One Friday Night...

Its Friday Night. Inertia of a magnitude that would do massive bodies in the sky proud has sent in. I hop from desk to desk, looking for excuses to hang around. I find many. A bunch of us finally settle down to chairs, laughing at jokes from last Friday and making more for the next. I hear a song playing. "I hear a song playing", i say. "So do I", says the one sitting next to me. We look around to see no obvious source of music. Paranormal activity is suspected and joked upon. Something makes me look for my phone. I fish it out of my bag to find a call in progress. What follows is a series of such bizarre co-incidences that if you were a betting man, you'd give up both betting and your manhood.

- my phone is not locked
- all the shifting i was doing in the chair causes random buttons to be pressed
- first the recently called list is opened up
- scroll down 10 or 11 names on it
- stop at the name of the guy sitting next to me (the one who also heard the music)
- call him up
- in the short gap you get to press * if you want to copy the hello tune, * is pressed

which results in both of us hearing his ring tone. When i fish out the phone, the call is still in progress. I cancel it and promptly get an SMS saying i have been charged 15 rupees for the hello tune.

Like he said, it made a believer out of us. FSM teri mahima apaar! Only, the next time you decide to show off your awesome powers, O one with the noodly appendages, could you pick someone with more taste in hello tunes? :P


P.S. Sorry Mohsin, i knew you said you'd blog about this, but i figured i got to post since i'd paid.
I actually wrote the whole thing just so i could make that joke. But i'm sure you'll agree, all is fair in love, war and the making of jokes.

Some people i tell you. Impossible to please!

It struck me (again) when i was watching the Aman ki aasha ad on some TV channel, how easy it is to manipulate our feelings. Get the right words, good music, and you can make people feel anything! Granted, getting these two right is not easy, but its possible is my point.

Take the Delhi 6 ending for example. Remember the cringe worthy heaven scene at the end? What should have happened is that it should have left a bitter taste that should have spoilt the ending, if not the entire experience. But no, all they had to do is play Arziyan (Maula Maula) after that scene and i walked out of the hall inexplicably happy and content.

Or take the Aman ki aasha thing. With lyrics like

Nazar mein rehtey ho jab tum nazar nahin aatey
Yeh sur bulaatey hain jab tum idhar nahin aatey

you dont stand a chance! I felt like calling out to the people across the border! Dont get me wrong, i have nothing against them, but i know them not from Adam. I've heard the whole"we are the same people" argument, but that has never made me feel nostalgic, yes nostalgic about the good old times, which is what the song manages to do.

It irritates me. I dont like feeling like a puppet - play the right strings, get the right emotions. Oh but i do love the words! What i will have to do is to take the words, look at them from far far away, nod my head and say - hmm, they do fit beautifully into the context, all the time being very careful not to let them touch me. So much fun.

I wonder

(This is what a gtalk status message grew into.
Gtalk status - my twitter cum FB cum "shouting from rooftops")

What is it with songs that make you want to dance?
Even though you cant
Not with a gun to your head
Not even when no one's watching

What is it with books that make you want to lose yourself in them?
Become a ghost
Live between the words
Trapped and yet free

What is it about characters that brings them to life?
Touch, see, feel what they feel
The imaginary becomes real
As the world fades to black

How is it some people never really go away?
A hi five is all it takes
Time, space
and distance turn fake

After a trip to Landmark...

Existential crisis, existential angst, the unbearable unfairness of being or even plain old boredom, there is very little a good book cannot block.

And sometimes, that is all the cure there is.

How i met my card

Long long ago, in a land not far away, there lived people who had accepted being chased by credit card companies as part of their lives. While I am old enough to have lived and earned in those times, i escaped the persecution mainly by having my nose up in the air and not having a mobile phone. I used to go around feeling pretty smug about not having succumbed to a credit card. Then of course, Indian railways had to open up online train bookings, life had to make me travel by air, even the damn bus companies had to go online! And so, i had to get my nose down a little and go sniffing for credit card companies.

The first time i said yes to one of those random callers who are most anxious to offer you a card without even knowing your name, she fell off her chair. But then, she got off the floor, pulled it together and offered to send an "executive" to collect the documents. He came, he made me sign in a million places, he went. And THEN they realized that since they hadn't ever heard of the company I work for, it might not be such a bright idea to offer me use of their money. Yes. I was rejected. (I think i may be building something of a reputation in being rejected by the unrejecting. My two-wheeler was rejected for the Pollution Under Control certificate. Twice.) Which i found funny. So the next time one of them called, i said - I have already been rejected by a bank as not being safe enough. Are you sure you want to offer me your card? Which led to uncomfortable silence of the most delightful kind. The fun wore off though when i had to go around begging for credit cards.

So this time, i took their call seriously. Shamelessly told them i wanted one. Fully cooperated. Gave them all the necessary documents after only 3 postponements. Cheerfully tolerated their extensive verification process which basically involved contacting me via 300 different ways and asking me the same questions. Probably in the hope that one out of those 300 times i might slip up and give them the wrong date of birth or marital status. While it isnt over yet, they do seem to have exhausted ways of getting to me. Do you see the horizon there? One of these days when the sun comes up on that horizon, it'll bring my card along.

And that makes me ask. What will it mean to me? How will it change my life? I've always maintained that i'd make a terrible customer to them companies. I dont buy impulsively, the only things i do buy and are books and occasionally clothes, shiny things on the Internet dont tempt me. But there might be a hole in my defenses i'm beginning to glimpse on the same horizon. The next time Jimmy Wales personally asks me for money for Wikipedia, how can i refuse? Or Dave Freer for that matter. He is an SFF writer based in Africa who has decided to emigrate with family and pets to Australia. While moving the humans is no problem, it seems the pets will need to be quarantined and the cost for that comes to a ridiculous 25000 dollars! They dont have the money and so he has decided to put up chapters of his book "Save The Dragons" as and when people pay for them. I finished reading all the paid-for chapters that have been put up, and i think that is where i'm going to Shree Ganesh my card. Not because i'm that fond of pets, but because i'm ridiculously fond of SFF. And Save The Dragons is awesome. At least the 22 chapters i read are.

P.S. Got the Dave Freer story from Whatever, which apart form general entertainment, is an awesome place to discover new SFF. Especially the Big Idea posts, where he gets new authors to come and talk about the idea behind their books. They make me itch, most of them, they are that interestingly written. If there was a big flashing button there that said "Buy and this shalt be delivered at your doorstep", i cant think of too many things that would stop me from clicking on it.

Attack of the withdrawal symptoms

Like Sunday evenings arent bad enough by themselves, i am having to battle severe withdrawal symptoms. These stem from three causes and in decreasing order of potency are:

1. The end of Sports Night
Another Sorkin series discovered on youtube. The man can write and how! Someday i'm going to meet him and hit him on the head head for ruining conversations for me. Nothing will ever match up. The series, its not perfect, its preachy in parts, people are too nice, but they are in my head and. Will. Not. Get. Out. I dont know how authors do it, i just dont. Live, sleep, breathe their characters for years and then move on. I finished the show in a week and yet i sit here feeling like someone has died. Like lots of people have died.

2. The end of Hyperion series
He makes you work hard for the first hundred pages or so, but man, is it worth it! Its about a group of "pilgrims" on their visit to the Shrike, a killing monster or avenging angel depending on which religion you come from. Each pilgrim shares his/her story of why they are going to see the Shrike. One (well, okay, two) book with so many stories, each so powerfully written. The book has more than its share of unexplained scientific jargon and a million things you are expected to accept and move on, but the end ties up the loose ends better than i've come to expect from a science fiction novel.

3. The end of my almost two week long vacation
That i had to take otherwise my leaves would have expired. And i took because i havent learnt to ask - so what. I've rediscovered that i handle change quite okay. I dont miss office on my first day of holidays. From day one, its like i've always lived the holiday life. And tomorrow when i show up at work, it'll be like i never left at all. Its only the transitions that bum me out. A lesson that should give me courage to face bigger changes in life that i'm running away from because of the fear of transition. But doesnt.

Its nine o clock on a Sunday, too early to sleep, too late to start something new. I feel empty inside.