Me, myself and the world

Baby on board

2012-01-19T18:44:00.002+05:30

Nope, not ours. Thought we've recently done the 9 months so that wouldnt be so much a scandal as a surprise not to mention, well, never mind. The dude's sister has had a baby and he is home! In all his pink glory! We got him all kinds of pink stuff too, thus throwing in our lot with this little girl.

All he does so far is
- sleep at the wrong time
- wake up at the wrong time
- distribute all fingers he can find all over his face. At ant given point he usually has two in his mouth, one up his nose, one trying to dig out his eye and a couple inside his ears. As if, if he doesnt hold his organs together, they will leave him and run away.

But. I love little kids., always have. (Ask her, i dreamt of their kid being a musical prodigy and singing patriotic songs before i even saw him). Plus, i get to be this little one's maami. When i was a little kid, maami == fun. She taught us games and sometimes even played with us when no one was watching, who gave us birthday gifts, who i was surprisingly comfortable with, given how awkward i was around most others, probably because she lived next door for most of my life. Unfortunately, these folks have a different naming convention and so, though the dude becomes a mama, i become an athai. Not that there is anything wrong with athai, athais are fun too, but i am already athai to 3 kids (all of whom call me by name, but you dont know that, do you) and this is the only kid in the universe who can call me maami. My master plan involves bribing the kid until he calls me just that. Or Vinaya.

I wish he would grow up enough to have a name. Until then he be Babloo* to me. And then grow up enough to smile. And crawl. And walk. And talk. Basically hurry up, become interesting and then stay there!

* If you are the dude or Monu or anyone who studied under Anne Joseph Madam at KVGK, shut up about the history of that name, will you?

The end

2011-12-30T11:53:00.002+05:30

of the year, haha. I am not going anywhere, sorry to dash your hopes.

Yesterday was my first 12 hour day at work, which means i'm settling in? I'm not, though, and when people ask me i tell them nope, not settled yet and then they dont know where to look. All crazy people, lots and lots of Malayalees (not my fault if you correlate the two). The only reason i mention that again is that my inner voice now speaks with a Malayalee accent. Most irritating it is (its not personal, you understand, Malayalee accent is one of my favourites), but its my inner voice, you know. This one time when i was ODing on American TV shows, my inner voice switched to an American accent. I was terrified it would come out and then I would be one of the people with an unnecessary accent that i laugh at.

My back has given up again, i cant wear a helmet without feeling that my head will wobble off. So on most days, the car it is. And since the dude refuses to get a music system for it, i drive to my inner voice running a live commentary on the idiocy of my fellow travelers. The mad way they honk and yell if i take 2 seconds to start my car - oh shut up &#^^%$ dont you remember a time when you were just starting to drive? Or if they wait patiently for me to move - dont you patronize me you *&^@*$&^, if i'm being a nuisance, tell me. All in a Malayalee accent. Fun.

I have today and Monday off, i didnt ask why. It just stopped drizzling and the weather is glorious. There is a cook who is doing the cooking (she speaks English! I dont know how to process that). No one has asked me about "new year plans". Life, is good.

One week later

2011-12-10T17:34:00.002+05:30

Well, it only been 3 days, but i'm not complaining! Weekends are most welcome anytime. (In theory. In practice, i still dont know what to do with them.)

Bullet points (since i'm all over the place and dont think coherence will come)

- Teething troubles, as expected. Although at the end of day 1, i did get to get home the best laptop i've ever had! Which, if you've met the laptops i've had, is not saying much. I'll try that again. At the end of day 1, i got to get home a good laptop.

- I'm like a small town girl seeing the big city sights for the first time, as far as free stuff in the office is concerned. It'll be a while before i get used to It'll be a while before i stop grinning stupidly at my laptop or the headphones or the rows and rows of biscuits or the fruits or the fridge.

- They have two buildings across the street from one another. There is the ~~safe~~ boring way of crossing over (by taking the overhead bridge) and the ~~unsafe~~ interesting way that involves crossing the two halves of MG road and climbing over 3 feet walls and wading through trash. Obviously, i do the interesting. The problem is, the moment i stand at the side of the road, all autowallas in the vicinity rush to me, because obviously a girl will not be stupid enough to try to cross over. I have to keep shaking my head at them.

- Did you know that autos and rickshaws are two different things? I use them interchangeably, and if i had a rupee for every time someone explained to me that rickshaws are a thing of the past, well, i'd probably be able to buy a polo.

- People in the office are actually friendly. Which is unexpected. When confronted with a new joinee, my natural reaction is to ignore them and nod politely when ignoring is no longer viable. Under no circumstances do i try small talk, because i run out of it after sentence two and then we are in a far more awkward position that before. Of all the things that terrify me in life, running out of things to say is pretty high up on the list.

- People in the office are also Malayalee. And given that i absorb accents and mannerisms like a sponge, you will very soon find me speaking Tamil with a Telugu accent, Telugu with a Tamil accent and English with a Malayalee accent.

- People in the office also think nothing of singing Kolaveri out loud for no particular reason.

- I still need a gym.

Employed

2011-12-06T15:16:00.002+05:30

This doesnt feel like news, but since i announced my impending unemployment from rooftops and then went on and on about it, driving a van with a loudspeaker through your head, i suppose i should also say that i have a job. From tomorrow, i'll be bringing home the bacon. (Which, if taken literally, might be as useful as the money i bring. No one seems to want my money. Not even me).

So, yes, job. I cant get excited about it. Probably because the process was crap. And it didnt exactly end well. But, its taught me stuff. Never again am i going to be so unprepared that i will need two months just to get confident enough to go for an interview. I now know that i am not as bad at them as i thought i would be. Oh, there are things i need to get better at, and this process has shone the spotlight on them, for which i am grateful. But as the dude says, this is only the beginning.

What the hell is wrong with me i dont know. I was more cheerful when i was unemployed!

On flying

2011-11-24T21:39:00.001+05:30

Confession: If you get the feeling that the crap here is crappier than usual, you might not be entirely wrong. I get the feeling that i have lowered my blogable-material threshold. This might be because i happened to look at the blog archive and discovered that this is my worst year, quantity wise. Or it might be because i am jobless. Whichever it is, kindly adjust.

In all my life i have never flown as much as i have flown this year. (Hell, i have probably never traveled as much as i have this year). What all that frequent flying* has done is make me realize another aspect of the awesomeness of trains. See, if i were traveling to Bangalore by train, it'd take me 18 hours or so to get me here. All the time in the world to get used to the idea that i am going to a different city, different people. I'll have time to mentally prepare myself to be Vinaya@Bangalore. Whereas by flight, all i get is an hour and a half, and i spend most of that sleeping. I've done this to and fro so many times now, but even now i lose about a day orienting myself to my new surroundings. Instead of feeling i belong to two places***, for a day or two, i feel like i belong nowhere.

* This travel website says i get a free ipad** if i make two more bookings with them by the end of the year! Not that i particularly want an ipad, but for free? I'll take your used chappals also happily.

** An ipad has casually entered at made itself at home at my Pune-home. I dont know when we became those people. In fact when i landed, my dad opened the door with the ipad in hand! He had been trying to book flight tickets for his 82 year old friend. I took it from like a big know it all, booked the ticket, and then discovered that there is no way to print the ticket from it. Not a big deal, you want to tell me, you can get tickets printed at the airport, but try convincing an 82 year old to go to the airport without a ticket. Not happening without DNA transplant. I called up bhai to yell at him (all Apply product failures he is of course personally responsible for), but he got extremely defensive and asked me to shut up and throw the ipad away if i didnt like what it did.

*** Reminds me of my second favourite story about this cousin of mine. When she was young, she went and demanded of her mother - "why do you call my father's mom and dad as mom and dad? Dont you have your own mom and dad?" To which her mom explained that after marriage, women get two sets of parents. She digested that for a bit and came back with - "So if i marry two people, i'll get three sets of parents??"

I want my money back!

2011-11-20T11:03:00.001+05:30

Statutory warning: Rant. I wash my hands off it. Take it seriously at your own peril.

Its not fair. Not only does he get to be in another country, he gets to meet long lost friends like the Statue of Liberty and this madam, who then proceeds to invite him for lunch! Whereas me, who hasnt seen her since 2006 and the statue of liberty since forever, gets to sit in the same old country and there is no way to end that sentence without including positive things about my life right now, which would take away from the sting of the rant, so i'm going to put a full stop right about now. There. And my friends, who made me write teary eyed farewell mails, who gave me goodbye cards with heartfelt wishes (like - "good luck wishes"), who insisted they will miss me, who havent seen me for a whole month now, cant even decide whether to meet me for breakfast! (Aaha! Lightbulb! So this is what "you will be missed" means - even if you come back and we have a chance to meet, we will miss meeting you. Hmpf). I have decided to drown my sorrows by watching Rockstar and Tintin. I tried getting some nephews and nieces and cousins to come along, but somewhere between the time i was in 10th standard and now, watching a movie that will go away in another week at the most has become less urgent than studying for board exams more than 3 months away. To top it all off, i have the prospect of an interview or four hanging on my head ALL THE TIME. It all depends on how well the guy i sent some code to two days ago (two days ago! how long does it take to look at code, yo?) likes it, and so if i were to be the prudent and responsible version of me, i should be preparing for the future i want, not whining about the present that isnt.

P.S. I couldnt tell you what my 10th standard was like in the rant, because again, it wasnt fitting in with the theme. Mine was a wake up at 5 a.m. everyday to study kind of 10th standard. I dont know what i did waking up at 5, but whatever it was it didnt feel like enough. There were rumours of this guy in the other section who woke up at 3.30 to study. And who had already finished the syllabus by August or some such ridiculously early month. TV and movies were things that happened to other people. But, good times all the same.

The folks less travelled: Coonoor

2011-11-18T21:35:00.002+05:30

I have a confession to make. More to myself than to anyone else. I'm not a travel person. I love the idea of getting away from it all, for sometime being someone else someplace else, who doesnt, but the actual details of when to go where to go how to go put me off. To top it off, the husband (who shall hereafter be called the dude) is the kind of person who needs all reservations signed in triplicate. And my meticulousness stops miles before that stage, i can take off on the promise of a bed and breakfast. In short, details are the devil.

I'd been toying around with the idea of going somewhere for a few weeks. More by accident than design, i'd been traveling every month since i got married and September was about to end and i hadnt gone anywhere! I couldnt just let that be. So i bought out my 52 weekend destinations in Bangalore and flipped through the pages looking for possibilities. I skipped past Ooty several times, i mean, such a cliche, but then i remembered Bhai (who shall hereafter be called Bhai) raving about this place near Ooty he'd been to with Black Swan. I called him for details and he got terribly excited and all i could make out was Coonoor! Jose! Kotagiri! He had Shishir call me some time later who was fortunately more coherent. He gave me a few options and then asked if Bhai had talked to me about Jose's place in Coonoor. I said he might have been trying to. Shishir said, its a homestay, one of the best. A bit over your budget, but unbeatable. He went as far as to say if you dont like it, i'll refund your costs! I called up Bhai, who was still not very coherent. For his sake, we decided to go to Jose's.

And ooh my God. Whenever anyone tells you about Jose's, they will probably tell you the same thing. Its a house on top of a hill. With a 360 degrees view. During the day you can see green hills all around. And during the night, you can see lights from 3 different cities - Coonoor, Ooty and Kotagiri, each on their own hill. But words dont do justice to the view. At least mine wont, so i'll just say its unbelievable and stop at that.

We reached there in the afternoon. After a delicious lunch cooked by Jose's wife Sindhu, we made big plans of what to do with our two days. We decided to go see the dam after a short nap and then go down to Coonoor. Right. Overnight journey followed by awesome lunch, short nap indeed! And to top it off, it started to rain a few minutes after we went into our room. I cannot tell you how much i love lying on a bed just staring out at the falling rain. Apparently not more than i love to sleep, though. When we woke up, it was evening. So we ditched the dam and went to Coonoor. Lower Coonoor was noisy and crowded so we escaped to Upper Coonoor. Walked around and had random things for dinner. Jose picked us up on his way back from somewhere and deposited us home. Where hot Ooty tea and roasted cashews were waiting for us. We stayed out for a very long time, enjoying the distant city lights, the silence, the night sky (this is where the dude introduced me to Google Sky and for the first time, i fell in love with an App), and each others company.

The next day was the day of the dam. We overslept. Again. But that didnt stop us from going on pre-breakfast walk down the hill. Got back and did full justice to Sindhu's appam and stew. And then we set off for the dam. Despite asking for directions from many people, we just couldnt find the damn thing. But everything was so pretty, we really didnt mind. Finally, following authoritative directions from some locals, we followed a track in the woods. And came across a clearing where a really tall tree had gone horizontal. There it was, lying across the way, welcoming one and all to sit on it. And we did. Well, the dude did. I lay down on it, looking up at the blue sky, at other gently swaying trees, who to tell you the truth, appeared slightly drunk. And i learnt that i need to learn to shut up at such moments. Every few seconds I'd get terribly excited, grin like crazy, shake the dude and tell him - this is so awesome!

We had to leave. Much too soon. We did see the dam and few monkeys but it was an anti-climax. We got back, picked up our stuff and said goodbye to Jose, Sindhu, their two boys and the star of the trip - their home. I wont tell you the story of their home, it is much more interesting hearing it from them, but i'll tell you this - it showed me the difference between constructing a house and building a home.

Interviews!

2011-11-14T18:20:00.003+05:30

Prospective employers seem to read my blog. (Which may not be such a good thing in the long run, but i'm going to pretend this run is short). The interviews have begun! Just got back from my first job interview in 9 years and my throat is dry and my body parts are shaking and i cut and ate a whole musk melon by myself but all that only shows that i am alive, right?

The dude has flown to the US for god knows what so i am home alone. (Well, as alone as you can be with a houseful of people). But as long as there are interviews to prepare for, (i dont want to say the next part but its true) who cares? All i do is use him as a cheat sheet for questions i am stuck at, and that i can do with him sitting there too. I really really want this phase to end so we can start figuring out what to do with "free time".

Okay, i will now go bury my head in the Internet and prepare for the next one. Wish me luck, y'all!

I might regret this

2011-11-02T15:52:00.002+05:30

Dear prospective employers,

I write this to you just in case you are not sold on my loaded with awesomeness resume (which seems to be the case, not even an interview call, what the hell is going on?). I really need a job for the following reasons:

1. I need a free gym to go to
The ones around me are insanely expensive and not suited to my lifestyle which at least until now included long vacations trips to Pune. I am bloating up! And i have never been great at the do it at home yourself kind. Come to think of it, the only kind that has worked for me is the kind where i pay through my nose, so i'd rather not think of it.

2. The kitchen needs to see less of me
Really. All sorts of things have been happening to it since i got here. I have been explaining them away as coincidences and unfortunate accidents but i think suspicions have take root.

3. I need to not get used to afternoon sleep.
See, you will employ me, one day or another. Better do it now before i get used to afternoon sleep and spend two months on the job trying to get rid of the habit.

4. I need a social life.
Well, i dont really feel the need for it, which is scarier if you ask me. So, gimme people before i give up on them altogether and become a kitchen hermit. Please.

I hope this letter argues for my case better than my resume did.

Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,

Vinaya

P.S. I hope this letter finds you in good health and cheer.

Random

2011-10-31T14:03:00.002+05:30

Metallica was here yesterday. So was bhai on his bullet. Guess which of them i got to see. I did briefly consider going to see the band, but when i couldnt name any song other than Nothing Else Matters, i decided to leave them alone and stay at home. One concert, one live concert is all i'm asking of you, stupid Bengalooru! That, and a job, of course.
On the same day, i graduated to playing songs on the keyboard. Sun oye Metallica, you might have a lead, but its not going to take me very long to catch up. Twinkle, twinkle little star, i will rock you like you have never been rocked before! As soon as i figure out which finger goes where.

The job hunt is not going places. I alternate between telling myself i will be patient (its only been a week) and applying for a delivery job at the nearby Dominoes. Which i might not get, given my knowledge, or lack thereof, of the streets of this city. Its all 5th Cross and 6th Main and oh, how i miss names like Vainu Bappu marg and the 2 Senapati Bapat roads i crossed to get to work.

The kindle is back in action! A huge collection of ebooks has been discovered by the dude, and if only i didnt turn into such a complete wreck at the very idea of giving interviews, i would right now be deep into one of them. Or many of them, i cant pick! I want all! But, no. As soon as i am done with this post, i shall go back to K&R. Which is why you might find me rambling a bit more than prudent.

I dont remember when i last read K&R, but i have underlined and drawn stars and written things in pencil all over it. Most of those things i now know, so it makes me feel like the years have added up to something, after all. I may not have bought about world peace, or improved lives or even figured out what to do with mine, but i do know why *++argv works. And you cant take that away from me.

I am going to, today, for the first time ever, lads and lasses, get a car out on my own and go pick up the dude! Wish me luck, wish the car luck, wish Bangalore luck, but most of all, wish him luck!

This is it

2011-10-21T23:11:00.002+05:30

It was today. My last day at work. My last review. Whew! Last lunch with whats left of the gang. Ate like a pig. Again. Certainly not for the last time! My last mail to all. I wrote two lines but L, M and Z blackmailed me into making it longer. The last time i went looking for a sensor. My last snack hour. Gifts! My last speech. Which i didnt give. The last ice cream t Naturals, its become a sort of last day tradition now. On our way back, i was asked for the nth time how i was feeling. And i said - it feels like someone else's farewell. And it did. I think its a kind of self preservation mechanism developed by the mind. Its like the mind has decided - yeh bahut bada patthar hai, apne se nahi uthega, chal side se nikal chalte hain. Which worked fine till we reached the parking lot and it was time for final goodbyes.

Instead of going all soppy again, i paste for you (but more for me) the last mail.

Hi All,

Everyone expects me to ramble (after all, one who rambles on Birthday mails can ramble on anything), so i'm keeping this short. The last 5 years have been good, and if the next place i go to gives me as much laughter and learning as this one, i shall be very lucky indeed.

Keep in touch and all the best.

Thank you all,
Vinaya

P.S. Gotcha! Turns out I cant be brief in writing, even if i wanted to. This is my second job, and when i joined 5 years ago, i wondered if it would be as fulfilling as the first. Induction went on for a month and at the end of it, i was more than ready to jump in. For my first "feature" someone (who shall remain unnamed) came to talk to me and started off with - "Do you know about hash tables?" I couldnt believe it was okay to not to know them, and i'm sure some of the disbelief showed on my face. Which he took to mean that i didnt know, and started explaining about hash functions and keys, (i imagine) mentally cursing the interview process. I hurriedly assured him i knew what they were, and that is how multihash tables were born. From there, there was no looking back. I played with threads, fought deadlocks (more of them self inflicted than i'd like to admit), set fire to devices, squashed bugs, (metaphorically) bashed people up (and had the most fun doing it), made people run all around the office, and generally had a violently good time.
Thank you all for the last 5 years, for the jokes, for letting me feel a part of the whole, for teaching me, for letting me teach, for laughing at my mistakes while telling me its okay, for making it easy and for making it fun. Also for making me write this.
But i do not thank you for making it so hard to leave.

Room with a view

2011-10-19T22:59:00.002+05:30

There is this room type thing we have built on our terrace. It started out as a covered place where clothes could hang out during the rains, but has now evolved into a kind of an attic. I have had my eye on it for a very long time. Its basically just 4 walls and a roof but i can salivate just imagining a home in it. A bed in one corner, TV in another, kitchen in another and what more do you need? The "walls" have huge openings so its a room with a view! (So what if the view is the neighbour's balcony?) As i was saying, i've had my eye on it for a while. This time, the day i got home i decided i was going to sleep up there. Its crazy what my folks let me get away with. We cleaned up the mess (i.e. threw everything inside, outside), swept the place (i had stated to vacuum , but gave up after the damn cleaner took two minutes to clean one square foot. Which might be because the cleaner is almost as old as i am, but it has made me more or less give up on vacuum cleaners altogether), washed out the dirt (taking water from the tank and throwing it all around, whats not to like?) and put the mattress out to dry. All before breakfast, mind you.

That night was going to be the night. I was so excited, i laughed at mosquito warnings and weather forecasters forecasting rains. I went and curled up with a book and the emergency lamp (nope, no electricity either). No mosquitoes. I laughed some more. Finally when it was time to sleep, i shut the lamp and within a few seconds i had two insurmountable problems. Mosquitoes, which apparently wait until dark to attack, and i needed to go to the loo. There was no way i was going all the way down and coming back up, no sir. So that night turned into yet another night.

Tonight though? Tonight is different. Tonight i have an extension chord that is connected to an extension chord that bring electricity to me. Tonight I have industrial strength protection against mosquitoes (although the mild green light the repellent is emitting does little to inspire confidence), tonight i have a laptop AND a book to keep me company, tonight i have bed covers enough to smother all bed bugs. Tonight is going to be the night!

I hope i dont need to go to the loo.

Day 3 and 4

2011-10-13T22:31:00.003+05:30

(Because i wrote about day 1 and two somewhere but cant find it now.)

Day 3

I am ignored pretty much all morning. Except by this new kid who comes looking for me with a question.

Kid: Is blah feature supported on xyz?
Me: (who has designed and coded blah not at all so very long ago) No, not at all.

Kid goes away happy. And then i start to think, why not? I open code, i look around, i dont understand, i try to remember, i cant, i try to reason, and that works. I realize I have misled the kid. I look around for him but there are too many new faces and all i remember is the colour of his shirt. After a lot of peering at shirts, i finally find the one with the right colour.

Me: I'm sorry, xyz actually does support blah. It doesnt support yabadabadoo.
Kid: (first looking confused and then happy) Oooh, i actually wanted to ask about yabadabadoo!

Just to rub my genius in your face, i give the right answer even when asked the wrong question. How they will survive without me i dont know.

Early lunch at kakas, i ate shrikhand! Yum! My stomach is turning into a bottomless pit. Or maybe a black hole, because everything i eat disappears. Which is the most awesome thing that could happen, i'm hoping it is permanent! I could be the slimmest pig in the world!
Knowledge is attempted to be transferred. From me standing and talking for two hours and a whole bunch of people sitting and sleeping listening for two hours*.

Day 4

Started late. I lay the blame on the Game of Thrones for being so damn interesting. Meetings. Lunch, where everyone agreed surprisingly quickly on the place and then went to another. Random reading. Review. Probably my last decent sized one. Someday i'll develop the courage to ask people to fix their indentation. Movie! In the interval L says - 4 people, and not one person had the foresight to read the review! But apparently the way we watch movies is pick a convenient time and watch whatever is showing. The movie was pretty bad but the company more than made up for it. And M probably immortalized the song Banao Banao by declaring it the song to be sung while running make. I laughed so hard at that, see, this is what i am most afraid of missing. The bad jokes and the shared laughter. I have been lucky enough at both workplaces, although in very different ways. We used to laugh like crazy even at the old workplace, but very rarely on geeky jokes. That sense of humour i have picked up here. What i'm saying is, i dont mind if at the next workplace i find my laughter over MIL jokes and baby food***, i'm open like that. Just give me people who inspire me and who make me laugh, thats all i ask of you, old man @ blue sky. Also, preferably not have the same person do both. I have found that i am very conscious around people who inspire me, laughing around them is limited.

* Obviously. If they'd listened for longer, they wouldnt have heard much. Unless i was far far away and sound was taking time to reach them**. Which i wasnt. I was close enough for them to throw tomatoes at. Or eggs, if they were so inclined. And though i would have advised restraint, i can see why they would be tempted. When they really want to hit me, when cleaning up my mess is taking over their lives, i will not be around.

** I really should make physics jokes. I'm sure there is something fundamentally wrong about that sentence, physics wise.

*** We are not there yet. Not even close ****

****You probably didnt need to know that. Sorry.

The end of an era

2011-10-09T23:35:00.001+05:30

I'm in Pune to say goodbye to my job and i can see that it is going to be overwhelming. Especially since i have nothing lined up to go back to. Unemployment! Its strange, I certainly didnt expect that to take up so much space in my head.
I thought i'd document these two weeks, peppered with flashback of the past 5 years, but i dont know how much stuff i'll get to write about. The last time i tried that (at the end of another era), i didnt get past day 1. But here i am, ~~foolishly making the same mistake~~ bravely try, try and trying again.

Day 0. Left home for Bangalore Airport. Of all the airports i have been in, this is the one i call mine. Probably because the 6 hours my dad and i spent there once, waiting for our flight. We'd just fixed up my marriage, and despite the one thousand reasons to, neither of us was freaking out. We talked and sat and ate and walked around and i got to hear, for the first time in first person, a bit about the young man my dad had been. I dont know, does adult life so thoroughly wash off your youth, that even the wistfulness doesn't remain?

It started to rain on the way. The droplets started off by forming a pretty pattern on the windshield, but pretty soon were racing to the roof! Like kids released from the confines of a school bus, actually more like solders pumped up with, well, whatever good speeches are supposed to pump them up with, rushing towards the enemy, eager for a fight, eager for death. I got most terribly excited seeing that. I very badly wanted to know what happened once they got to the roof, but we were already late and i was already not helping and so i ate up my curiosity.

The flight got to Pune early. Bhai got to the airport early. I refused to get on his bike without a card bearing my name. Someday i'll make that joke one times too many and i'll get picked up with a card and flowers and then i'll have to die of embarrassment. Within 5 minutes i got a lecture from Bhai - why are you so dead and disinterested in all things technological and why do you need a job so desperately and why dont you do something interesting and if only i had the skills i'd make a million cool apps (and he would, poor thing and go mad in the process since he gets cool ideas on a daily basis). I told him i am willing to be his code monkey but he says that is no fun.

Home. And everything that implies. Parents. Bath. Grandparents. Dinner. Movie. And sleep.

Things that make my head go bang bang bang

2011-09-27T11:04:00.000+05:30

Bang as in exclamation! For once, i am not fantasizing about shooting people.

I bargain. With a flower seller. And win. The gym instructor talks to me in Tamil. I go to the gym with my FIL. Every time i go stand anywhere close to a temple, one of the flower sellers sitting there will come and give me flowers for free. Every time. Its like they can smell the fear. The apnapan i feel when i hear someone speaking Marathi here. The dude, at random times. After 5 years of fitting into a chat window, to suddenly see him life-size, even though he may just be disapproving of the mess that is my cupboard. How easily i can switch contexts depending on which home i am in. Like a robot with two settings - Pune and Bangalore. There are irreconcilable differences in the two settings, but since never the twain shall meet, it all works out. Money means so little to me. I still havent caught a live concert in Bangalore. I can make vadais. In principle. How easy it is to forget. And how difficult to understand. The kindle hasnt taken over my my life. I am quitting. The place that has been the biggest part of my life (well, time-wise) for 5 years now. I need people. Yet how little i do to keep them in my life.

Excuses

2011-09-17T13:24:00.000+05:30

The problem with food, or rather, with the making of food, apart from the fact that it needs to be done every. single. day. is the sense of accomplishment that it gives. I have never had to cook in my life, and so when i now have to, one meal makes me feel i have justified my presence on earth. Not breakfast, breakfast is fun. But anything after that i do, and i can happily spend the rest of day basking in its glory. Which is kind of strange because i come from a family of working women, every single one of them. Whatever they have done in life, they have done in addition to making food.

My life right now is a long list of things that need to be done and are not getting done. Well, its actually not very long, if we get right down to it, there is just this one thing. Come next month and i will be done with my current job. Yes! No more working from home! Happy as that makes me, i need to make sure this doesnt turn into No more working! And totally contrary to my usual approach to things, i am handling the look for a new job thing by worrying too much and doing too little. Which you might have figured out when i tried to pass off " but i had to make lunch" as an excuse for not preparing.

So, i need to prepare. And while i have full confidence that i'll get a job, i have close to zero confidence that i can clear an interview. Any interview. Even one for LKG. When the dude tries to help by asking me questions, i make faces and not-today-honey him. I'd like to take the high road and say the system needs to change to accommodate people like me (of whom there are plenty), but that will take time. Meanwhile, i shall have to stoop to conquer.

Reason #53 for a parallel universe

2011-09-13T15:37:00.001+05:30

Did you stop and think, when you were young and the world seemed like a place that could be whatever you made it to be, did you think about what your actions would mean? Did you realize that just because you wanted to follow your own nose and not turn around and look at what other people were up to, the world would forever be divided? Sure, people can and do talk across the divide, nothing can stop that, but wouldnt the world have been an easier, prettier place undivided?

Tell me, why did you have to bring Endianness into this world?

P.S. If you cant answer the big philosophical question, at least tell me this. Why why why do bit fields have to care about it too? Couldnt you at least have left the children untainted?

P.P.S The only saving grace in it all is that you gave it a cool name. Even though it confuses things up as hell. But then, cool was never supposed to be convenient.

(written after the third time the author chased down packets that wouldnt show up, only to (re) discover that the IP header has bit fields that Endianness will mess up).

WFH

2011-09-04T21:40:00.001+05:30

The next time someone tells me - whats not to like, you get to work from home, instead of my usual reaction of boiling on the inside while giving totally lame reasons on the outside, i will direct them to this post.

Okay, so if you have never worked from home (ever) and think that it means getting to do what you want to do when you want to do it and do it in your pajamas, stand here. And if you occasionally "work from home" and think it simply means being online and the most productive thing you may have to do is call into a meeting once in a while, go stand there. Everyone else go home.

I live in one city and my office is in another city 800 kms away. I work from home. Everyday. Everyday i get up, make breakfast, make my coffee and climb some 20 stairs to work. So far so good. I sit two feet away from the bed. And since i dont have a manager who peeks over my shoulder every time he goes to the loo, guess who is responsible for keeping me awake? Me. Thats right. I have to be the bad guy. I have to make sure i dont fall asleep, and i have to do that all day. I have to make sure i dont get lost on the Internet and forget my way back to work. I have to make sure i dont sit chatting all day. Sure, i dont Alt-tab that much, but thats because I am always watching. Even when i am in the loo.*

I am not a very friendly person. I wont bite you, but i take my time opening up to people, mostly i also take their time. 90 percent of my social life revolves around people at work, since thats where i am 90 percent of the time. Also as i move from place to place, people from my past have this annoying tendency to move too, thus leaving me more dependent on the current office population. And guess what makes up my current office population? A grand total of me. I'm interesting, i know, but even i have my limits.

Its easiest when i'm coding. Coding is a solitary job. All the big decisions involving other people have been made. It is interesting too, so i dont have to watch myself so much. But i code at the best 30-40 percent of the time. What when i'm designing? When i need to talk to people, either to consult or to simply discuss? What do i do when what i see as a beautiful idea is actually unnecessary or maybe even dumb, and all i need to see that is to talk it out with someone? What about all those ideas that come from irrelevant discussions? Testing is worse. To test some features, i've actually had two desks spread out with equipment and then some. I need to run all around to tweak the setup, how can i possibly do anything on that scale sitting from here? Fortunately i havent had to, and what little i need, i have great people to help, Nevertheless my testing becomes pretty contrived at times, and it doesnt give the same joy as having tested with the real thing.

And lastly my most biggest problem. Do you know what i cherish most in a workplace? More than the money, more than the work? People. People i can learn from, people i can look up to, people who amaze me with their ideas and their approach, people who make uninteresting things interesting, people I can work with in such a way that the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts, people who solve half the problem simply by asking what happened, people who appreciate all this and so on :) That is what i miss most of all, me sitting within these four walls.

* What happened one day when i gave in and took a power nap (gah how i hate that term). My FIL came in to give some CDs that he had bought. And caught me napping. Now imagine what they must think i sit and do all day. They belong to a generation for whom sleeping on the job is a crime, done only by the most worthless people. Its mooching off your employer, next only to stealing from his pocket. If you think i am getting carried away, maybe this will help you see the point. This one time we got back from a 2 day, 90km cycling trip on Sunday and everything was sore on Monday. But Monday is Monday and we both went to work. MIL was feeling very sorry for her son, and was telling me he should have rested today and gone to work tomorrow. I jokingly told her dont worry, he will sleep it off in the office (i mean the dude has a sofa right behind his desk!). That was taken as a pretty serious attack on his character, which was then stoutly defended. Now you see?

Notes from dont ask me where

2011-07-20T12:05:00.001+05:30

Is a holiday about doing new things in new places or doing old things in new places? Like getting lost on a rusty TVS in new lanes. Or reading a book (on the kindle! on the kindle!) sprawled on a new window sill. Pigging out in a new restaurant. Snoozing the alarm 25 times on a new bed. Or does it have to be completely different from your routine to feel like one?

Wow, she thought, never seen a lizard with such interesting patterns on its back. As she looked closely, she realized it wasnt a lizard, but a frog! Climbing up a wall! Actually climbing, not randomly jumping. She didnt know frogs could do that. No one seems to have told this frog it couldnt, she thought. And then looked around to see frogs all over the bathroom wall. Behind the heater, on the shower, everywhere. She would have killed for the attached bathroom she rejected yesterday, too taken in by the spiral wooden staircase that led to a room in the loft to bother about a bathroom. Well, she had what she paid for. She asked the frogs to please stay up the wall while she rushed through the quickest bath in the world. Fortunately they were domesticated enough to understand.

The world cant seem to make up its mind about whether i look like a tamilian or not. All my life i've grown up with the image of TAMILIAN stamped in large friendly letters on my forehead. Some people seem to be able to see that, i get random strangers coming and talking to me in Tamil. Some people dont, this one guy asked me in broken english "Which is country" and wouldnt believe me when i said Tamilnadu. Not even after i spoke to him in Tamil. Apparently i look French.

One of the books i read was the Phantom Toolbooth. The dude one day suddenly remembered he had it and jumped up and down insisting that i read the first chapter and for some reason only the first chapter then and there. I didnt, but i did start on it later. What a book, whataay book! I want to tear lines off it and paste them all over the place so i can see and not forget. Its a children's book thats filled with "wisdom", delivered in such a way that it (mostly) doesnt feel like you are being lectured. Like, Milo, our hero is lost and this guy Alec tells him - Being lost is never a matter of not knowing where you are, its a matter of not knowing where you aren't. When i finally "got" that sentence, i wanted to jump up and down, for now i know why i feel so lost - i dont know where i want to go!

Another thing from the book that has firmly lodged in my mind. The king has ordered pastries from the half bakery. Milo wonders what the half bakery is. Someone explains it to him - the half bakery is where half baked ideas come from! They are very tasty, but they dont always agree with you. When i read this, i was bang in the middle of one of my half baked ideas and i wanted to laugh out loud in the bus. All my ideas from now on are going to be poked with a knife or a knitting needle to see if they are well done. I'm not saying i wont have half baked ideas, but at the very least i'll know what i'm getting into.

There is this bird making knocking sounds. At night. And another that makes whistling sounds in the morning. Because living in the middle of nowhere isnt spooky enough.

Next is what

2011-04-28T14:22:00.002+05:30

By popular demand. What? Bhai asked for a post, and he is popular, okay?

So, Presenting... the Partner! *drumroll*

(The effect of which might be diminished by the fact that 90 percent of the people reading this were supposed to be at the wedding. The remaining 10 percent, i hope you die of shock. Or have a heart attack at the very least.)

So, yes, the partner. Who shall henceforth be known here, there and elsewhere as the dude (Because, you know, everything else about this blog is so anonymous). I live in his home (naturally), i work from his home, and omg, creepy as it sounds, uska ghar hi ab mera sansaar hai :P Not the least becasue i'm in a new city (Hi Bangalore!) and have no idea what goes where. Seriously, that is what i find to be the most disorienting of all. New home, new people, new language, new role - all fine, but a new city that i have to get used to? Nooooo.

I should have cracked under the strain of wearing so many saris, i didnt. I should feel a bit lost and out of place, i dont. I should be devastated, i'm not. I should be deliriously happy, i'm not. I'm... normal. I think tomorrow if i wake up as a man in the Bahamas, i will still be normal.

Because it sometimes feels like a new me in new life, where none of the "facts" from the old life need to be true, i say "Hello World!"

Ooh, look what 2011 is doing!

2011-02-11T19:45:00.004+05:30

Its just the second month and i've already taken two leaves. Both last minute oh-i-wont-be-coming-tomorrow leaves, which is not so good. But neither of them were oh-i-am-too-bored-to-get-out-of-bed, which rocks! If you dont get why i am jumping about this, i present to you my 2010. In which i must have taken, oh, 3 leaves? 2 of them because i was bored.

So, yes, 2011. Keep up the good work! And try not to make a philanthropist who donates all her leaves to the office charity out of me, yeah?

Yes, again!

2011-02-06T18:39:00.002+05:30

(To post something, anything, in the hope that it will over-shadow what in the light of the day seems an embarrassingly naive outburst from yesterday.
Umm. I really should stop writing SoPs for my posts.)

So. We were kidding about existential crises the other day (i dont remember the context, but it could have been about how the product builder couldnt build the product anymore and imagine the size of that e-crisis) and i got to wondering about the things in my life that should be going through the e-crisis.

1. my phone
On my birthday a couple of days ago, i got more calls than i get throughout the year. That might actually be true, modulo telemarketing and what time are you coming home calls. I dont organize using my phone, i dont make calls, i cant dont surf. So basically, its a Rs 10,000 alarm clock. That, thanks to my brothers constant yelling, i now have by my side at all times. People selling insurance can get to me at any time of the day. How they must love me, the telemarketers. Also,
Oh how blind that love must be
As to most of them
I still am
Mr. Vinaya N.

2. my orkut account
If it cannot connect me to my social network, if it cannot warn me of approaching birthdays, if it cannot show me baby pictures or trip pictures or home pictures, really, why does it exist?

3. My weekends
Weekdays are easy. Weekdays have structure, they have purpose. Weekdays are when we are animals, doing what we are programmed to do - providing food. Weekends are when we get to be human, when we get to rise above our programming and do what we want to do (unless you are one of those who are providing for their food by doing what they want to do, in which case, bye, i dont want to talk to you).
There was a time when not having a structure to the weekend used to be enough. Not anymore. There was a time when entertainment used to be enough. Not anymore. So, what is it that i want to do, what makes me human? *shrug*

4. The adult inside of me
Inspite of fast approaching ages that need 6 bits to be expressed, i do things like taking a mug shot with the wafer on my birthday cake as the name plate. (Trust me, it sounds funnier than it looks. Its got me in profile, not something recommended for those of delicate composition). I regularly skip while getting down stairs. I got a Tintin DVD set as a birthday gift. I absolutely dont mind playing hide and seek with kids. And you better not get caught with me near a construction site with sand that can be jumped upon... All of which would have been fine, well, weird but fine, if i had also taken on some of the responsibilities of being an adult. No thank you, i say, when adulthood beckons with the promise of freedom. 9 cases out of 10, i am happy to be led. It is that one case, however, that might end up making an adult out of me.

We interrupt our regular broadcast of silence to bring to you a realization

2011-02-05T20:57:00.002+05:30

(Seriously. Its been so long my browser has forgotten the address of my blog.)

Remember the story of the rakshas who had his jaan in a tota? And how to get to the parrot you had to cross seven seas and climb seven mountains and break seven cages and stuff? Well, i realized today that if you put your jaan in a tota, you have no choice but to imprison the poor thing! You cant tell it to fly free and then worry yourself sick every time you hear, or dont hear, the flapping of wings. So think before you do any such thing. Its not fair on you, its not fair on the tota!

Road trip

2011-01-06T20:31:00.002+05:30

There is this bachcha in the office see, and i'd been eyeing his cycle for a while now. Today, during our customary post lunch walk, one thing led to another and by the time we were back on our floor, we had exchanged keys, him and I. I was to cycle my 11 kms, my bike would take him his 12. After which, he asked me 10 times if i was sure knew what i was doing. I asked him 15.
I left work "early" (it was already dark outside, so really, there was no point to the early), went to the parking lot and then realized i didnt know which cycle was his. I called up all people that were not him to see if anyone knew. I was advised to take whichever cycle opened with the key. The first one i tried opened and i was off! Some distance later, when i tried playing with the gears i saw that the gears were only one side of the bike. Now, i'll be the first to admit my memory has somewhat disintegrated with age, but i was reasonably sure the last time i was on his cycle, there were gears on both sides. I looked at the gearless handle to see if there was any way the gears could have fallen off. Finally, i stuffed by ego and called him up. He laughed, told me his was a Firefox, told me to hurry back in case the police were already there to solve the case of the missing cycle.
A swap later, i was off on the right bike. My dabba bag hanging on the handle and my "purse" twisted all around my neck so that i could get to my phone and change radio stations. 'Cause you know, what is a road trip without music?

Yeh jo des hai tera

By the time it ended i was on the main road and sorely missing the mirrors.

Rukumani rukumani...

It is Rehman's birthday today and all radio stations were going nuts. Which meant the songs would be okay. I came to the Symbiosys ~~hill~~ slope and almost died. Once on the other side, i couldnt believe the song i was hearing! On my bike, i would have sung along at the top of my voice but now, i did the best i could.

Tu ek resham puff dor pant
Teri chal damn ashiq pant uff
Teri zulf ghani

I crossed the big University signal and a bus crossed me. It was all downhill from there.

Ajj din chadheyaa

A little ahead, i crossed the bus.

Hamma hamma

The bus again! And it came to me, a flash of knowledge from a long forgotten era, there was a time when i knew what nuisances buses were, as surely as i knew the sky looked blue. What else had i lost to the years, it made me wonder.

Muquabala Muquabala

Seriously?? Picasso ki painting mera peecha pakad ke??

Aaha! Almost home.

Roo-ba-roo, Roshni.

Well, that wasnt so bad.

Chinnamma chillakamma

I'll stop with a story that song reminds me of. Long long ago, in a age when i used to go on trips, we were on one in Matheran. And my friend, in what i can now with confidence say was an attempt to flatter, called my other friend a chipkali (lizard). On investigation, it was discovered that he meant to call her a titly (butterfly). We spent a lot of the time on the slopes of Matheran (seriously, have you met a more boring hill station??) singing Chipkali daboch li maine. Eww. It seems to have worked however, since him and her are now happily married and leaving no continent untouched!

Its been a while

2010-12-28T20:02:00.003+05:30

And its the end of the year. Usually around this time i pop up to wax cynical. This year too, that was what i was going to do. But it is also the end of the decade! And that is special!

Because evolution gave us 10 fingers! Ha!

I dont know, maybe it is. When i look back at me in the year 2000, i see a little girl in a little college, very confident that she knew nothing anyone would pay her to do. Not just that one, i can now stand here and laugh indulgently at almost all of her fears and doubts and questions. Not because i am an over achiever, but because i was rather a dork back then. This doesnt mean that i am now doubtless, questionless or fearless. Its just that now I struggle with a different working set of doubts, fears and questions. What hasnt changed is my strategy of dealing with them - one learns to swim when pushed into water. At the end of the next decade, i hope i am laughing indulgently at me, and ready with the next working set!

And now onto some random.

I finally started on the Wheel of Time series. If i'd known the series is called WoT, i might have started it earlier. I'd bought the second book in the series more than a couple of years ago but hadnt touched it, waiting for the first one. The library to the rescue! Its a good book, even though it drags a bit. I also got to meet the tropes of epic fantasy writing - unlikely heroes, get separated, make long journeys where not much happens, ridiculous odds and the Dark Lord - sound familiar? Still, thoroughly enjoyable. I'm fondly fingering the second one now, wondering if my infatuation will carry me through its 600 odd pages.

I fell flat on the road. Carrying two bags and a laptop. For no reason at all.

My teeth have been aching for attention. They were the only part of my body that had withstood the ravages of age. Sigh. Each member of my family has their own dentist and so, i have 3 to pick from. Gah. I hate choices. I have picked the least convenient of them three.

I (well, we) made mocktails! At the mocktail making competition. As part of new year celebrations in the office. And won a consolation chocolate. And realized that i might actually enjoy organizing games more than playing them. The fact that we got disqualified in all the games it was possible to get disqualified in might have something to do with that realization.

Its idiotically cold, my city. The coldest it has been in 20 years, they say. On most days i still manage to get myself out by 6.30 and in the gym by 7. Except for my weekly bunk, which can fall on any day of the week, sometimes two. The gym, surprisingly, is not not boring. Yet. At the end, this one instructor asks us to hold our hands behind, bow down and thank the Almighty for giving you such a beautiful life. One of these days the Ennhh in my head is going to escape.

Edited to add: I donated to Wikipedia! Not much, the minimum only, didnt even come to a thousand. And felt like a hero! I inspired one other to donate, and felt like the hero's sidekick! I also caused another to pause and think about donating. I felt like the stranger in a movie who makes a random comment that changes everything!

I wasnt going to write about this, because like big phillum stars, i dont believe in talking about all the good in the world i do. But Wikipedia is still short of donations so i thought i should give it a shot. If like me, you usually read their message and move on, classifying it as Someone Elses Problem, do pause and consider. I dont think i know anyone who cant afford a thousand rupees. And i'm sure we all agree that the world would be a better place without Jimmy Wales face staring out of Wikipedia!

"I think" this will help

2010-11-14T17:38:00.003+05:30

in what you are trying so hard to feel - senti. Thats not why i'm saying it though. Ahem. Here goes.

People are leaving. I dont like it.

Talks

2010-11-10T22:25:00.003+05:30

I heard myself speak for the first time today. As part of a recording for a presentation that has been plagued by bad luck of epidemic proportions. I sounded like a child! Why no one has ever told me that, i dont know. With a tinge of Maharashtrian accent*, if anything. Very surreal, the whole hearing oneself speak thing. There was nothing at all in the recording to tell me that it was me speaking. A little bit like when you sometimes look into the mirror and dont recognize what you see.

Presentations. Sigh. I wonder if i'll ever get used to them. Takes me about 4 times the time it should take to prepare. Like Calvin here, it takes me an hour before i'm done griping. Then another hour of getting scared. Then i meander through the material, mostly keeping off the main road, getting lost in the lanes, some of which lead to other universes where the audience is very interested in some personal anecdote precariously connected to the presentation material. Finally, when its just about too late, i gather up whatever thoughts are closest and go talk.

The end result is not as bad as it used to be a long time ago, but its all magic to me, really, because i dont seem to have learnt anything about how to get there.

* Which doesnt mean much, other than the very obvious fact that i absorb the stuff around me. A few days ago, i invented a litmus test for determining the place you belong to. Famous people of whichever place make you feel a teeny bit more irrationally proud of their achievement than the rest, that is where you belong. If someone from Pune (or Maharashtra) achieves something - i feel nothing irrational, though i've lived here practically all my life. But talk about Rehman or Hariharan or V Anand or (you were waiting for Rajnikant, werent you? Ha!) and there it is! The feeling of a tiny bit of their glory being reflected off me.
Idiots from everywhere though, I treat the same.

2010-10-28T22:26:00.006+05:30

Zarin made me want to write, with this post of hers. She has taken really good care of the celebrations, what i'd like to get into is the treasure hunt part.
Long long ago when i was at Persistent, some people had organized a treasure hunt as one of the games in a week long celebration of something i dont remember. (Pooja? Harsh, if you ever wander here by mistake?). Though i sucked at it, i really liked the whole idea. So last year when we were to have our annual Diwali thing, i thought i could try that here. With Zarin and Mohsin getting involved, we pulled off a pretty good hunt, i think. Naturally, we repeated the exact same this year too. Minus Mohsin, either because he figured his demotivation (thats what he claims to be there for) was not motivating enough, or because it worked too well on him.

The game in short. There are teams. We give them one clue at a time. Each clue leads them to some place in the office building, where they find a chit of paper with a number written on it. They come and tell us the number and we give them the next clue. First team to get all the clues wins.

The unimaginably stupid thing we did last year essentially boiled down to this: We gave people chits with questions written on the front and answers written on the back! Yes. Fortunately, it wasnt that obvious. Only one team realized it half way through (and made full use of it).

The clues this time:

1.

The easiest (in hindsight. When we are coming up with the clues, we have NO idea how easy/tough/confusing it is going to be).

The Answer: The VoIP phone in the conference room on Alpha (the first floor). Thankfully we found an acceptable image for P :D

The story: We were hanging around in office late Tuesday, waiting for it to be deserted but that was not to be. So we took our chit to Kumar the office boy, no, the office man Friday and asked him to stick it in the conference room. He went in and then realized someone was actually using the conference room. He very casually picked up some random notebook and a tea cup lying on the table and stuck the chit under the table on his way out! The resourcefulness of that man, i tell you. Also, i went in to double check on the chit early Wednesday morning. He had hidden it so well, i couldnt find it!

2. बेहरा कौन

My favourite!

The answer: Oh you want a clue? Translate the first word.

Done?

Yup. Defcon!

The story: Not too many teams got this one without the clue. The best part was explaining the clue to this guy, who represents us at Defcon every year and whose desk the clue led to!

This is me helping some team get to the place:

Me: translate the first word
Some team member: Dumb?
Me: (wanting to him STM then remembering that when i'd originally made up the clue it was goonga kaun until Zarin saved me by correcting it) no no
STM: Mute?
Me: (shakes head)
STM: Deaf?
Me: Now join the two

It doesnt make any sense to STM. He gives up. But i dont.

Me: Come on. Just translate the first half.
STM: Beh? Beh?? Forget it, i'll talk to my team members.
Me: Noooooo dont go!

Yeah, when i set out to help help an old man cross the road, he is sure as hell going to cross the road.

3. Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, Hillary and Tensing, ???, Shantanu

The Answer: This person from our office who had biked to Leh Laddakh this year.

The story: Not much. Almost everyone got it. Shantanu, who had gone up to Everest base camp, was Zarin's brilliant addition (even though he had left much before she joined). It got the focus from space to our office.

4.

My second favourite, and the one that caused most confusion!

The Answer: No, not the second floor. The conference room where we hold all our Beta upgrades.

The story: Every chit has a number for our convenience only. Since this chit had just one symbol, the number (52) suddenly became very conspicuous. Everyone assumed it pointed to some location on the floor. My desk was ransacked because it was number 252. There was a tiny slip of paper on my desk with a 10 digit number written on it that people assumed must be the thing. I have no idea how it got there. No really. I only wish i was that devious. Others called up extension 52 which happened to belong to one of three people in office at that time who were at their desk. A laptop with asset number 52 was thoroughly dissected.

5.

The answer: Net inside the office i.e. the table tennis table.

The story: This was the first clue to get cracked. That team, despite repeated instructions to not disturb the chit, tore it off and got it along to proudly display to one and all. Of course we sent them back. After that, not too many people got it.

6. Denmark @ office

The one that no one got!

The answer: Clue? That place in office that keeps going under water. Yeah, the parking lot.

The story: At one point, 3 teams were stuck at this clue. Firstly, apparently, water is not the first thing people think of when you say Denmark. Its milk or chocolates or even people from the office who have recently been there. Oops. Secondly, there are three or four things that go under water. Thirdly, the chit in the parking lot was very well hidden.

Who knew i'd enjoy making people run around so much! If the 10 year younger me could have seen me that day, she would have simply stood in open mouthed amazement - I was telling an office full of people what they should be doing! She'd also be appalled at my inability to speak more than two sentences in English. If the 15 year younger me could have seen me though, she'd understand. She was used to hearding a society full of children into the chosen game of the day.

Turbulence

2010-10-24T20:51:00.002+05:30

This guy comes to town to launch his book. I'm undecided about whether or not to buy it. He reads out a passage. I end up buying two.

The book being marketed, Turbulence, is on display everywhere. I pick up a copy to get it signed. I'm wondering if i have to buy it first. According to the insides of my head, its a big loophole in their system - what if i get it scribbled on and then not buy it? Apparently they dont care. I loiter around him. He notices and asks if i'm waiting for... I nod and hand over the book. He writes my name and starts to draw something, possibly to give me time to say something. I focus my everything on the drawing, like i'd driven all the way across town to see him draw. He shows me the drawing and says - its a really bad cartoon of a superhero flying at you. I look at it. Yes, its really bad. It looks like a moose - is what i want to say. But i dont, because i dont trust those sentences to come out like that. Bad. Moose. is what i expect to manage. Instead, i giggle in what i hope is an intelligent manner, thank him and walk away.

This is what i would have liked to say if, you know, i had been less me. I love you books. I've read the first two in the GameWorld trilogy. I bought the third one a couple of years ago, but decided on a whim, to read it only when i'd steered my life out of this by-lane it was stuck in. Thank you for writing two more books and helping me cheat!

Here, have a biscuit

2010-10-14T20:29:00.003+05:30

It started out as comfortable silence. After all, we have known each other for 7 years now, this blog and I. However now, it threatens to become indicative something deeper. I'm beginning to question if there is anything i can say to you, blog, given that 90 percent of the people who know you also know me. Lest i go too deep into the question and find answers i dont like, let me tell you about my latest gym.

- Its pink. Yes.
- It doesnt have a treadmill.
- Just as i was about to get onto this one machine, the instructor asked me, finger on the ON switch, with urgency and abruptness and utter lack of context only justified if the fate of the world depended on my answer, if i was married.
- At the end of the workout, I was asked to thank the almighty for something i didnt quiet catch, but i suspect might be something more substantial than a good workout.
- The notices around the gym? Pink. One such notice says in soft pink tones that the management can and will break your bloody locker if you dont take you damn stuff out.

But, but. Its different. And that might just do the trick for me.

Plants versus Zombies

2010-09-27T21:15:00.002+05:30

Not really. Its books versus TV, but who writes trite titles like that? If i had to choose between a world that could have one or the other, books would win that war, hands down. But its the daily battles that they fight over my time that are more interesting and well, real. Broadband means unlimited TV (of course TV also means unlimited TV, but not as unlimited as Broadband does. What, there are different sizes of infinity, you know.) Landmark means unlimited books* And the winner is determined by a complicated algorithm that factors in, apart from what is to be watched or read, the following:
- how much of the weekend remains
- who is around to judge what i'm watching
- how much i need to feel better by watching miserably complicated lives of others
- how loudly was the little voice in my head telling me i wouldnt finish the book when i shushed it and bought the book anyway
- how much is it a book i would like to like. I'm shallow like that
- what time in the morning did the first cock crow

With the arrival of a library, books were clearly winning over the past month or so. But yesterday, all that changed. Yesterday, we started getting BBC entertainment. Yesterday, we switched on the TV randomly and there was Fawlty Towers going on. Bhai and i thought it had something to with the Pythons and John Cleese came on screen. We squeaked and my mom wondered why she had to have kids who got excited about a middle aged balding man with that moustache**. And i spotted the Vicar of Dibley while channel surfing. TV has hit back and how!

* Landmark unfortunately has gone to meaning squat. I went there when their sale was on, and bought nothing. Nothing. I spent more time and enthusiasm looking at stuffed toys for a "3 year old". I did go over to the science fiction section, but there was no spark. Sigh. The Library. It works swiftly and surely.

** See? There are some moustaches i remember.

To,

2010-09-20T22:10:00.003+05:30

To some September born: I am more sorry than i can ever tell you.

To other September born: Happy Birthday! I cannot tell you how much pleasure it gives me, seeing you get old!

To one i hope will be September born: I'm waiting!

To the government: Gimme my money. Dont make me fill forms for it. Please?

To the sutradhaar: Wake up!

To my bhai: Let me tell you how birthday gifts work. Your birthday, you ask, i get. NOT your birthday, you ask, i ask you to get, you forget, i set deadlines, they expire, i set new deadlines, they expire, we build a graveyard for the expired and the dead.

To my 12 year old nephew: No, i am not adding you to my professional contacts on LinkedIn.

To me: %$#^&@**#

To the man. who cried wolf

2010-09-15T21:42:00.002+05:30

The next time you decide to cry wolf because you thought you smelled something that vaguely resembled what your granny's cousin, who had seen a wolf once as a child, had imagined one would smell like, pause. Think. Can you see anything even remotely dog-like? Hear wolf sounds? See small animals running scared? Foot prints? I'm not asking for evidence admissible in a court of law here. Just enough to register an FIR will do.

I'm telling you this because there is no point in telling me to use my discretion. You know and I know that the second the cry escapes you, i will be there by your side, patting your hand and nodding my head and in general agreeing with you that that (immobile) sack of potatoes is indeed a big bad wolf.

Yes, another library

2010-09-05T19:53:00.003+05:30

Popped up, this time literally a stones throw away from my place. Its so close, and so inside my galli, i dont even have to dress up to go there! This one is in a little bamboo shed in the garden of a bungalow. Its run by the old-ish lady who presumably lives in the bungalow. We have a history, that bungalow and me. The previous owner had a dog with a split personality. It was the fiercest dog we ever knew, but she laughed at us for keeping our distance, insisting all the time that it was a fraaandly dog. Its been years since they moved out, but i still keep my distance. Which is probably why i didnt notice the little library before.

A bamboo shed in the garden, with plants all around, bean bags and a hammock outside, a bright cheerful light inside, books, books, books. Many of them look owned. Read. Loved. Popular fiction, Indian writing, Science, Science fiction, kids books - all the usual suspects. However, the collection is not usual. I see bestsellers sprinkled here and there. But I also see books that would not have made it to any list, that must have been handpicked by someone who knew what he/she was getting.

A friendly old lady who knows what she has. A man who pauses from talking about books to play the flute. A kid sprawled on a bean bag, nose deep inside an Astrix, oblivious to an Aunty who pretends to get offended because he has forgotten his manners and not greeted her.

I want to talk to her, tell her she has a great collection, ask her if all these books are hers, if she has read them all. I want to tell the man with the flute who said he'd just bought The Graveyard Book that he is going to love it. But i dont. One, because i'm me. And two, i'm not going to join her library. I've already joined a "big bad corporate one". At some level, i think i've cheated her. I slink out when she is busy trying to understand what the man with the flute is saying about bar-code readers.

I walk the ten steps to my home thinking i've finally found one snapshot of old age that doesnt scare the hell out of me. I'd like to be that old lady. I'd like to lie on the hammock while people come and lose themselves in my collection. Only, i dont know many people who can lose themselves in two shelves of chiefly science fiction.

New retirement plan - I need to diversify my assets!

Why growing up sucks

2010-08-31T20:43:00.003+05:30

The trouble with trying to be an adult, in getting your backside off your comfort zone and trying something new, is this. Once you are done, you still want to rush to mummy and show her your drawing. You still want her to look at the box and two lines you have drawn and tell you its the best damn horse in the world. You want your efforts appreciated, even though you know, and she knows, and she knows that you know, that by this time you should be drawing horses that look ready to jump off the page.

OMG!

2010-08-25T20:46:00.000+05:30

OMG! OMG!
Please bear with me! I think it'll be a while before i can stop talking in exclamation marks!
I just joined a library!
What do you mean, that doesnt deserve such excitement!
Do you have any idea how that changes my life!

You know the truckloads of pressure you are under, when every book you want to read, you have to buy? You cant just pick stuff up on a whim. The depleting bank balance, the filling up shelves, you are answerable for it all! I feel terribly guilty for the 10 percent books that i have bought and am almost certainly not going to read. I fear they will go through life with abandonment issues, all because i didnt know what i wanted.

But now? I can pick up stuff without any consequences whatsoever! Except for loss of time, but who cares about that! I can read crap! My dad can read crap! For 200 a month! Eeeeeeee! The remaining exclamation marks and the accompanying words will come with bullet points.

They have a pretty good YA section! Percy Jackson! Artemis Fowl! Phillip Pullman! All stuff i want to read but dont want to buy!
They have the Wizard of Earthsea! This is one of those books i cant not read, even though i am unlikely to like it much. (So what if i bought and read it and didnt much like it about a month ago. I'll never have to do that again!)
They have the first book in The Wheel of Time series! For some reason, i bought the second one first and there it lay. In the "unlikely to read' pile. Until today!
They have all P.G. Wodehouse (not that i mind buying those) and all Terry Pratchett! (i've already bought most of those, also i dont know what they were doing in the pre-teen section).
They have 18 branches or something in Bangalore! Dont ask me why i care!
I'm hoping the library will help me come out of my comfort zone. Try something other than SFF.

There. I think the exclamations have gone. To all those friends of mine sitting in Europe and showing off their public libraries, Ha! I now have a private one.

Landmark, my love, looks like you might finally have some competition. Also, looks like i might be able to keep my hands off the second season of 24 after all.

24, one season later

2010-08-21T23:20:00.003+05:30

When write my own TV series no, i promise not to

1. Make it 45 minutes long. Its an entry barrier for people starting late and wanting to catch up. I also double promise not to take Anil Kapoor in it.

2. Have dialogs like this:

Hero: Do blah.
Any Other Character: I cant, because of these perfectly legitimate reasons.
Hero: DO BLAH.
The Same Other Character: Fine.

3. Kill people off randomly. Hell, i'll probably not kill people at all. There can be so much drama in life, why bring death into it at all?

4. Make the hero dig a deeper and deeper hole for himself and then when i get bored, pop him out clean through the other end of Earth.

5. Make the audience feel manipulated.

Which is probably why no one will watch my series. Which is a good thing, i sometimes think, when i imagine the humongous number of man hours spent watching stuff on Television. I'm going to try and stay off Season 2, but September end is so farfaraway, i dont know how i'll survive.

For the very first time in my life

2010-08-21T22:21:00.002+05:30

I made maggi today. Fine. You can pick up your jaw from the ground now. Despite the very many years i have spent on this earth, its not really all that surprising given that i have never, as my mom pointed out, had to cook for myself. Home or hostel. Food has generally been SEP. It wasnt bad, the maggi, although it turned out looking more like something made out of little cylindrical tubes of rava. In my newbie enthusiasm i broke the maggi into tiny little pieces, not one of which were of slurp-able length. Aah, one lives and learns.
One has also stooped down to blogging about what one had for lunch. As long as one has come this far, one might as well register one's grievance against the content on the maggi packet.

What the hell were you thinking, Dear Sir/Madam,* when you printed on the back of the packet, not instructions on how to cook whats inside, but long touching stories on how a 5 year old made maggi on his ownsome lonesome for his Mom's birthday? Did no good, I'm telling you, not to the dish i ended up making, and definitely not to my ego!

* Dont you wish all letters could start like this?

A (short?) story

2010-08-19T23:25:00.002+05:30

John Scalzi had this fanfic contest a few months ago. I sent in an entry, just like that. Now that the results are out and i didnt win (sniff, sob, bawl and all), i thought i should put it up here. Apart from the obvious reasons, this is also because stuff i've written that is not on the blog tends to get lost. In defunct mailboxes and sites that have since disappeared and machines that have been formatted. (Okay, so its happened once, but if i dont learn from my mistakes whats the point in making them?)

So, yes. I am telling you this post is more for storage purpose. You are welcome to go through my basement, but you are also welcome to not. So many disclaimers because, umm, it is rather long. Also, it doesnt have a title.

Has the Outside always been so pretty, John wondered as he lay lazily on a chair made for just that. He’d been trapped for weeks in the Inside of some "top secret project he cant tell you about". Today he had finally come out of it and decided to spend the day reacquainting himself with this world he inhabited. It had started well. The Sun and the blue sky he had taken in without much of a shock to his system. He’d then moved on to trees. He didn’t look particularly happy about their existence now. He couldn’t believe how lucky they were, being able to make food simply by standing in the sun. Why evolution had to give up that line of research to take on one that led to his 10 fingers with opposable thumbs he’d never understood. Hunger had been gnawing at his insides for over an hour but there was no way he could get himself out of his chair. And all those trees showing off were not really helping.

Wil looked under the bed for the three hundredth time. Nothing. Does anyone have such a clean under-bed anymore, he wondered sourly. He almost wanted a monster to be under it, with his script in its dirty yet non-salivating jaws. Because then he’d have something to do, an enemy to fight, a script to rescue, and in the end, a rehearsal to go prepared to, happily ever after. Now, all he could do was look at empty under-beds. Sure, yesterday’s gaming had been pretty wild, but he couldn’t believe the script, the script for tomorrow’s rehearsal, the script without which he’d just have to go there and be a pretty face, that script had been involved. He could imagine the producer’s icy tone. What is that you say? A big bird came and took your script? You could have respected us enough to make up something more imaginative. A crawling horse, a flying kitten, something? Yes, he had to find something.

And as it usually happens, when the right thing to do is not the fun thing to do, people run away to the land of excuses. The place where all excuses come from, brought to life by human need. To do something they shouldn’t. To get out of something. To beat common sense and responsibility and convention and accepted wisdom. To be. To not to be. Stock excuses, now those are easy. Most people can get them off the top of their head. Bad traffic, my alarm didn’t go off, the wife says no. It’s the creative excuses, handcrafted to fit your situation and none else that need to be worked on. For those you need to go deep into the land, finding little pieces that fit the big picture in your head, shaving this, sawing that, refining the big picture all the time till you end up with a piece of art. Art, now that is not formed by fitting lego blocks as per instructions. In the land, you will not find pieces that fit together. If that is what you want, the stock excuses department is that way, have a good day. But if you look at a piece hard enough, you can turn it into what you need. It is a dying art, this, one only people with some imagination and whimsy continue to practise.

John roamed the lands, his hunger forgotten in the excitement of all that was possible here. Strange things were all around him and he was having fun trying to see how each might work as an excuse. There were trees here too, but they didn’t look like they were taunting, they looked to be showing him possibilities. Somewhere in the murky recesses of John’s brain, an idea was born. It wasn’t even fully formed yet, and already he could see it had taken control and was changing him. He stood still, scared, not in a bad way but in an oh-my-god-is-this-really-happening-what-does-it-mean-i-haven't-even-thought-it-through-but-how-cool kind of way. He let a few minutes pass before he looked at his hands. Yes. Green. Chlorophyll-ed. He went and stood out in the sun. Food.

Wil closely examined the broken finger. Not his. He was fascinated by everything around him. He took in one thing at a time, sure that the whole picture would overwhelm him. Done with the finger, he looked around and saw the clown sweater. His clown sweater. His INFAMOUS clown sweater. He put it on. And smiled. The world seemed familiar again.

Wil then moved on to larger objects He found a Superman Cape hanging on a tree and put it on. It went really well with his clown sweater. He jumped from trees and ran really fast and in general was the Superman Wil aged ten would have been. Which is when he saw a pair of eyes looking at him from within a clump of bushes. "Here, here, come out," he tried. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if just a pair of eyes came out. The eyes stayed. He took his cape off and waved it around like a Matador. The eyes pounced.

It was on him, whatever it was. Cat? Wings?? Horn??? Start again, his brain said. And this time, no naming body parts. A cat. No, call it kitty, sounds cute and fuzzy and not at all like an evolution defying creature put together by hand. So, a kitty. And at the back... Pegasus. And that from a Unicorn. Recapitulate. Kitty. Pegasus. Unicorn. Kitty. Pegasus. Unicorn. Kitty... PuTTY! "Here PuTTY, here PuTTY". PuTTY, in the meantime, had been mooning over the clown in his sweater, purring and making other happy kitty noises.

It was the kitty John saw first. He was already smiling when he saw the clown on the sweater. He knew there was only one way that sweater could end.

"Hi Wil," he said, without looking up.

Eh?

Well, Wil didn't actually say Eh. But his face did. It rearranged itself into an Eh?

"It’s John." Eh? "Scalzi." Eh? "Velvet Wesley Crusher." Ah!

"John! What are you doing here? Did you see my kitty? Isn't it just the most amazing thing? Look at those magnificent wings. And horn! I'm calling it PuTTY...," Wil prattled on.

‘PuTTY’ was sitting on all fours, looking into the clown's eyes. John reached Wil and raised his hand for a high-five. Next thing he knew, the magnificent wings had come down and scooped Wil up in one graceful motion.

Wil was now sitting on PuTTY, face rearranged to spell EH???

"I come in peace," said John, lifting both his hands up.

"Green Peace!," exclaimed Wil and went back to an Eh?

John tried using his experience with cats to make friends with PuTTY. Granted, PuTTY wasnt exactly a cat, but 60 percent of it was, he knew nothing about horses and he had to start somewhere. John gathered some catnip leaves from nearby and gave them to PuTTY. PuTTY responded, which made Wil calm down a little. His brain finally got around to processing the message his eyes had been sending him for a while now.

"Umm.. John?"

"Yeah?" said John, who couldn’t take his eyes off PuTTY.

"You are green."

"Yeah," said John distractedly.

"Not exactly your colour, you know?," Wil tried again.

"Look," John said getting irritated. "Its about a little more than looking pretty, okay? Here, let me show you," he said and walked towards a patch of sunlight. "Thats all i have to do for food. For the rest of my life. Stand. Chlorophyll-me up, baby! Millions of years ago, two roads diverged in the woods that day," he thundered, "and today they meet in me."

"ZOMG! They will have to create a whole new position for you in the food chain! Wait, will it still be a chain? Cycle! Tree?" Wil wondered, as the implications of what he was seeing hit him. "John?"

"Something’s wrong," growled John. "I don’t feel full." "Ears," squeaked Wil. John felt them and realized they had grown. Pointy. Lumps were sprouting all over his body. "Greenskin," he croaked, before falling over in pain. This tended to happen with improbable excuses. They decayed to the nearest stable state - something that required minimum suspension of disbelief.

Wil’s brain had had enough. Had too much, in fact. So it decided to forget what it knew and start from scratch. Take what it could see as given and work from there. So, John was turning into an Orc. Okay. What do i know about Orcs? Oooh, what do i not know! Here was familiar ground. Here was where the What kind of a Orc are You quiz he’d scribbled on the back of his script would save lives. Orcs came in all shapes and sizes and most importantly, attitudes. Dealing with them depended entirely on which mythology they subscribed to.

"John? Are you in there? Listen! I’m going to get you out of this. Joooohn!" he screamed, as John (or Orc?) got up with a roar that startled PuTTY who jumped and up went Wil. John had made considerable progress towards Orcdom and had acquired an armour, a spear and the above mentioned roar. Orc was marching towards him slowly, fighting with John for each step. Wil shouted out his first question. "Would you like to eat me?"

John knew his share in John/Orc was shrinking. The power of Orc was overwhelming; all he wanted to was to give in. Focus, he told himself. Focus on something that’ll remind you that you are human, that there is good in you. He saw the horn on PuTTY. Thats it! What was better than a Unicorn horn to remind you of being noble and good? Orc meanwhile had reached a very similar conclusion for very different reasons. John and Orc march as one.

Wil noticed the increase in speed. "JOHN," he yelled out. PuTTY meanwhile had prepared itself for battle. And also, apparently, him. Wil found himself with a spear in his hands. Desperate, Wil yelled out his second question. "Whats you favourite colour?"

John/Orc had almost reached PuTTY. Already, John felt clearer, more focused. All i need is that horn, he thought. PuTTY had given up all pretensions of being a soft kitty. It hissed and spat. Its eyes shone with a manic glow. John/Orc charged. Kitty sprang. Wil aimed his spear at the Orc’s arm and yelled out his third question. "Does this hurt?"

Somewhere, a Volcano let go.

Wil opened an eye. Nothing green or dead. Encouraged, he opened another. He saw the ground rushing beneath him. Realized he was still on PuTTY but no longer trapped by its wings. He let go. Fell off PuTTY and rolled harmlessly into a clump of grass. Opened eyes. One. Two. Saw John/Orc standing over him. Screamed and ran. Or tried to.

"Stop," said John. John. Not John/Orc. John.

Wil turned back. John. Not green. Close. Open. Still John. Not green. Breathed.

"What happened?" he asked. "Looks like PuTTY found another toy at just the right second," said John, nodding in the direction of the volcano. And there it was, flying just above the lava, dipping its horn in it, making pretty designs and in general back to being a kitty. "And you?" "I managed to hold on to PuTTY’s horn for a second before it got distracted by the volcano," said John. "Turns out that was enough." The two friends slapped each other on the back, did a little jig and left. They didn’t say good bye to the land. They’d be back. They’d been there before.

John was full. Hell, if he had been an Orc... okay, too early for Orc jokes. Wil had fed him till he was ready to burst. Wil cleared his throat. John knew what was coming.

"Yes, Wil?"

"Will you be my excuse for tomorrow’s rehearsal?"

Virtual reality

2010-08-14T17:58:00.003+05:30

It is a cloudy weekday afternoon. The kind you've always wished you could spend sprawled on a bed with a book, a coffee and some conversation.
"I'm feeling sleepy," i tell him.
"Welcome to the club. I am its President," he says.
We fight over that a little, then go on to wonder if there is any way we could sell our sleep to all those insomniacs and old people out there who dont have any. Donate even. It smacks of communism, i think he likes it.

"Have you heard Pee Loon?" i ask him. He lives under a rock as far as Bollywood is concerned, and i am his dealer of new hindi songs. He comes looking for a fix once in a while when he is completely out of stock, and i'm usually able to supply. "Not today," he says. He is on some weird Kumar Shanu and Abhijeet trip and is not in the mood for anything else. Which i might have otherwise let go, but he has just said no to Mohit Chauhan. I'm offended and i let him know.

He is stirred enough to defend his choice. "Romantic songs of the 90's, it doesnt get better than Kumar Shanu". I tell him to sleep it off. I cant really fight because i dont remember a single K.S number. "Let me help you out," he says, realizing this. "Badalon mein chup raha hai chand kyon". Damn. He doesnt kid around, this one, he has started with the big guns. "Der se hua par pyaar to hua re". I shrug, i havent heard. "Ek din aap you humko mil jayenge". He scores. "Tum Mile, dil khile". "Aye kaash ki hum hosh mein ab". I'm down and out.

After some silence filled with his gloating he asks casually, "So, what were you saying about Mocho?"

And then for a while i hear nothing but the sound of several pieces falling into place. At the end of which i'm embarrassed, sure, but i'm also in a happy place in the distant past. We had this senior in college whom everyone called Mocho. A quiet fellow, what little i saw of him, but any time he made an entrance, people stopped what they were doing to greet him with an "Arre Mocho". I never figured out why, but they all seemed really happy to see him. And thats where i was, in college, one of my happy places, probably my happiest. I wonder how i never asked why they called him that. Mocho. Its such an awesome nickname. I want my Mohit Chauhan to have it.

"Let me help you out some more," he says. "Ek meetha marz dene aana tum kabhi". This is ridiculous. Mocho has sung songs i dont know about?? "Its in Welcome to Sajjanpur," he says smugly into my silence. "You must have heard Guncha", he says. I shake my head. "Are you going to keep shaking your head till i come to Masakali," he asks finally. It is then that i realize that that is exactly and entirely my big war plan. I cant think of a single Mocho song other than that. I dig deep and come up with "Pehli baar mohabbat ki hai". And then i submit "Pee Loon" in case he'd forgotten.

By this time he has lost interest in the fight. For all practical purposes, he is fighting from both sides. He decides to get personal. Its good strategy. It'll either make the fight interesting or put an end to it. "What lyrics. Pee Loon. Aisa lagta hai nasha karke aaya hai". Thats it. "Download the song. Listen to it. You can then apologize to me," i say and walk away.

He apologizes later. The song has spoken louder than words. Mocho has won.

A few points:

1. Does the fact that this conversation took place over chat, with me sitting in my office in Pune and Monu in his department in Kharagpur make it any less real? (Other than the communist inclinations i imposed on him. Those are entirely my imagination). Chats are my primary (and for the most part only) medium of social interaction these days, and in spite of all its limitations i'll be damned if i let anyone tell me its anything less than face to face talk. Different, sure. But not real? No way.

2. I hope this post has put an end to all the (very valid) cribs about my being cryptic.

3. I also hope none of my seniors read this. After 5 years of no interaction preceded by a year of strictly necessary interaction, it'd be damn weird if they saw themselves featured in my happy place.

4. Monu's insistence on putting an h in Kumar Sanu's name reminded me of Pronoy Roy. He was once interviewing Amartya Sen and insisted on pronouncing his name as Omartyo. Which irritated me immensely! I wished Amartya Sen would stop answering his questions and tell him - "I dont know whom you are talking to. That sure as hell isnt my name!". Stupid, i know, but there it is.

Expectations

2010-08-09T22:49:00.000+05:30

I rejoiced when your ideals tumbled
From the impossibly high ledge you'd placed them on
Your expectations of people would fall with them, i figured
And help me rise in your eyes

But you held on to them, expectations
Like nature, you abhorred vacuum
So every time an ideal fell
I was to rush to take his place instead

Monsters Inc

2010-08-06T21:25:00.003+05:30

She'd seen it just once, the monster in the cupboard, but it had been enough. She'd kept away. It hadn't been easy. A cupboard was precious, it was supposed to contain bits of your life, neatly arranged. This one not only ate up the space on its inside, but also a healthy bit of the outside. Bits of her life lay scattered in her room, with nothing to be found when she went looking for it.

Finally, after a lot of time and life and negative space and dreams of courage and victory, she decided it was enough. Yes, monsters were huge scary things that devoured, but if that was how it had to be, at least she wouldn't have to clean up this mess. And if not, well, she had the cupboard for life!

As she stood with trembling fingers on the cupboard handle, she realized that life had once again played one of its little jokes. She'd actually be disappointed if there was no monster.

And with that

2010-08-03T22:01:00.002+05:30

Status quo has left the building.

Naan ITR Kadavul

2010-07-28T22:27:00.002+05:30

(translates to: Me the Income Tax Returns God)

Did it myself this year too. They make it more and more saral each year, really. Let me give you the highlights of this year's journey, which, if all goes well, will end tomorrow at the IT office.

1. Filled the form for the wrong assessment year. Which, in the 6th year of doing your taxes yourself, one should not make mistakes about.

2. Paid tax on bank interest
- added quarterly interests incorrectly (yes, used a calculator) AND
- filled the wrong challan AND
- for the wrong assessment year
Ended up paying more tax than necessary.

3. Wrote an application requesting the assessing officer to correct the assessment year. Dad dictated. I typed. Saved it in notepad. With the name "stupidity". Printed it. The application now has the word "stupidity" at the place traditionally reserved for the pilliyar shuzi (i.e. in the top center)

4. Dad and I got bhai to fill the ITR form. For the wrong assessment year. He was so exhausted by the end of it, i dont think he is filing returns again. Ever. Today dad brings up the point that he may not exactly be an employee.

5. Assess became the word i have most frequently typed/written over the past couple of days. Even more than semi-colon, which is probably not a word anyway? And every time i write that word, the first 3 letters stand out in bold and do a little dance.

Who says Gods dont make mistakes.

P.S. Next year the plan is to have a home loan. Whether i have a home or not. I have heard ITRs get terribly complicated if home loans are involved. So my ego will shut up and let me dump the whole thing on an agent.

Profundity

2010-07-27T22:07:00.001+05:30

A pen found its way to the desk next to mine. No one calls it their home, the desk next to mine, but people often drop in on it, for work more than pleasure. So when i found the pen there, there wasnt one person i could trace it back to. I asked the most probable suspects, none of them owned up to the pen. I've always wanted to stand t my desk, and yell something out to the whole floor. So machchi market like it'd be! I didnt. Instead, i moved the pen to my desk. Where it lay (and still lays, this one has a happy ending. Or maybe, picture abhi baaki hai.) and occasionally was of use to me.

Now, if you've worked in a software company, you'll be wondering how i can recollect a pen. One pen is pretty much same as the other, and while finding an unexpected pen is always a pleasure, it never sticks around long enough for you to get to know it better. There is almost no place at the workplace where it cant get lost. Desk, conf room, coffee machine, drawer, loo... So, why?

This pen was different. Heavy. Metallic gold, with silver engravings. A _personal_ pen.

Pens do not stay secret for long. If you have one, people around you will come to know of it. And so, this pen too started getting borrowed. What was special about it though, was that it also came back. With startling regularity. Even when i gave it to people saying - i dont know whose it is. After 4-5 such excursions, a theory begun to form in my mind.

What if, this pen's looks are responsible for its coming back? It doesnt look like a typical office pen, so a) people remember who they took it from and b) they feel obliged to return it. It helps, i thought, that it looks expensive. (Only much later did i spy the Pierre Cardin written on it). The pen, its been on more than 15 outings now, and each time, its come back.

If i were a person with that bend of mind, i would write about how 3 such "special" pens could serve a whole floor much more efficiently than regular pens for each person and then maybe come up with a deeper economic theory. But i'm not. So i will simply say this. I might as well have found a cure for common cold.

Bang bang bang

2010-07-19T21:03:00.002+05:30

If i had a fully loaded gun, all 6 rounds at my disposal, here's what i'd shoot. After, of course, a long winded speech describing the how, the why and dazzle all with the sheer genius-ness of my evil.

1. My leg

For disrespecting the powers of Vitamin D. For being the most high-maintenance part of my life. For the dull pain that makes me want to pull it out and throw it at people with good intentions.

2. Good intentions

Gah. Enough already! No no, i'm not talking about your good intentions, your good intentions are all good. But in general, they are choking me.

3. My head

For accommodating only two types of computational machinery.

Boolean circuits - hard-coded sections of my brain that give an instantaneous answer to a set of inputs, no feedback, no adaptation possible.

Infinite loops - that consume a lot of brain power but generate no answer.

The Universal Turing Machine would be so glad with my head. The halting problem, at least this once, will be no problem. (Ok fine. Just a joke. Laugh. Dont punch holes in my theory)

Not so long winded after all. Guess the movies have taught me something after all. Now, Looks like i've only managed to find 3 things to shoot at. I'm going to use two bullets on each, just to be sure.

And then i shall become fully headless langdi, and haunt the men's bathroom. Or the women's. How would i ever know.

You change my world

2010-07-03T18:59:00.000+05:30

So you find yourself on this planet, see, with this life, and no one tells you why or what. There is you and there is this world and there is all this time, and you have to figure out how best to fill it up. Most people find something or someone of interest to them. They read, paint, draw (which, if recent discussions are to be believed, is not the same as painting), listen to music, watch sports, television, hell maybe even like their job. These are people with read-only access to the world.

Then there is that minority with read-write access. People who change the world, and by change i dont necessarily mean they discover laws of physics or be mass murderers. But simply, people who make the world more interesting for everyone else.

For no particular reason, i'd like to thank some of the people with read-write access to my world. Not at a personal level, you understand, more the sort of people you'd play the 20 questions game about.

In no particular order:

Simon Singh. For opening me up to non-fiction
Richard Dawkins. For making evolution so damn interesting
Joss Whedon - for firefly. And the image of a lone guy losing to evil studio bosses. But living for ever. Maybe because of that defeat.
Aaron Sorkin. For Studio 60, for a few good men, for the characters, for the writing.
Friends. For making them real people.
xkcd - for making me feel 'in" on an insider joke
Bill Waterson. For Calvin. And Hobbes.
Before Sunrise. For inspired execution of a simple idea.
Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, P.G. Wodehouse. For making me laugh.
ARR - For Aditi.
Chuck Lorre - for The Big Bang Theory, but more for his vanity cards.
Tintin
Batman, Superman. For showing that struggles give meaning to victory
Javed Akhtar - for his words. And his kids ;-)
JK Rowling. For the world that lies beyond platform 9 and 3 quarters.
The Irish accent. I dont know who i have to thank for this!

Some observations on my list:
- Where are the Indians? And the women??
- And the complete absence of people who have anything to do with CS, now what does that tell you? That CS needs heroes :P
- People who make me laugh are more likely to be up there than people who make me think.
- Fiction writers strangely dont find much representation. Maybe because while collectively they more or less form the basis of my existence, there is no one writer who i can pick.
- It might seem bit strange to see TV series up there. But these are not merely ones i like. I'm glad they exist in the word i exist.
- It is very likely that a few years down the road i'll look at this list and be embarrassed by some of the names i put in there. A few years ago, i might have put in Ayn Rand, Meg Ryan, Robert Ludlum, Cho (but after Enge Brahamanan, no way) but now you wouldnt catch me dead doing that. No Sir. Or Madam.

Anyone interested in taking this up as a tag? I'd love to know!

P.S. I have almost concluded that i am incapable of writing what i set out to write about. No, really. This post started out by being about how much not being able to remember things sucks. It makes the world less interesting that it could be.

I may be telling me to shut up

2010-06-30T22:47:00.004+05:30

Pretty sentences get in the way of what i want to say. Sure, they make for great arm candy and impress people sometimes (myself included) but is that what I want a sentence for?

Well, yes.

Maybe until i learn to get pretty things to say what i want, i should say nothing at all.

Retail therapy

2010-06-20T20:59:00.003+05:30

I am, as of today evening, an increasingly indifferent owner of a netbook. The whole process of ownership, from inception to execution, took less than 24 hours. Rather like that Solomon Grundy rhyme.

Vinaya's netbook
Conceived on Saturday
Late night. Over a chat conversation. When her official laptop got wet in the rain and drowned. Or should have. The keyboard developed a high sense of whimsy. The wireless wouldnt work.

Discussed on Sunday
Morning. You know how Sunday mornings are. You want it to be different but it rarely is. All the possibilities that could make it different are bought out of the cupboard, discussed and then safely stored for next Sunday. Like radical changes to room arrangements, big purchases of interesting but essentially unessential things, food from outside.

Googled on Sunday
Prefternoon. On the old one with the whimsical keyboard. Which ups the whimsy. Which makes me take the whole plan more seriously.

Checked out on Sunday
Afternoon. In shops across town. None of which have any of the models the Internet recommends. Seriously. Is this an alternate universe we live in, or merely an older version?

Regoogled on Sunday
Prevening. This time for models we do have in our universe. Fortunately, none of them the Internet spits on.

Bought on Sunday
Evening. On the last day in the life of that shop, so we get a discount. The salesman asks me， do you want it initialized. I say no, thanks. He says Are。You。Sure。Which of course raises all sorts of doubts in my head. (i know, i know). What do you mean by initialization, i ask him. He vaguely mutters about stuff their "engineers" do when the laptop is booted for the first time and takes me to one. Who then proceeds to set the time zone and enter the user name. I want to break my head. But wait, there is more "initialization" where he says no to the anti virus. Right. Extremely important, that.

Blogged on Sunday.
Night. So far so good.

Not long ago

2010-06-05T20:25:00.001+05:30

in a city not at all far away, there lived a girl. There was this bunch of stuff she was supposed to do. You know how it is with stuff you are supposed to do. If it is in your way, you step around it. If it grows so big that it becomes impossible for you to step around, why, you sit where you are, lean your back against it and enjoy the view.

One day the stuff she was supposed to do was being a very persistent nagger. It wouldnt let her rest, no matter how much she tried to ignore it. Fed up, she decided to go looking for excuses.

She crossed mountains
she swam seas.
She fought dragons
and got stung by bees.

Finally she found one. And what a good looking excuse it was! Strong and sturdy. No loopholes, whichever side it looked at it. She bought the excuse home. The stuff she was supposed to do was waiting for her, having grown stronger from all that neglect.

She walked in
her head held high.
Leaned on the excuse,
and looked the stuff in the eye.

The stuff gave up. For the time being. It knew however, that as long as she was willing to go through all that just to look for an excuse, it was safe. Its only when she really started to look at the stuff that it had to worry.

She and the excuse went on to live. Not too happily. Not at all for ever after.

(P.S. Thats the second time its happened. One sentence inspires a post and at the end, that sentence is nowhere in the post! This one was to be about her finding an excuse and them living happily ever after and making little baby excuses.)

Astronomy (heaven and hell are covered under that, arent they?)

2010-05-23T21:14:00.003+05:30

Bhai wakes up six-ish everyday and rushes to the gym. I get to sleep in, most days till after he gets back.

Hmm. I hope the sun has caught up and now rises from the west.

Hmm. If the sun did rise from the west, it'd mean the earth would be rotating the other way? And if that were to happen, would we get to see the dark side of the moon? Or does the earth influence the rotation of the moon too. Damn you Arthur C Clarke for making Space a real thing and our Solar System the place i would most like to go on a holiday to. You know, rent an asteroid, ride a comet. Visit the Jovian moons, Europa especially. What a pretty name.

Hmm. What happens when you damn dead people? Do they get demoted to hell if they've accumulated a certain number of damns? Or are the account books closed once they reach the gates. If they are already in hell, are they fried in oil rich in all the bad fats?

Hmm.

Shit Happens

2010-05-12T22:00:00.002+05:30

Yeah. Everyone knows that. Which is why we have been passed on well developed techniques for dealing with it. God moves in mysterious ways, poorva janma karma, every thing happens for the best - whatever be your cup of irrationality. Its supposed to help you accept shit and move on. Not mope around wondering - why me? Why did i miss that step? Why was the exam so hard just this year? Why did that bird have to fly over my head just then?

But, leaving aside shit that is generated by the randomness that is this universe, there is shit that happens to you for a reason. I dont mean The Alchemist type reasons, the universe is trying to send you a message crap, i ~~hated~~ intensely disliked that book. The day i find myself quoting non-sarcastically from it will be the day that i die. Ahem. Coming back. Shit that happens to you because you did something or said something or should have done something. Shit that you can somehow link back to you. Shit that you can and should learn from.

Sometimes i find myself in such a hurry to move on that i fail to differentiate between random shit and causal shit. I rationalize, i look for excuses, i find them, i move on. Once i've convinced myself there is nothing i could have done, its all pretty simple. A shrug and its done.

And now, because i've just realized that this is exactly what the Serenity Prayer says, and says much better, i paste it here.

God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Vitamin Girl!

2010-05-07T22:57:00.003+05:30

Its Friday evening. I write this flopped over a bed. Its raining outside, the wind strong enough to bring trees to their knees. The view from the window is nothing special, leaves from some random plant growing in the no-mans-land between our house and our neighbour's, whitewashed walls of a building in the background. But balance that against the fact that i'm home early enough to be able to look out of the window and see, the fact that the rains have spoken against a nasty summer, and the wind, oh the wind... kill me. Kill me now.

No? Okay. You've had your chance. I will now proceed to unleash upon your creation what, if you take out all the crap, will amount to me complaining about the state of my insides. Without having lived to an age that makes such behaviour tolerable.

No, sorry. Its too late now. I hope you've learnt not to waste your chances.

So this pain. If you'd ask me to tell you where exactly it pains, like any half intelligent person i've cornered to talk about my pain would, the best i could tell you until a few days ago was - lower left. It started somewhere in the lower left region and on days, went on all the way to the sole of my foot. Why it got tired of living such a scattered existence and developed a stronger sense of self, we may never know. What we do know however, is that a few days ago, after more than a month of vaguely wandering about, it focused its entire existence on a very specific part of the lower left. Thus giving me the confidence needed to go see a doctor.

Picking a doctor, ah, that was no easy task, given the fact that i've left my mark on every major ortho hospital in the city. Dad suggested i use the most recently used algorithm, which coincidentally threw up a doctor who minimized effort on my part while maintaining confidence-inspirability on his. Off i went.

He asked me to to lie down and wiggle my toes and touch them with my hands and stand on one foot and on another and bent my arms and legs but didnt get anywhere close to specific part, c/o lower left. All the time keeping up with a stream of medical jargon that, in spite of all the medical TV series i consume, i initially thought was directed at me. He finally explained the whole thing to me but by that time i'd zoned out. I heard "fitness condition blah bleh nerves blah vitamin deficiency blah blah blah blood test". Okay, sure. All i expect from a visit to the doctor is a cure. I'm fine not knowing anything else.

I came down to blood testing and i kid you not, they charged me 3K for it! Bloody Vitamin deficiency! Plus, one of the vitamins i was suspected to be deficient in was Vitamin D. I might as well have gone and stood out in the sun. The tests came back and what do you know, it was Vitamin D. Ridiculously low. If i hadnt been such a good kid at school and lets fact it, my mom handnt been teacher in the same school then the teachers would have asked me to stand out in the sun and none of this would have happened. No long term planning, i tell you.

At the end of the exercise, i now have:

1. a month's supply of Vitamin D tablets. Small, peach in colour and sweet. Much confidence that is supposed to inspire, leave alone build up bone strength!

2. weekly dose of vitamin D in sachet, to be drunk with milk. Milk? Who drinks milk anymore?

3. A prescription to include sunlight in my diet, between 11a.m. and 1 p.m. only. I've been imagining myself as multi-Vitamin girl ever since i heard vitamin deficiency, my super power coming from vitamin supplements. But this is even better! Now, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., all i have to go is go out in the sun and i become Vitamin Girl! Saving the universe from destruction, from 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. only. The rest of the time the universe has to look after itself.

4. A blog post

Its day 1. I already feel better.

P.S. Do sunscreens come in the way of absorption of Vitamin D i wonder. Or are their screens intelligent enough to only block out the UV?

Is cross

2010-04-30T22:04:00.002+05:30

With herself. With how almost every aspect of life seems to have led to some bridge to be crossed. And with how she seems to have settled down on this end of the bridge. Built a house there, furnished it, has regular guests over. Even the postal department knows she lives at this end of the bridge. How she occasionally looks to that end of the bridge, imagines what life would be like if she crossed over, and goes back with a wistful sigh to what she has allowed life to become. How reality kicking in once is a while only causes discomfort with the status quo but no progress whatsoever. How the fact that she doesnt have to cross it all alone brings warmth but not courage.

Its not like she hasn't crossed bridges before. But crossing bridges you find yourself put upon is very different from finding yourself a bridge to cross.

P.S. At much stronger version of this post was in my head all evening. Where it went i dont know. Also, the following narrative from my one and only rafting trip was supposed to be woven seamlessly into the post. Why it is here looking like an unrelated sock that comes along when you pull out your woolen sweater from the cupboard i dont know.

It was a 3 day rafting trip. I dont usually get scared of climbing or falling or water or outdoorsy things in general, but this trip had a couple of genuinely scary moments.
One was when we were to cross a grade 3 rapid called the wall. A high rocky mountain on one side, with the narrow river crashing against the rocks. 90 percent change you raft would flip and in you would go into the Ganges, we were told. And it did. And in we went. Though there were life jackets, i spent a few scary minutes going up and back deep down into the water wondering if any of the rescue kayaks would reach me.
Another was at a rapid called Three Blind Mice. Mice 1 and 3 were harmless, but if you got pulled into the mice 2, you'd had it. There were rocks and we could see whirlpools all over the place. Our instructor had told us to simply follow his instructions. Paddle forward he yelled as we came out of mice 1. For some reason the people ahead of me thought he'd asked us to stop paddling and immediately stopped. What were they doing! OMG! I was sure we were crashing into mice 2. Fortunately he saw and yelled louder and they went back to paddling furiously and we escaped to mice 3. Which wasnt all that mild as we'd been led to believe. The raft went almost vertical a couple of times and i was sure the guys sitting ahead of me were going to fall on me.
We were almost at the end of our trip. There was a rock jutting out into the river at a very convenient height and location, and we were to jump off it. I dont get scared of such things, right? I saw people climbing up the rock, looking down, getting scared and the organizers having to push them off. And sniggered. When it was my turn, i went up, looked down and was ready to climb down with my tail between my legs, my reputation be damned, my forever dream of diving into water be damned, the fact that my friend had already jumped before me be damned. The organizer of course refused to let me go back and pushed me off. (I wish i could say it felt awesome, but it ended too quickly for me to actually register much).

That push, i think, is what i'm waiting for.

Paisa paisa

2010-04-06T21:17:00.003+05:30

Remember Vinaya's head? Here's more where that came from. Triggered by a company i used to work for going public and leaving me better off than yesterday. To all those demanding a treat, this is it :P

What!

Yeah

Seriously?

Yeah

Just because we worked there 6 years ago?

Yeah

Damn, has it been that long?

[silence]

Okay, okay. Still no age talk.

Yeah

Its a very decent amount of money for having done nothing spectacular at all.

Yeah

Funny no, how money to us is more "just a number" than age is?

Not really

You think there will be a day when it'll mean as much as a good book or say, the beach?

No

Strictly means to an end, eh?

Yeah

If only we knew what the end was!

Dont we all

Cycle Agarbatti

2010-03-28T22:57:00.003+05:30

Have you seen the cycle agarbatti ad? (The one i've linked to is in Hindi, but what i'm going to say was inspired by the Tamil version). Mom takes son to temple. Son asks - Mama, agar bhagwan nahi hote toh? With the toh repeated thrice for effect. The bells stop tolling, the sadhu stops counting his beads, birds fly off in temple, as if horrified at the very idea of such a question. And then, the world answers back. In the electricity board board workers perched fearlessly on umm... 10 feet tall poles, wearing what look like mining helmets. In the two college going girls who probably spend as much time studying as praying. In the little girl who idea of God seems to be some kind of Santa Claus who comes at night while you are sleeping and puts water inside your coconuts. In the taxi driver, the tight rope walker, the army...

So far so good. I had to work hard to make what little fun i made of the ad. This is the point where we switch to the Tamil version. Where a supposedly confident and reassuring voice informs us - Haan, bhagwan hain. Only, its not. Its scared and stubborn and sounds very much like its coming from someone who is trying hard to shut himself off to all evidence to the contrary.

But the best part is when the voice says - Cycle Agarbatti. That is when the penny drops. The voice is not worried about farmer crops or waterless coconuts or the well-being of little kids. What makes the voice squeak out Cycle Agarbatti in panic are the economic implications of the question. Agar bhagwan nahi hote toh cycle kaun jalata?

Note: All of this is very likely to be fanciful imagination on my part. In my defense though, the Hindi voice sounded perfectly confidant and reassuring. I dont think my fanciful imagination recognizes linguistic boundaries.

Morning walk

2010-03-15T20:05:00.003+05:30

Warning: Long and pointless

"Your lower back should be straight."

She looked up from her push ups to see him standing next to her. She'd seen him by the stairs earlier, yet another person out for a morning walk in the university. "This way you'll have back pain. Keep you lower back straight and bend the upper back. Like this", he demonstrated. She looked on, wondering if upper backs could be bent voluntarily like that. She nodded. She'd understood, at least in theory. "Your turn now,", he said, standing up, "ten push-ups, the right way. And no stopping", he warned. She started. 5, 6, 7... He looked the other way for a second, she declared she was done. He gave a little snort, but said good and left. She yelled out her thanks to his back. She loitered for a while more, thinking of other exercises she could do outside of the gym.

It was when she was walking back that the unusualness of the situation hit her. We dont do that in our country, she realized. We are not friendly at first sight, we dont approach strangers, even in public places. We are probably world leaders in minding our own business. Except if you are old, she thought and chuckled. She hadnt seen her two favourite old morning-walk people in a while. The uncle who came with his walker, a helper, and the sunniest smile you could imagine. The first time he'd wished her good morning across the road, she'd stiffened, sure that she didnt know him, unsure of how to respond. The next time, she wished him back. And that is all it took for it to become a routine. And Pink Floyd Paati*. An old woman who wore a Pink Floyd t-shirt to her walk. She didnt know if it was the short hair or the twinkling eyes or the comfort she radiated, but it took all of two seconds for the t-shirt to stop being incongruous. Those are the kind of people you expect a smile from, she thought, not people from my own generation.

It was much later when she bumped into him again and he said she looked familiar and suddenly he seemed familiar too and they exchanged societies and house numbers that she found out that he lived just two houses away from her and had been doing so for the past 23 years. She'd heard of the cliche of course, but never imagined she'd be one of the people it'd be about. That should be a cliche too, she thought, how everyone thinks a cliche is something that happens to other people. P aunty's son he was. She couldnt believe. P aunty and her dog Caesar and the terror they inspired featured pretty prominently in her childhood memories. The cricket balls that found their way into P Aunty's garden and then went on to become Caesar's snack. The road they practically lived on as kids emptied in seconds if anyone so much as imagined Caesar being brought out for a walk. She'd heard of P Aunty's kids, of course. But this one was already a Bhaiyya** by then, and bhaiyyas unlike uncles and auntys had as little interest in you as you had in them. They wouldnt yell at you to keep the noise down, or shoo you away from the construction site because it was too dangerous. The lived and let lived.

Not such a small world after all, she thought, as she waved goodbye and got on her two wheeler at the University gate.

* grandma in Tamil
** as in Didi-Bhaiyya, used to address any older boy

Its the little things

2010-03-11T21:35:00.004+05:30

Today at work this little one and i did something that if i'd seen someone else do, i'd have walked around all day with respect in my eyes. Its funny now, because today i'm both the respected and the respecting. As the little respecting girl i'm all awe and how did they fix that and i'd have never thought of it. As the respected, i know it was nothing more than perseverance and luck and open eyes. I also know:

- The more bored you are with your work, the more other people's problems will call out to you.

- Two heads are better than one. They think differently, but most importantly they make it fun. By which i dont mean to tell you to go Zaphod, although that might be kind of fun too.

- Victory needs an audience. Of a specific kind. Without which it seems incomplete. Insignificant. And this place has set the bar for the right kind of audience impossibly high.

Wait a minute. Does this make me a geek?

2010-03-06T23:48:00.000+05:30

It all started with this a virus walks into a bar video. Monu started to send a staggering variety of mathematical concepts into a bar, as befits an academic. We then came up with a half decent one about a Turing Machine in a bar. Which i then proudly passed around. And it all ended when someone sent ME into a bar and i got kicked out because i was too little. Dont ask.

Anyway. Coming to the point, ever since the Turning Machine revelation, i've had this itch to send the folks sitting at various levels of the Chomsky Hierarchy into a bar.

Note: Though there is one representative from every level, i've sent either the machine or the language or both into the bar depending on whichever was easy. Anyone wants to fill in the blanks, feel free.

A Finite State Automaton walks into a bar. "Do we server Finite State Automatons", the new kid behind the counter asks his senior. "Of course", says the senior, "he's regular".

A Regular Expression walks into a bar. "What can i get for you sir", asks the new kid. The Regular Expression yanks something off the army uniform of the guy next to him and throws it across the bar. It goes and lands next to the drink of a guy sitting there. "He'll have what that guy is having", the senior translates, "and keep them coming".

A Pushdown Automaton walks into a bar. "We dont server PDAs", says the bartender. "Why not", whispers the new kid, "i hear they can go on forever". "Yes, but they are terrible at holding their drink", the senior says. "The see something new, and out pops the old".

A Context Sensitive Grammar walks into a bar. "Do we server him", asks the new kid. "Only if he came in with Tony and Williams", says the senior, "we dont want to be dropping him home now, do we".

And now for the one that started it all.
A Turing Machine walks into a bar. "We dont server Turing Machines", says the bartender. The Turing Machine shakes his head sadly and moves to another state.

Modesty compelled me to shut up, but modesty was bested by honesty. Someday, i'm telling you, these bar stories will be used to teach Theory of Computation to a generation of computer science students. A subject surprisingly easy to botch up. I should know, i've been through it twice - the wrong way and then the right way. The machines, the rules, they are all so pretty by themselves, its almost as if they are made for missing the woods for the trees.

I didnt do it

2010-03-04T22:49:00.000+05:30

Have you ever been so overwhelmed by sleep or boredom that you had to find a place to put your head down and switch off for a bit? Have you even picked the loo to be that place? And woken up many many minutes later because of a cramp in the neck? Gone to splash water on your face and spotted something on your forehead that on closer inspection turned out to be the pattern on your sweater? Which has embedded itself there when you lay your head down on your hand and slept. A diamond shaped pattern with a deep vertical gash at the center. Have you then tried rubbing it off with water only to see it turn an angry red? Have you given up and gone and sat at your desk pretending to be in deep thought, one hand covering your forehead?

No? Me neither.

While we are talking about things you and i havent done, have you, as part of pretending to be in deep thought, wondered what would happen if you stuck the legs of the Dogbert toy on your desk into one of the POE ports on your desk? Would Dogbert be wired in and empowered? Would it bring that evil dog to life? And would that be such a bad thing? Having something in your life that can unhesitatingly be called evil, i mean. So you could hate it, put up pictures of it on a dartboard, plot to destroy it, dream about its downfall, all without a nagging sense of guilt. As opposed to being slowly but surely strangled by good intentions and not being able to respond, except with good intentions of your own.

If i had the source code

2010-03-01T17:48:00.004+05:30

Do you have things that fall into "things you cannot change" category of the Serenity Prayer, you are wise enough to know it and yet you helplessly rage against it? There are many, now that i think of it, but the one i want to rage about now is the necessity of having to be dropped home if it gets late.

I hate it. Having people escort me halfway across town just because i decided to stay out late, no matter that they do it willingly, no matter that i'd have done the same if the positions were reversed, no matter that they tell me my company is worth the trouble (and i am vain enough to believe them). In fact i'll go all dramatic on you and tell you that late nights are when the chains of womanhood are most keenly felt.

What would the world be like, if i had the source code? It'd be an extended IITK campus, where time is just a number. Where the best memories are made at times considered unsuitable in the outside world. Where the only danger you face at night is an overly curious night watchman wanting to know which hostel you belong to.

Only, there'd be a little more wind.

Moonlighting

2010-02-19T21:13:00.004+05:30

Prologue

Granny fainted. Fell down very gracefully, according to reports, so no bones were broken. However, she couldnt sit up on her own after that, leave alone move about. Several ambulance rides later, she finally settled down to life on a single cot in her room. As much as grannys are capable of settling down. She was more active lying on that cot than most people with 4 limbs in working condition. Her bouts of activity resulted in more falling down. And so the family high council decided to send me to keep night-watch and cry wolf if needed. Of course i slept on the job, choosing my sleeping position strategically so that if she ever fell down, an alarm would involuntarily escape my throat. Only problem was, people in their second childhood went to sleep at 9...

Chapter 1

To the idiot whose wi-fi signal spills over to my granny's bedroom,

Who the *&@#^% taught you to use WPA for your connection?? Such knowledge is most unexpected and disturbing at several levels. Do you have any idea what it does to my post dinner socializing? All i can do between 9 and 11 now is watch movies on my laptop.

Epilogue

Today i forgot to get headphones from home.

P.S.

(Yeah, my story has a P.S. You have a problem? )

Do not lecture me on the risks of using open wi-fi networks. If there is a hacker in this area, losing the few movies i carry around in my laptop'd be totally worth fishing him/her out!

Presenting...

2010-02-06T16:53:00.004+05:30

At an age at which, if i'd been even remotely following the great Indian timetable, i should have presented two kids, one car and one husband, i, maybe not proudly but definitely unashamedly present - my new two wheeler!

Its finally home! Not without hiccups, where would be the fun in that. How does it change my life? Let me count the ways.

1. No more kicking the bike every morning. Apart from the physical damage to my back etc, it just felt wrong. I felt like one of those heartless people who overload an old donkey and beat it with a stick to make it go.

2. No more being forced to wear sports shoes to work because kicking in ahem, delicate sandals is not good. Not for the sandals, not for the foot.

3. No more getting into ridiculous situations.
I'm on my way to a friends birthday breakfast. I park near the restaurant (ironically named Good Luck) and reach for the key to shut off the vehicle, only to discover - no key! The damn thing has fallen off a running vehicle. After giggling for a while at the ridiculousness of not being able to shut off you vehicle, i decide to do something about it. I vaguely remember hearing a clang somewhere on the way and retrace my route. The one-ways along the way do their bit to help. No keys. No pink skateboard key chain bhai bought from Germany either. At this point, my brain has decided that even if for some reason the vehicle does stop, i will not be able to start it again without a key. You could be stranded in the middle of the road, it says. I dont reason why. I focus on keeping the engine running like my life depends on it. Take the vehicle to this faraway key maker i know because of one of my previous stupidities. He fixes me a new key in less than two minutes and tells me to keep it in my pocket at all times. Even while riding. Ride back to Good Luck, where folks are still patiently waiting and more importantly, so is the cake
That morning, a hole in the ozone layer is named after me.

4. No more polluting the city. Once the ozone layer forgives the above incident, maybe it and i can work on being friends again.

5. Out of a sense of shame that i didnt know i have, i'll be wearing a helmet from now on. Only problem is the helmet i have (and have had for ages) ENTIRELY COINCIDENTALLY just happens to be the same colour as my bike. Having laughed at colour coordinated people all my life, i'm not sure i have it me to do this.

P.S. In case your keys ever fall off, remember:
Bikes CAN be started without keys.The kick will work. So will the button start.
Pressing the choke shuts off the vehicle. If you ask me for the science behind that, i will ignore you.

HBD

2010-02-04T19:38:00.002+05:30

For reasons that hopefully have nothing to do with age, i sent out the following text as mail to everyone in my office. It also talked about sweets, so people forgave the mail (i think). You never know, though.

Time: 3rd Feb, around 11 p.m.
Place: Inside Vinaya's head

Really?

Yeah.

Just because the earth went around the sun once more since you popped
out?

Yeah.

Arent we getting a little old for this?

[silence]

Ahh. Right. Sorry. No age talk on the birthday.

Yeah.

Did we in any way help the earth on its journey?

No.

Did we maybe deflect a passing meteor, clear some asteroids out of the
way?

No.

So we just hopped on for a free ride.

Yeah.

And yet we celebrate.

Yeah.

Oh my god! If it were up to you, you'd still wear a new frock and
distribute lollipops, wouldnt you?

Of course not!

I give up. Happy Birthday. Have a great day.

Oh i will.

One Friday Night...

2010-01-30T15:02:00.002+05:30

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!

2010-01-28T21:32:00.003+05:30

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

2010-01-26T19:07:00.004+05:30

(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...

2010-01-25T09:29:00.002+05:30

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

2010-01-17T18:46:00.002+05:30

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

2010-01-03T21:37:00.003+05:30

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.

And now for some unseasonal corniness

2009-12-31T19:19:00.002+05:30

''Can you really have friends in office", my cousin asked me as he was leaving. He will be out of college in 6 months. While i was thinking, awww, another kid all growed up, he added, "I mean, they can only be colleagues right?"

I had a sitcom style flashback in which i went over all the "moments" with people from both my first jobs. Well okay, it was only a couple of moments then, but now that i have all the time in the world to write and you, apparently, have nothing better to do, i shall elaborate.

Or not. There is corny and then there is corny. Enough to say that work people, and this is going to be a really long sentence, in spite of my best attempts at ignoring them with silence, jokes and frosty nosed stares, barge or politely knock their way into my life and demand to know what the hell am i doing with it, thus providing much needed moments of introspection and shame, which i hope will someday add up to me getting off my backside and doing something. They bring good ideas beyond work to life, i cannot tell you how satisfying and empowering that is. They read my books and on behalf of my books i am very grateful. What a waste it would be if all of a book's life was about being read by me. Just me. Imagine the size of that existential crisis! If i cannot give them quality, i can at least do quantity!

Its been over 5 years since i worked in the same workplace with the folks at my first first job and so i can safely say its not a same-place-same-time kind of relation. So i told him, "YES, you can have friends in office. I dont know about your second/third job, i suppose it will get difficult as you move higher, but at your first job, you will find friends."

Obligatory whiney year end post

2009-12-25T21:41:00.002+05:30

Heroes season 1 comic
Superman For Tomorrow - Vol 1 and 2
My Laptop
A hard disk full of entertainment
The Fall of Hyperion

It takes all that to make me feel safe enough to go spend a day with my granny. Didnt need to go beyond the first two, but thats not the point. Common sense says there has to be a life beyond books and movies. After all, so many people around survive, if not flourish, without either. Whoever is hiding that world from me (of course i have to find someone to blame!) is doing a damn good job of it too. Showing me all the unattractive or impractical alternatives - malls, pubs, friends, work, family, travel - any of which can fill, but none of which fulfill.

Day 3 of my "take it or leave it" vacation. Existential crisis looms large. Some big gesture is in order to see me through the other side of this one.

Breaking news

2009-12-19T21:52:00.004+05:30

I might have been on TV!

Okay, okay, i'll rewind.

After staring in a film (which finally released a few weeks ago, but not me nor any of the 5 folks who were with me in it managed to get it together to go see it. Are we in it? I guess we'd rather not know), it looks i'm now broadening my horizons with television. The economic Times news channel did a short piece on my office that was telecast at 1 today, but we dont get that channel at home. Is that my curse? Not being able to see my "work"? And how did i get to probably star in it? You get to decide!

A. I am an indispensable part of my office. I am its spirit. I am it.
B. When i work, i embody the image of a software engineer with the source code to change the world.
C. They were shooting at lunchtime and i was back early from lunch.

So, for reasons A,B or C, the camera was pointed at me.

Oh damn, he's on to me. Act natural, remember, act natural and smile. Wait, smile while looking at the screen? Thats not natural. Okay, no smile. What am i looking at? Did i write this code? Look silly to me. Dont just stare blankly, use your fingers! Let them fly over the keyboard, let the screen fill up with the fruits of your labour. Aaha, compile the code! Brilliant. Yes, now raise your eyebrow at that non-existent compile error. Very good. Now go tail -f some logs. Frown at the messages filling up your screen. I dont care if they are saying all is well. Frown at them as some minor character in a movie would frown at some innocent looking aberration that will ultimately herald the end of the world. Dont smile, dammit. Dont twitch either. Aah, finally he is off my face! And on to my fingers now? Really?? Our office ought to have better to offer than my fingers. See all these wires on my desk? And under my desk. Why dont you take a shot of me in the middle of all this mess? Oh your viewers will not get the irony of a company into wireless being filled with wires? Okay my fingers have run out of polite things to do. Can we move on now? Thank you!

There is a repeat telecast sometime tomorrow, but i'm not likely to catch that either. So i guess we'll never know. Moving on to the bigger picture though, the universe seems to have compressed my burst upon the film scene - rise to be the reigning queen - grow old but refuse to go out - move on to television career graph to the span of a year. Looks like the next step of moving on to reality shows will come pretty soon! Inspired by this tweet, i think i'll sign up for KKK! The supreme commander of the armed forces versus the unknown underdog. Aah, what a story that will be! With a nail-biter finish where the underdog wins because of her natural tree-climbing skills. And then refuses to come down and lives happily on it ever after.

Rambling. About work for once

2009-12-16T21:07:00.000+05:30

That bug, it is a silly mistake but it cuts deeper than it should. I spend hours wondering how I could be dumb enough to have missed something so obvious. For that day, i'd like nothing more than to go into the past and not make it. Or baring that, go back into the past and hit the me there on the head.

Or the day I roam around in wide eyed amazement, having watched the master at his very best. No traces of the wistful sigh that comes from knowing you are not made for those heights but wanting to get there anyway.

Or the day spent chasing a tricky little issue, preferably someone elses. The thrill of the chase, the fun in pitting our collective brains against the code, the frustration at being almost but not quite there and the pleasure in finally nailing it.

Such days make me wonder - do i after all love what i do? Not the kind of love that announces itself with a bang. But the kind that creeps up on you and envelopes you without your realizing it.

Somehow, I dont think so. For one, such days are too infrequent. And there is very little that is free flowing, its more hard work/discipline and less inspiration/creativity. For another, the idea of spending the rest of my life in this profession still scares the hell out of me. To be fair though, the idea of anything for the rest of my life is scary. (Its a little bit like looking through Adams Total Perspective Vortex. Only, instead of you being dwarfed by the rest of the Universe, you are dwarfed by the rest of your life and the idea of managing it.). One day at a time, i can live with. But then, that is not saying very much. As life has shown with exceptional clarity, there is very little i cant live with, one day at a time.

Talking about the weather

2009-12-11T22:45:00.002+05:30

Since i havent classified anything in a while. I've often tried to slot the people in my life into two groups which i shall name fair weather friends and, rather imaginatively, foul weather friends. Not in any way related to the usual sense if any, in which these terms are used.

Fair weather friends are those with whom you like to "hang" in fair weather. When the going is good, they make it better. You enjoy the same things, you laugh at each other's jokes. They are the ones you miss during the good times.

And then there are foul weather friends. People you want when the going gets tough. Who encourage you, advise you, motivate you or just listen. The world feels a lot less worse when they are by your side.

And then of course are the people who defy classification. The people who carry your weather with them. They can make the sun come out on a rainy day. Or cause thunder showers in summer. The ones who evoke such strong reactions from you, you wish you knew why.

My goodbye present

2009-12-04T21:54:00.002+05:30

Thats it. My last "girlfriend" is getting ready to leave the country. To whatever/whoever is responsible for this exodus, i'm telling you, i wont let it be. Do you hear me? My people in England, France and god knows what all places in you yes yay, beware. Someday i'll come to each one of these countries and get you all back to mine.
Where i shall as usual continue to not keep in touch, but thats neither here nor there. I want my people in my country!

A hard night's day

2009-11-09T22:47:00.003+05:30

The office van spat him out. He dragged himself up the two floors of his building. Opened the door and sleepwalked straight to the kitchen. Where she had left him breakfast with a Note. That woke him up. Like everyday.

Good morning da!

Heat it before you eat it. Add you clothes to the machine and switch it ON. Or else, we shall be wearing our wedding clothes to work tomorrow. Latest Heroes (yuck) streamed on the PC.

He settled down to Heroes. Reheated breakfast in hand, hum of the washing machine in the background. He felt loved.

I'm feeling postitve

2009-11-05T18:08:00.004+05:30

I missed a step and tore a ligament. Yeah the same one again. One basketball coach used to yell out butter fingers whenever someone let slip a pass they shouldnt have. I now have my own contribution to add to the colourful description of human body parts. Crepe paper ligaments. That tear even on a change in wind direction. Or the flapping of a butterfly's wings. It isnt anywhere as torn as the last time though, so i get away with crepe bandage and no running/jumping/skipping.

So i decided not to be a hero, not to go to work with a limp as if my putting a semi colon was going to save the world. I decided to work from home. I got off to an early start too, before the state electricity board decided to step in. They cut off power for the whole damn day and when asked why, said it was Thursday, like that explained everything and how dumb could one be for asking. So i couldnt work from home, i couldnt entertain myself from home, i certainly couldnt not be at home. The day could have been awful but i had the Big Bang by Simon Singh (who is now my new rock star) for company and of course afternoon sleep. I realized something during the course of the day. Here i am, on an unscheduled leave, and it doesnt bother me, it doesnt affect my work, it doesnt affect anyone else at work or probably anyone else in the world! While it should have made me feel about this big and made question my role in the scheme of things and left me generally depressed, it didnt. People, or at least I, dream of having a life they can take a break from whenever they feel like one and come back to it and for it be like they never left. Or, because i've been reading about spacetime and would like to show off, primarily to the future me, i dream of being light enough to cause minimal distortion in the spacetime around me. So i can walk off to another part of the universe and not have planets plummet into each other or fly off into space. Today, at a very micro level, was about that.

Onto books now

2009-11-01T11:20:00.004+05:30

The first time i came across Neil Gaiman was at the science fiction section at Landmark. He was sold to me by a 6 footer who wouldn't touch books with a 7 foot pole. Big name in the comic world, he wrote Sandman, don't you know? Huh? I bought it anyway. Anansi Boys. It came with a lot of praise and a Hugo nomination that the author declined, say. I could barely finish it. It was one of those rare books i had to skip the middle to get to the end of.

My next one was American Gods (which Wikipedia now tells me might have been a prequel to Anansi Boys!). Hugo and Nebula award winner. I couldn't read past one fourth of that one. I went around feeling ashamed of myself. I couldn't finish his books. What was wrong with me??

The third one was The Graveyard Book. Hugo again. Lot of praise again. I justified the purchase saying it was a children's book, there is no way i couldnt finish a children's book. I promised the 6 footer that if i didnt make it through this one, i'd mentally classify Gaiman as an author of umm... literary fiction or... magic realism or... yes, good housekeeping, stuff i wouldnt touch with a 7 foot pole. But this one had me at hello.

Its about a little boy called Nobody (Bod) Owens who is bough up in a graveyard. By ghosts. There is a scene early on when Bod is just a baby, living with real, living parents. He has managed to topple off his crib by climbing on his teddy and has waded his way to the head of the stairs.

Stairs that went up were tricky things, and he had not yet entirely mastered them. Stairs that went down however, he had discovered, were fairly simple. He did them sitting down, bumping from step to step on his well-padded bottom.

I read those lines and then i couldnt make myself get back to the book for the rest of the day, i was so excited! How does anyone come up with stuff like that? You'd have to go inside a little one's head to find it, thats the only place where stairs that go up and stairs that go down exist as two different things! Although, I'm not sure children (or young adults as they seem to be called these days) who are the audience for this book will "get it". It might work on them as a joke though. I went back to the book at night and it didnt disappoint. I got so caught up in Bod's wanderings around the graveyard, i forgot he was the only living kid in a colony full of ghosts. His adventures reminded me how little it takes to keep you entertained as a kid. I loved how it is okay to invent a concept like "Freedom of the graveyard" without defining it exactly, because kids are used to things they dont entirely understand. I loved that Bod had Silas, an adult who is his filter to the world, who helps things make sense, who keeps out the bad stuff, while preparing him for the day he will have to walk out into it. And like a reviewer says on the book, i cant wait to see what happens next. I hope there is more!

This is me trying to be back

2009-10-25T22:20:00.000+05:30

Why has this become so difficult? Small things that i could easily pull into respectable (at least in my eyes) posts now just refuse to grow up. Some of them flirt with moving out to twitter but finally just give it up and settle down in their pyjamas on the overstuffed sofa that is my head. Which is the perfect place to just be, really. No one there is going to tell you to stand on your own two feet, go out in the world and make a place for yourself. Me being a firm believer in not telling others to do what i dont myself do.

And with that post, content over having won a small victory over lethargy and indifference and apathy, she will forget that there is a war.

About TV, mostly

2009-10-25T21:02:00.005+05:30

(She gets back to blogging after months and all she has to write about is Television. Talk about living vicariously.)

I havent seen any Star Trek other than the latest movie (and that too for apna Spok), but this had me nodding along. Science fiction is supposed to be about how a different plant, different technology, different species makes for different societies with different rules. Having a story and making technology fill in the blanks is just doing it backwards. And i went around being shocked at this obvious-once-pointed-out deception and how people stood for being thus strung along until bhai made me see that is is exactly what all the medical series that i so love to watch do! Tech the tech. House, Grey's Anatomy, all of them. House at least its excusable. There House is the hero and the medicine, however clever it may be, is just the background. Its about how twisted House is and how it affects everything and everyone around him. And they dont wing that, they dont tech House just to neatly tie up an episode. However, now that he is becoming less twisted, i wonder if there is any justification to keep watching. Grey's Anatomy is supposed to be about how medicine and working is a hospital shapes people, makes them who they will turn out to be. And they set out all the drama and totally wing the medicine part.

Does all that analysis and resulting realization mean that i'm going to stop watching? Heh. I'll just be a little more ashamed doing so, but shame i've made my peace with a while ago.

Let me now tell you about an ant and a grasshopper. It takes its time but winds its way back to TV, i promise. So, I am the ant. Not so much the hardworking bit but the hoarding stuff for cold winter days bit. And Bhai, he is the grasshopper. All about instant consumption, living as if the future will never come. And you know what? It never does! Never does he go around starved of TV stuff to watch. Never have i been able to gloat about my hoard of serials to be watched while he is getting bored out of his wits. Have they gone and gotten rid of winter and not told me about it so i keep hoarding like an ass? Does the entertainment sun really shine all the time?

This weekend I

2009-09-13T22:19:00.003+05:30

1. Said no to a trip. Again.

2. Trawled the Science Fiction and Fantasy sites on the net for stuff i can/want/should be reading. Now the proud owner of a 3 page list of potentials.

3. Went to the Landmark sale. 3 pages - 4 lines to go.

4. Took photograph of a rat that decided to help itself to food off my mom's plate while she was on the phone. Then took photos of its heroic capture and undignified disposal involving a rubbish pan, the cover of a CD stand and two very brave men.

5. Felt warm due to faraway people. And my 3 page list.

Really? You can see the clothes??

2009-09-11T16:15:00.001+05:30

I didnt "get" Kaminey. Not the brilliance. Not the cleverness. Not even when they were pointed out to me. The small things did not add up to something majestic, they just remained small. I'm still not sure why he made the movie.
I shouldnt care but it sort of pisses me off that i seem to be the only one.

The one thing i did get is the song.

Aah. now that i've said that, you can begin to shoot me.

I might have been in love before, but this time its real

2009-09-03T18:38:00.003+05:30

Of course its a TV show. Studio 60 on the sunset strip. Has only one season, all of it on youtube. The gigantic idiots at the network that produced show took it off air after the first season because, well, because they are gigantic idiots. (I need to learn stronger words to express my disapproval, i do.) Its so awesome, i cant tell you but let me try anyway. Its got Mathew Perry, and much as i love friends, Matt, the character he plays on this show, is what i will think of him as from now on. Okay, maybe half Matt half Chandler, its that good. But, he is not the best thing about the show (Danny Tripp is). The best part is the writing. Its clever, its funny, it... sparkles. I can see how terrible i am at doing justice to it, just help me out and watch the pilot, will you?

I looked up the guy creating the show, Aaron Sorkin. And what do you know, it looks like i've been a fan of his writing without even knowing it was his. A few good men and The American President, both movies with dialogs i've loved. Looks like i will have to watch The West Wing after all!

Warning: Based on what I've seen and read, it looks like he likes to create incredibly nice characters who think nothing of staking their careers on their principles in the most perverse of situations. If they did it in real life, they wouldn't have much of an ass left after life was done kicking it. If such (seeming and probably) naive behaviour bothers you, try to forget that it does while you watch the show.

To give you a sample of how much i love it, here is a scene from episode 14. Danny and this one person (in the most cliched of romantic comedy tricks) are locked up on the roof. They've been trying to get out but cant until the episode is over. They wonder (being big shots) how come no one has missed them. Towards the end, this guy Cal comes up on the roof to switch something on and finds them here.

Cal: J, Danny you guys are here!
J: Yeah
Cal: We've been looking for you
Danny: Yeah?
Cal: (a tad defensively): Yeah!
Danny: Where?

Totally unfunny on paper right? I've seen that clip 300 times and each time I've laughed at Danny's belligerent Where.

So if you ask me, what did Bhai get you from Germany, I will not show you the pink miniature skateboard with wheels key chain that he mooched off someone who got it for free with something and then i mooched off him, i will not show you the 300 black shirts he got for himself and then tried to push on me insisting that they were my size, i will say he got me Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Be kind. Do not rewind.

2009-08-26T11:29:00.001+05:30

You think you are over it. Its all locked safely in the past,. No, not locked. It used to be locked when the past was too close to the present to be left unguarded. But now, with time and the distance that comes with time, the lock has become redundant. You rarely venture there and even if you do, the layers of dust make the memories sufficiently hazy to not mean much. It surprises you sometimes, you understand what people mean when they say life goes on.

All it takes is one silly photograph on someone's Orkut album for the floodgates to open. You are not even in the damn photo, but you are there.

And the funny part is, i knew this would happen. I'd be walking the hostel corridors, on my way to my room and i'd grin about the fact that someday i will look back at this totally unremarkable moment with more longing than it deserves. Turns out i am as wise as i think i am.

Jokes

2009-07-14T22:58:00.002+05:30

To really get this, you have to:

1. Know something about Chennai
2. Have heard of Carnatic music
3. Be familiar with the music scene down south
4. Have read the HitchHikers Guide to the galaxy
5. Be acquainted with Wolfram Alpha
6. Be familiar with Tamil movies
7. Have grown up among/around Tamil people
8. Be a computer science graduate (probably not necessary, but i am not aware of any other career paths that go through the Turing Test)

The pseudo Tamilian than i am, i'm sure there are a lot of references there that i have missed. But i absolutely love it that i "get" a joke that not too many people on this planet will get. It makes me feel special. (More special, actually, than i would feel if i had "made" the joke.) Like there is a secret club i belong to and its a private joke we share. Which is why i love xkcd so much. Though i'm surrounded for the most part of the day by people who "get" it, and probably get it better than i do, it still makes me feel like i belong.

New phone resolutions

2009-07-07T22:14:00.005+05:30

Once upon a time there lived a girl. She had a phone, not that she didnt, but it was ancient and pulling on on life support. She'd decided to do the kind thing by pulling the plug, but couldnt actually do so until she had a replacement. So she looked high and she looked low and she asked around and she got utterly confused. She was fuzzy on the requirements, she was fuzzy on the budget, she was fuzzy on why she needed a phone at all! (Dont tell anyone, but her STD bill for the last month was 10 rupees.) Then one day she saw an ad in the newspaper for a phone that looked decent (that was important to her, who woulda thunk), matched some set of requirements and budget, and her brother did not threaten her with - its either me or the phone. So one fine Sunday she went and bought it.

That night, the God of mobile phones, in an attempt to regain territory from the God of equipments bought in a fit of passion that then spend all of their shelf life in a box on a shelf came in her dream and gave her one tablet with 5 commandments.

1. Thou shalt carry thy phone. Everywhere.
So she does. Everywhere. And when she forgets, she crosses floors without a thought to go get it.

2. Thou shalt not miss calls.
She doesnt. She simply cuts them off. And then follows commandment 3.

3. Thou shalt call people up.
She does. Even though she knows people are likely to fall off their chairs in surprise and break their legs if she calls them up just like that. She believes they will agree it was worth it. After all, as she knows from personal experience, breaking a leg is not as bad as it is made out to be. She can see herself running out of people though. (Damn you you yes yay and you kay and germany. Gimme my people back!)

4. Thou shalt charge thy phone
She does. Religiously.

5. Thou shalt know thy phone
She is getting there. Already she can set the alarm and play the radio (which she still thinks is the coolest part of the whole thing) and take pictures and use the dictionary without throwing the phone at the wall in frustration. She next plans to tackle the bluetooth monster.

Its been three days and so far, the God of mobile phones has no cause to complain.

Notes to the future me

2009-06-30T21:51:00.002+05:30

Ideally, i'd like to yell this so the whole world can hear. Or at least, my world. Since that isnt happening, i'll yell it on my blog.

<begin imagining caps>
You can either get things done or do them your way. Wanting to get things done your way is just plain greedy. If i believed in a universe that was interested in you and interested in being fair, i'd tell you that it'd give you one under the ear. (I know i ruined kaan ke neeche, but nothing in English comes close.)
<end imagining caps>

Me, right now i'm in that in between place where i neither do things nor get them done. I know its not going to last, so when it over and i have to pick one or the other, can you please shove this post in my face?

I'm back. Yes. Again.

2009-06-25T21:46:00.006+05:30

First i decided to write. Then i decided not to. And then, i decided to write about not writing. (Now you know, a decision for me, most of the times, is the thought that is topmost in my head at that point.) But then i decided that would be like coming out of a long comfortable silence that no one minded, to announce the arrival of more silence. And now, apparently, i have decided to write.

So, the silence. Work, sure. Long days, weekends. And thanks to my once broken leg, i have been granted the super-harmful superpower of being able to work from home. All of which boiled down to the citi never sleeping. But, it was sort of fun. After a long long time, i got to code off the seat off my pants. No ten people looking over the design before you get to put one semi-colon. Which of course meant that i had to do the damn thing ten times over. But it was fun. Yes. I'm telling you.

Plus, busy days are easy days. When ghosts from your past come visiting, you can send them back there with one look. Not now, mummy is busy and they go away quietly, no questions asked. Not that you are ever short of excuses, but none is as easy as this.

My back started its 6 monthly (since i can never be sure if bi-annually means twice a year or once in two years) ritual of giving up. I felt like a pregnant woman all of Monday. Only i wasnt, so i couldnt hold my back and limp around and make huge groaning noises and waddle like a duck every time someone called me to their desk. It is being intensively taken care of right now (40 minutes a day i do nothing but. Who can keep that up??) and is almost back to behaving itself.

On a trip to some other place there happened to be a crossword and i happened to go in and happened to see My Friend Sancho. Bought. Finished. Liked. But dont listen to me. I think i'd decided to like it before i bought it. It is, you know, _real_. And funny. Sustained giggles when the mannequin attacks him and a certain muslim... item. And it helped me shoo away the ghosts that weekend. Very effective.

Okay. Back to some silence now. Hopefully not very long.

Jaago re!

2009-04-23T21:50:00.003+05:30

Election kitne baje khulta hai appa?

Appa I'll come with you to the booth.

Appa why dont i have an voters card like you do?

Appa i cant find my name :(

Appa you have my passport no?

But the question i'm most proud not having asked this time. Whom are you going to vote for, Appa? We ended up voting for different people, different parties, but probably not very different lives.

I went to the ink dotting lady (the dot i used to dream of as a kid is now a thin long non-descript line) and confidently thrust my thumb to be dotted. I would have died of embaressment but for the following:

1. The guy checking the identity proof stared at my passport for a long time and then hesitantly asked - Madam, is this your Voter ID Card? I think i can see how he got there. Everyone gives me a Voter ID card. This one seems to have given me a book. Why would she give me a book? She doesnt look particularly mad. Plus, it does have a photo. Maybe the EC now gives a booklet full of Voter ID cards? One page per election? Yeah. I better ask.

2. The boss sitting at a faraway chair heard passport and yelled back - Dont accept her passport as identity proof unless it has a photograph!

Live bloging

2009-04-18T22:41:00.002+05:30

At this point, i have no idea what this post is going to be about. But i've been silent for too long. My blog cannot dry up and die a neglected death. If i go, i'll go with a bang. A pop, at the very least.

Okay, enough melodrama. Aah, i think i got it now! I'll make this one about culture. No wait. That can be a post of its own, if i ever get around to feeling less lazy. IPL is on. I wish i could make up my mind once and for all whether or not i am interested in cricket. No, i didnt suffer from the great disillusion that most people who loved the game in simpler times seem to have done. I still get excited at the prospect of a match. I follow scores on cricinfo especially if people around are doing so. I read newspaper reports about it with interest. But i cant remember the last time i actually sat through a match. Not even the 2 minutes noodles 20-20 version.

Change. What do you do when call x up starts to appear on your do-to list? Heck, even returning missed calls means having to overcome too much of resistance. You throw your phone away! Good idea no? Really, i dont know why i bother with the thing anyway. I get like one call a month. There is a virus or something that drains the battery so i have to charge it everyday. Everyday. Whether i use it or not. On a good day, my phone lies on my desk all day. Most days its locked in my drawer with my dabba. If i were kinder i'd put it out of its misery. How can my phone have a life if i dont?

Change. Last one, really. Its true what they say. As you grow older, its more and more difficult to change. And not just because you've got used to a way of life. But more because you think you know best. At least for yourself. You think you have earned the right to live your way. Everyone around you should kindly adjust.

Change. Okay fine. I cheated. Kya ukhaad loge? Standing behind you like a rock, promising love and support for life, whatever road you happened to take. Or standing in your way, yelling over my dead body if they think they see you going on the wrong road. Is there nothing in between?

Its DONE!

2009-03-30T21:36:00.004+05:30

I did it! Seven whole days of eating according to syllabus!! GM diet shall now proudly head the extra curricular activities section of my resume. A few years ago, i would have been super impressed with myself, not to mention super ashamed. Today, after a little gloat, i'll take it in my stride.

Day 1: Only fruits. Bad. At the end of the day, i was willing idlis to turn into fruits.
(People offered me pastries. They promised not to tell anyone, even.)

Day 2: Only vegetables. Worse. Worst, actually. Low on energy. Head ached, tooth followed. I dreamed of fruits.
(Someone got chocolates to work. People made sure i saw them eat.)

Day 3: Fruits and vegetables. Awesome! Woke up fresh. Felt great all day. Except for disconcertingly pleasing images of bakasur finishing off truckloads of food and breaking open watermelons for dessert.
(People offered me cream biscuits.)

Day 4: Milk and bananas. And wonder soup. The soup saved my day. Wasnt as bad as i'd convinced myself it would be.
(It was gudi padwa and people had modak and srikhand and basundi Waaaaaanh. I'm not exactly sure what basundi is, but it made me cry.)

Day 5: Tomatoes. LOTS. And brown rice and palak and rajma. Normal

Day 6: Vegetables. Brown rice. Sprouts. Tofu. Normal.

Day 7: Vegetables. Fruits. Brown rice. Sprouts. THE END!

I havent seen the results yet but i dont feel particularly light or fresh or super intelligent. Rather anti-climatic it is, at least after the first 4 days. But if the results are good, its a nice short cut to have!

For want of a purpose

2009-03-23T21:32:00.003+05:30

Who has Monday blues on a Monday evening?
I rock at feeling sorry for myself. I doubt if anyone does it better.
Ooh, i could watch that movie until its time to sleep.
Call him about that cake.
Call her.
Please? Its a good movie.
At least download the songs she was kind enough to send you.
Not even if it is the only thing that'll get me out of this bed? I suppose not.
Reply or she'll think you died.
I should go on that diet!

And that is how, from tomorrow, i go on the GM diet. The whole world has done it and survived, so i should not be so scared. But i am. Which is why the declaration. Kick me if i default.

What if...

2009-03-08T19:19:00.002+05:30

(Something i wrote a while ago. At that time i thought it needed polishing. Now i dont see why. Plus its Sunday. How can i not post on a Sunday?)

Imagine a time far far far away. Ahead. Imagine we have survived our own stupidity, imagine the sun did not turn into a red giant, imagine we, or whatever it is we have evolved into, still live on. There is some kind of society, and it engages most people in matters of survival. Let us imagine that that fulfills them, gives them a sense of purpose in life. Imagine that we humans have learnt a lot more about life and the universe but we havent learnt everything. There is still a lot of unknown that beckons.

Now we come to the problem. To go beyond where your forefathers have already gone, you have to get there first. However, the knowledge accumulated over the years is so much that one lifetime is not enough to take it all in. So while the journey is not over, no one lives long enough to get to the starting point.

The question is, will this frustrate just the academic minority or will it affect society as a whole? How much does the majority care about progress, unless it directly makes their life easier? And even then they find something else to complain about. Lack of scientific/philosophical/artistic progress should practically speaking not affect their lives at all. Survival is a full time and extremely fulfilling job for most. How important then is the illusion that we as a species are getting closer to the answers? Even if I as an individual am doing nothing to directly contribute to our getting there, and moving one step closer is in no way going to affect/improve my life. Will academia simply be abolished and everyone concentrate on survival/entertainment? Or will the feeling of purposelessness overwhelm society to such an extent that people would decide to destroy everything and start over, just to have somewhere to get to?

If it came to picking sides, which side would be your good side?

Maybe the connection is bad?

2009-03-01T22:15:00.003+05:30

Hello? How you doin' up there? All good in the land of the gods? I was just wondering, you know, given all the spare time my life seems to be made up of, whether there is any chance that while making the world, you got so carried away by the beauty of the deep and meaningful questions your creations would come up with, that you, erm... forgot to put in the answers? Did you?

Hello?

<silence>

Yeah, i though so.

I am the world

2009-02-23T22:03:00.003+05:30

Have you ever felt... complete? It comes to me, this feeling, usually when i'm alone with music. I may be by myself in my room or surrounded by humanity on a busy street, but world fades into the background. The wind blows just for me, the song plays just for me, its been written just for me and that is all there is to the world. I sing along cause there is no one there to laugh, you see? The world flashes by now and then, but it doesnt demand, doesnt hold me back, it just waves a cheery goodbye. And where ever it is i am going, the only thing i wish for is that i never get there.

Its all coming back to me

2009-02-19T21:52:00.002+05:30

As yet another group leaves on yet another trip without me (i have not been to more places in the last few years than i have been to in all my life), i sit and remember the good times.

The first memorable one to Mahabaleshwar, with colleagues who were not yet friends. Came back a little surprised at how much fun it was.
To Mulshi on a Bike.
To Matheran, the fraudest hill station ever and Nagao, the best beach ever. The hood of the car came lose when we were coming back. We the girls were given some rope to secure our luggage. We tied the bags together like they were birthday presents we were tying ribbons on. Very pretty, very useless.
To Raigadh and Harihareshwar in the monsoon in a van breathing its last. That got stuck in the mud. People, people i know, just bent down and lifted the van. They could have done it with one little finger, i couldnt have been more impressed!
To Varandha Ghat. Lots of rain, lots of monkeys. And something happened to the keys so we had to break into our own car. And a waterfall.
A hurried one to Dive agar. We left in the morning with no idea where we were going and that is where we ended up. Swans.
To Ganpati Pule. Two car loads for the first time. The terrifying return journey where one by one everyone fell sick. Two healthy people remained, neither of whom could drive. 20 questions.
Rishikesh, rafting. I could write a book on it.
Agra, first time travel by general compartment.
Delhi, god knows how many times. Cannaught place. Saravana Bhavan.
Panchmarhi. The monkey, the buffalo, the goat.
Roorkee. The second most beautiful campus ever. A hurried trip to some hill station whose name i forget.
Manali, skiing. Book.
Some place near Allahabad, for bird watching. We saw one alleged pigeon.
Trivandrum. Our own TV, our own cook, a swing in the hall, a bathtub, we lived in luxury!
Calicut, the most beautiful campus ever.
Bombay, Goa. Weddings. Old friends.
Malshej. Water Kingdom. Unexpected. Fun.

As i write this, a small part of me timidly asks, maybe its enough? Maybe its time to let go? All of me answers, not in this life.

Books, TV etc

2009-02-15T20:55:00.003+05:30

Heroes is back. And while i cant be anything but glad, it sometimes feels like the makers are playing chess with the characters. Every season they paint each character with a random colour, throw them on the board in some interesting starting position and then watch the fun. From there on, the horse jumps in steps of two and one, the bishop goes diagonal, the rook goes straight. Claire hyperacts, bytes off more than she can chew and what with two dads, keeps getting grounded. Peter manages to see black and white in a grey world. Hero wants to be a hero, its almost like he is looking for villains who will make him one. Bennett is "protecting his family" and that excuses everything. As the two percent of Nathan that cares for Peter excuses the naked greed of the remaining ninety eight. Sylar is well, Sylar... i wonder if they even bother to write new dialogs.

Finished with Philip K Dick's Counterclock World. Dont read this if you plan to read the book, but i wouldnt recommend the plan unless you like that kind of thing and know what you are getting into. Its not bad, the concept is an interesting one, a world where from 1986 time has started to go backwards. So dead people rise from their graves, get cured of whatever illness that killed them, get younger, become kids and finally disappear into a womb. Its filled with stuff that makes you chuckle at the cleverness, conversations start with goodbye and end with a hello. Food comes out of your mouth, is packaged and sent to supermarkets. And my favourite, oh shit is now oh food. The Library is the evil corporation, in charge of eradicating books that describe stuff that has no longer happened. (See how interesting it can get? One day they'll eradicate all of Mozart's music just because. But then, Mozart will rise from the grave and imagine what he'd create!) My problem is that i need a story! A setting like this, however imaginative, is just the background. I need characters in it to have adventures (which they do), to fight evil (which they do) and for there to be a spectacular end to it all (which there isnt). I'm beginning to see the beginnings of a faint line in the SFF universe. Asimov, Frank Herbert, Adams, Practchett, Orson Scott Card are all one side. The Le Guins and the Philip K Dicks on the other. Arthur C Clark is sitting on the fence, mocking me, daring me to push him over. And i cant. While his setting is his story, i love reading him so.

One second yesterday was the 123456789th one since epoch. Geeks all over the world celebrated. And i find this out from Pune Mirror. I will go drown myself now.

Questions

2009-02-08T21:58:00.000+05:30

(Something i wrote very long ago. Since i seem to be in the mood to flush out stuff...)

Why me
Why you
Why square peg
Why round hole

Why me
Why you
Why us
In this whole wide world

When it is answers i seek
Why questions

Change

2009-02-08T21:36:00.003+05:30

(Yes i've gone nuts with posts. So sue me.)

There is change in which you and world are on the same side. You are like a pebble lying in the river. You just lie there, the river just flows and one day you wake up to see all the rough edges gone. Smooth, you think, and wonder why people find it so difficult to change.

Then there is change where you are against the world. You are the agent, you have to fight to get to where you want. You discover the meaning of words like resistance and comfort zone and inertia. You come to see how deep traditions go, you come to see the strength of the world.

And there is change that wants to change the world. I dont think i'm allowed to even talk about it.

Is there a point to this? Probably none, other than the fact that i like to classify.