago .

After ordering starters.. and a glass of Wine to start with , decided to up ante ..A glass of my most favorite Russian export(Maria Sharapova..a distant second )...Smirnoff On the Rocks..Top it all up with a couple of Margaritas and you have an incredibly ding-dong bell.. With the rest of the guys sticking to Bacardi, we decided to celebrate Jais's Bday by first asking him to foot the bill and then bumping him(nothin like good ol' MIT days though ) on the beach ..We were the guys celebrating ..not Jai .. After a walk on the beach , more of a stagger and a few minutes of star gazing(Had no choice..was flat on my back ) , we get back to the room to conk out ..

Rock a bye baby ...

Ending Day3 in Real High Spirits ..Well Literally ...

Day 4:April9th, 2006

Scene1: Guess whos the first one up .. No prizes ..Its Landu ..waking the whole friggin town with "Late aithro...". So we get reluctantly get up ..Finish the needful, pay the owner after he comes down to check our rooms .. like we had plans of flickin his TV or something..

So after the last minute check of all our precious possessions, we move to the last leg.

Feature of the Day:Landu is all smiles and laddoo foothings ..he's finally gettin to the main item in the agenda of his West Coast visit ...With all the appointments fixed,he's absolutely raring to go ...

Soon we arrive at the Goa-Karnataka Border.. been 3 glorious days of solitude and togetherness, exploration and introspection.

So with great reluctance we drag our bodies outta Goa..leavin our minds in the myriad colors of the sands of Goa...I know too senti and all ..please excoos ..

We run outta CD's toplay and are now playin RDB for the 10,234th time. Landu is the happiest , we are goin to Manipal and a Hindi Song is playing..

Breakfast is a no brainer at a KamathYatriNivas . ..with a choice between Idli and Dosa and Buns, which we each order in all possible permutations and combinations...The dues paid, we are back on the road ..

After the minor inconvenience of havin to wait for the rest of us finish our breakfast , Landu's smile is gettin bigger .. He's already on the phone to confirm the appointments.

Soon we are at Maravanthe...another stop ..Landu cant figure wuts the point in stoppin to see the most scenic piece of coastal road in India, with the river on one side, and the whole friggin ocean on the other.. We go down to the beach...and SURPRISE ..take some more pics ..

After a good 15 min, we climb back to find a fuming Landu..and we leave Trasi Beach

Scene2:Soon we enter Udupi at 11:30 AM ... After getting fleeced at Varna Photo Studio(fockers charged 200 bucks for writin 4 CDs) and getting our memories imprinted on a Moser Baer, we leave for my place.. Landu promptly runs to the bathroom finishes his bath and dressing in record time.

He leaves for his lunch appointment in a hurry..Leavin the three of us at home ..

After a serious exercise of "Test the Hooke's Constant Of Your Belly", with my Mom force-feeding us some great gha ka khaana, we are too tired to move a muscle..

With great resolve, we decide not to spend the rest of the afternoon dozin off and get our asses to Manipal. An impromptu decision results in the 3 of us goin to Movie Galaxy to catch IceAge-2 (Rating-U ) ..As a bonus, we get to watch another movie unfolding in the seat to our front (Rating-A )..Man when will people learn to find places to try out their latest position !!!

The movies dealt with, we decide to go bowling.. With the bowling alley pretty much to ourselves, we emerge out of it after a couple of games. With the notion that I cannot take it up as a alternative career option , strongly reinforced, we decide we are thirsty.

Next Stop: Coffee Day, a coffee gulped and after meetin GS's Infy friends who'd come down to Manipal, GS drops me and Jai off at my place and goes back to Manipal.

Soon Landu is dropped back to my place in a very familiar vehicle(Hint: A product from the Daewoo stables ) and we start packin up , takin great care to segregate our wet undies from our dry undies.

A quiet dinner ensues, with many things on our minds , like "Duh..Wut would be like to throw it all away and become a hippy in one of those remote beaches?"

8:30 PM..We leave Udupi back to the hustle bustle of Bangalore...

To the same old rigaramole ..Alarm Rings, Set Snooze, Alarm Rings, Set Snooze, Alarm Ring, Set Snooze, Wokey wuts the Alarms friggin problem, take bath, wash undies, go to office, kick some ass or get my ass kicked , come back , chat , go to bed routine..

But heh, life's gotta go on... But have decided to go back every year ..a la DCH..

Stop the clocks,

Turn Back Time,

Go back to the docks,

Sip Vodka and Lime,

Onthe beach,

"Hey check out that peach!"

"Oooo...Thats some ass",

"Thank You, I'll let that pass"

Am I good or wut ..

Ok with that literary classic I will conclude, wut will probably be my longest blog entry.

Some Trippy Trivia:

Joke of the Trip:

Landu:Wut did Aiyanna do with his bike???

Jai : Its displayed in the Kodagu Museum

Physics Funda of the Trip

GS's definition of scalar and vector. Peepuls looking for further enlightenment may please contact him directly

Question of The Trip

Landu:Guys, what time are we leaving for Manipal on Sunday??

Infinitely Repeated Question of the trip

Please refer Section Question of the Trip

Faux Pas of the Trip:

GS keepin a collection of damn good MP3s in a CD under the front seat, only for us to find it 30 km away from Udupi on the way back...

Making Presence felt with their Absence from the Trip

Ice and Haanand JP. Next time make sure you Mary Poppinses get ur asses along.

Scariest moment of the Trip

A big wave comes and knocks me over, my specs goes for a dunk, alongwith my boxers almost gettin ripped off me.. Immediately started sweeping the sea floor on all fours and Voila!! found it after some frantic callisthenics... after that pull up my boxers.. Hell wouldnt have bothered much if the boxers were lost..I can see without em, but losin your specs is a real scary prospect with my eyesight the way it is ..

Political Discussion Of the Trip

Is the desi crowd doing damage to the Image of Goa, by turning up in VIP undies and littering the beaches, with empty bottles of Mineral Water and Ruffles Lays packets????.

Conclusion:VIP undies should not be an issue, style is relative, style is defined by economic parameters ..But if the a focker decides to throw his garbage around the beach ..Give him hell....Loser .. Kick his Ass ..!!

Distance Travelled: 978 KM.

Photos Clicked:275 ..Resolution 4.1 MB.Still waitin for guys with the bitti internet in office to upload em. Put up a few on Orkut.

So long ...until I assault your senses with my next blog entry .

Adieus Amigos.