If you tell me to go jump in the well, I will do it. Somewhere along my way down, I might casually wonder why you asked me to. If I am in a deep mood, I might even get to wondering why I am doing it.
That I am alive and kicking is testimony to the fact that my life is filled with nice people.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Who am I?
Am I a log floating in the river
Flowing where the water flows
Going where the wind blows
Convinced that higher powers are on my side
Content to sit back and enjoy the ride
Knowing but not caring that one day I will end up in the sea?
or
Am I a fighter with an axe
Making my way as I go
Meeting everything that comes with a blow
Getting bruised along the way
Hurt and hurting because that is the game
Knowing but not caring that I my end before the fight does?
Flowing where the water flows
Going where the wind blows
Convinced that higher powers are on my side
Content to sit back and enjoy the ride
Knowing but not caring that one day I will end up in the sea?
or
Am I a fighter with an axe
Making my way as I go
Meeting everything that comes with a blow
Getting bruised along the way
Hurt and hurting because that is the game
Knowing but not caring that I my end before the fight does?
Why
Like there aren't enough already, i come up with yet another basis on which to classify people.
- those who ask why before the act
- those who ask why after the act
- those uncomplicated, carefree souls who do not bother
I, of course, do not bother.
But, having been subjected to several post dated whys recently (Yaaay! I'm at the top of the tree. Now why did want to climb it? Or more interestingly, this is the secret password that will give you access to all my millions. Now why did i tell you that?), i decided to ask myself one. Just to see how the other half, err... third of the world lives.
Why do I write.
Sometimes it is because i want to. (Earth shattering, isn't it?) Some interesting event or idea that i would like to put to words. The words are as important as the idea, if not more. (The beauty of language, that kind of thing) A friend says I end up being a tad artificial. I think he is being polite. But the whole point there is to show off! I may be the only one being impressed, but hey, I count a lot with me.
At other times I write because i have to. The thing just wont stay inside me. Writing it down makes it more real, somehow. Like it has been engraved on stone or something. Also, there is always the hope that someone reads it and it rings a bell. I wont hear the bell, but i like the idea of being connected to invisible people. (Hmm. I thought i had more sense than that.)
Hah! Post dated whys are fun. Provided of course, they affirm what you have already done.
- those who ask why before the act
- those who ask why after the act
- those uncomplicated, carefree souls who do not bother
I, of course, do not bother.
But, having been subjected to several post dated whys recently (Yaaay! I'm at the top of the tree. Now why did want to climb it? Or more interestingly, this is the secret password that will give you access to all my millions. Now why did i tell you that?), i decided to ask myself one. Just to see how the other half, err... third of the world lives.
Why do I write.
Sometimes it is because i want to. (Earth shattering, isn't it?) Some interesting event or idea that i would like to put to words. The words are as important as the idea, if not more. (The beauty of language, that kind of thing) A friend says I end up being a tad artificial. I think he is being polite. But the whole point there is to show off! I may be the only one being impressed, but hey, I count a lot with me.
At other times I write because i have to. The thing just wont stay inside me. Writing it down makes it more real, somehow. Like it has been engraved on stone or something. Also, there is always the hope that someone reads it and it rings a bell. I wont hear the bell, but i like the idea of being connected to invisible people. (Hmm. I thought i had more sense than that.)
Hah! Post dated whys are fun. Provided of course, they affirm what you have already done.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Much ado about nothing
Spoiler - If the whole thing seems like a lot of noise about nothing, it is because that is exactly what it is.
A parent and a grandparent were to leave on a trip to the Motherland, to oversee additions to the family. Partly due to the Great Indian RailwayTamasha, it so happened that the parent had to catch a bus from Pune to Bombay to catch a train, that, left to its own devices, would have anyway made its way to Pune. So, it fell on the kids to deposit the grandparent at Pune Railway Station. At 3 in the night. Since the family car was not yet part of the family, they had to stoop to a rick. And thus started the hunt for the Great Indian Looter. After several atrocious candidates who left them laughing with tears, they stumbled across one who seemed too reasonable to be true. Desperation won over suspicion however, and an exchange of mobile numbers later, the kids were home. The next day being a regular working dayand the kids being, at least in the outside world, responsible working professionals, bed time that day was Calvinistic. (Calvinoian?) She slept to the sound of Karan Thapar droning about a racist calling Shilpa Shetty a Big Brother. He slept. With two mobiles and an old fashioned alarm clock set to signal the end of the world at 2 a.m.
Everything went off at 2 a.m. and they wished the world could have ended instead. They spread the morning cheer by waking up therickshawala . The grandparent of course was all packed and ready to go. There is something about the people of that generation. Sometimes, the seem more alive at 80 than you did at 20. Dressed forAntarctica , they stepped into the surprisingly warm January night. The journey to the railway station passed in relative silence because before they could really get down and dirty aboutrickshawalas, the specimen driving them confessed to being a Tamilain. She could not have been entirely awake during the journey because later she distinctly remembered feeling envious of the sleeping homeless, all tucked in and comfortable on the footpath. The railway station was surprisingly full of life. The train was surprisingly on time. A brief family reunion and the kids were off, with warnings about eating food offered bystrangers and footboard travel. All this work had made her hungry. A midnight snack and a motorcycle ride later, they were back in bed and fast asleep. The world had not ended, after all.
(Nope. No forgotten tickets. No wrong station, no wrong platform, no wrong train, no wrong grandparent... Me and the Indian Railway come together and the world does not end! Almost makes a believer out of me.)
A parent and a grandparent were to leave on a trip to the Motherland, to oversee additions to the family. Partly due to the Great Indian RailwayTamasha, it so happened that the parent had to catch a bus from Pune to Bombay to catch a train, that, left to its own devices, would have anyway made its way to Pune. So, it fell on the kids to deposit the grandparent at Pune Railway Station. At 3 in the night. Since the family car was not yet part of the family, they had to stoop to a rick. And thus started the hunt for the Great Indian Looter. After several atrocious candidates who left them laughing with tears, they stumbled across one who seemed too reasonable to be true. Desperation won over suspicion however, and an exchange of mobile numbers later, the kids were home. The next day being a regular working dayand the kids being, at least in the outside world, responsible working professionals, bed time that day was Calvinistic. (Calvinoian?) She slept to the sound of Karan Thapar droning about a racist calling Shilpa Shetty a Big Brother. He slept. With two mobiles and an old fashioned alarm clock set to signal the end of the world at 2 a.m.
Everything went off at 2 a.m. and they wished the world could have ended instead. They spread the morning cheer by waking up therickshawala . The grandparent of course was all packed and ready to go. There is something about the people of that generation. Sometimes, the seem more alive at 80 than you did at 20. Dressed forAntarctica , they stepped into the surprisingly warm January night. The journey to the railway station passed in relative silence because before they could really get down and dirty aboutrickshawalas, the specimen driving them confessed to being a Tamilain. She could not have been entirely awake during the journey because later she distinctly remembered feeling envious of the sleeping homeless, all tucked in and comfortable on the footpath. The railway station was surprisingly full of life. The train was surprisingly on time. A brief family reunion and the kids were off, with warnings about eating food offered bystrangers and footboard travel. All this work had made her hungry. A midnight snack and a motorcycle ride later, they were back in bed and fast asleep. The world had not ended, after all.
(Nope. No forgotten tickets. No wrong station, no wrong platform, no wrong train, no wrong grandparent... Me and the Indian Railway come together and the world does not end! Almost makes a believer out of me.)
Who yells wins
To the silent ones,
The world listens to the one who yells loudest. If you do not speak up, it means you do not have an opinion. If you do not yell, it means you do not respect your opinion enough.
Eat or be eaten. Its that simple.
(Thanks B, for that and for a million other things)
The world listens to the one who yells loudest. If you do not speak up, it means you do not have an opinion. If you do not yell, it means you do not respect your opinion enough.
Eat or be eaten. Its that simple.
(Thanks B, for that and for a million other things)
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Those were the days...
I have been told (and can see for myself) that I have been weeping all over my blog. So, in the spirit of the new year, I have decided to post positive. And to give the past years their due, nostalgic.
Me and three other people met for an hour of badminton yesterday. Its surprising how cooperative , efficient, pushy, fearless and utterly devoid of responsibility that one word makes people! And of course the memories had to follow. We've had such wonderfully nonsensical times on the court all that's to a bunch of crazy, super enthusiastic and most importantly, quirky individuals. Before I elaborate, a note to the folks this is about. Kindly do not take offence. Writing about how excellently you play would be infinitely boring. A good story is my only motivation.
Its 6 p.m. Snacks have travelled far enough for it to be unlikely for any physical activity to make them come out the way they went in. As if on cue, pairs of eyes all over the building go to the rackets kept on the desks. A few owners of the pair of eyes (not necessarily same as the owner of the rackets) valiantly try to get the pair back on the computer screen. Wiser ones simply pick up the racket and leave for the indoor badminton court. (Which, along with the sofa at the reception transform the office building from a place of work to a place of well being). Sitting, standing, lying all over the court are other PEOs (pair of eyes owners).
The narrative now shifts focus to a particular group of PEOs, identified by seemingly random letters of the alphabet.
R, by far the most talented of this particular bunch of PEOs, is dancing on the court. He just cant wait for the game to begin. Impossible to guess that this impatient guy has truckloads of patience for those less gifted. Also impossible to guess that this newcomer's dream hides a mercurial temperament that goes from boiling to grinning with the span of a shot.
Giving him company is D, the queen of quick returns. While the audience may be pardoned for occasionally thinking she is one of them, even though she is standing on the court with a racket in hand while a game is in progress, anyone who has ever made the mistake of placing the shuttle in the vicinity of her racket has lived to regret it.
On the other side of court is A. But how much longer she will be there is impossible to say. She has been known to answer hunger calls in the middle of a game, even in the middle of a shot. She is also known to race after the shuttle as if her life depends on it, raise her racket carrying arm to deliver the death stroke, only to have it stuck there in mid motion. With an enigmatic atak gaya, she walks off the court, hand raised in submission.
Next to her is S, the grand old man of the game, who has nurtured generations of PEOs. His presence on court is predicted with complete certainty by everyone but him. He appearance on court follows a rather peculiar ritual whose outcome he stubbornly defends as being unpredictable. When called to play, he politely refuses citing doctor's orders (signed, and in triplicate) as a reason. 5 minutes later, he is found on the outer boundary of the court. Just come down to watch, of course. 2.35 minutes later, he has displaced the nearest PEO and is poised for action, doctor's orders be damned in triplicate! One smash from the grand old man and the opponents are damned, the shuttle is damned...
The match goes on along thoroughly unpredictable lines, even though each player's game is as predictable as can be. PEOs are replaced at regular intervals (not always involuntarily) by others. Notable among them is K. And her compassionate serve (patent pending). Lest she send out mixed signals regarding her intentions to server backhand/forehand to her opponents, she follows an elaborate routine that involves rotation by 90 degrees and recalibration of the racket's alignment with respect to the position of the moon.
And then there is L. Though not a regular, he never fails to leave a mark. This is primarily because he believes the fool proofest way to create confusion among the opponents is to roll all over the quadrant where the shuttle has no intention of falling, in an apparent attempt to hit it. His success rate is impressive, if success is measured by the number of times the opponents are so busy gaping, they forget to play.
And E. Whose beliefs alternate between seeing his racket as a hammer and believing that the shuttle responds to voice commands. His voice commands. There are N and M but their quirks seem to have slipped my memory. (That they are normal is impossible).
To each of these PEOs (and a few other unalphabetized ones) I owe my love for the game. And this is how I pay them back!
Me and three other people met for an hour of badminton yesterday. Its surprising how cooperative , efficient, pushy, fearless and utterly devoid of responsibility that one word makes people! And of course the memories had to follow. We've had such wonderfully nonsensical times on the court all that's to a bunch of crazy, super enthusiastic and most importantly, quirky individuals. Before I elaborate, a note to the folks this is about. Kindly do not take offence. Writing about how excellently you play would be infinitely boring. A good story is my only motivation.
Its 6 p.m. Snacks have travelled far enough for it to be unlikely for any physical activity to make them come out the way they went in. As if on cue, pairs of eyes all over the building go to the rackets kept on the desks. A few owners of the pair of eyes (not necessarily same as the owner of the rackets) valiantly try to get the pair back on the computer screen. Wiser ones simply pick up the racket and leave for the indoor badminton court. (Which, along with the sofa at the reception transform the office building from a place of work to a place of well being). Sitting, standing, lying all over the court are other PEOs (pair of eyes owners).
The narrative now shifts focus to a particular group of PEOs, identified by seemingly random letters of the alphabet.
R, by far the most talented of this particular bunch of PEOs, is dancing on the court. He just cant wait for the game to begin. Impossible to guess that this impatient guy has truckloads of patience for those less gifted. Also impossible to guess that this newcomer's dream hides a mercurial temperament that goes from boiling to grinning with the span of a shot.
Giving him company is D, the queen of quick returns. While the audience may be pardoned for occasionally thinking she is one of them, even though she is standing on the court with a racket in hand while a game is in progress, anyone who has ever made the mistake of placing the shuttle in the vicinity of her racket has lived to regret it.
On the other side of court is A. But how much longer she will be there is impossible to say. She has been known to answer hunger calls in the middle of a game, even in the middle of a shot. She is also known to race after the shuttle as if her life depends on it, raise her racket carrying arm to deliver the death stroke, only to have it stuck there in mid motion. With an enigmatic atak gaya, she walks off the court, hand raised in submission.
Next to her is S, the grand old man of the game, who has nurtured generations of PEOs. His presence on court is predicted with complete certainty by everyone but him. He appearance on court follows a rather peculiar ritual whose outcome he stubbornly defends as being unpredictable. When called to play, he politely refuses citing doctor's orders (signed, and in triplicate) as a reason. 5 minutes later, he is found on the outer boundary of the court. Just come down to watch, of course. 2.35 minutes later, he has displaced the nearest PEO and is poised for action, doctor's orders be damned in triplicate! One smash from the grand old man and the opponents are damned, the shuttle is damned...
The match goes on along thoroughly unpredictable lines, even though each player's game is as predictable as can be. PEOs are replaced at regular intervals (not always involuntarily) by others. Notable among them is K. And her compassionate serve (patent pending). Lest she send out mixed signals regarding her intentions to server backhand/forehand to her opponents, she follows an elaborate routine that involves rotation by 90 degrees and recalibration of the racket's alignment with respect to the position of the moon.
And then there is L. Though not a regular, he never fails to leave a mark. This is primarily because he believes the fool proofest way to create confusion among the opponents is to roll all over the quadrant where the shuttle has no intention of falling, in an apparent attempt to hit it. His success rate is impressive, if success is measured by the number of times the opponents are so busy gaping, they forget to play.
And E. Whose beliefs alternate between seeing his racket as a hammer and believing that the shuttle responds to voice commands. His voice commands. There are N and M but their quirks seem to have slipped my memory. (That they are normal is impossible).
To each of these PEOs (and a few other unalphabetized ones) I owe my love for the game. And this is how I pay them back!
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