The Mac and I

There is nothing like change to tell you how old you are. If you look upon it as a challenge, as a source of excitement and growth, you are young. If you look upon it as an intruder come to disrupt your careful, comfortable routine, if you judge a thing just because it is different, you are old.

If that hypothesis isn't clear enough, if you need more proof, here it is. I recently measured myself on the change scale and guess what it said? OLD. No hesitation, no second thoughts. OLD.

It all started with the MacBook. I'm a little wary of laptops as it is. Give me one, and I time travel back to the days when I was a computer novice, when typing double quotes was the biggest challenge because it involved pressing two keys simultaneously. I remember my lab pardner and me coming up with a novel solution - I press shift she presses quote. On count of three. We got quite good at it, actually. Teamwork, i believe it is called. And don't even get me started on the laptop mouse. That takes me back several generations, i remind myself of my grandmother struggling with the mouse. Not being able to co-relate the movement of the mouse with the movement of the cursor, tracing crazy patterns all over the screen. Thankfully, my company does not give laptops, at least not to novices. I work in what i like to call a third world company, but that's another story.

But the Macbook is not just a laptop. It is a Mac laptop. Its different. What makes it especially bad is that it is unexpected. I mean, having seen two and a half operating systems, you think you have seen it all. How different can this one be, you think. And while no one in their right mind will call me a geek, calling me technologically challenged is an insult to our temple of education. And, its not like I wanted to change the world. All I was after were the basic functions.

First, i thought i would to watch a movie. It all started well. I got a head start because the knowledgeable one told me that two fingers on the mouse area meant a right click. So i could select the player i wanted and all was right with the world. Until the first interrupt. I decided to minimize the movie and service the interrupt. When i got back, the movie was gone! I looked everywhere, but all i could find was the icon of the player. Clicked on it, got the entire menu of the player, but not the movie screen.

I decided to move on. To blog my frustration on the lost movie screen. But i couldn't find anyplace where i could enter text! And believe me, i searched! No list of applications anywhere. No command line kind of thing. Things could have gotten unpleasant for the Mac had i been slightly more egoistic. The knowledgeable one to the rescue again. I reluctantly got introduced to the finder.

My journey to enlightenment was accompanied by incessant cribbing, partly because i really hated being so helpless around a computer, but mostly because the knowledgeable one has a short fuse and i love fireworks!

Anyway, now i have made my peace with the Mac. I still lose movie screens occasionally, but now i simply restart the movie. And as for text documents, part of this post was typed on the Mac.

You may now clap.

42!

I am not there yet, but the hope is that someday all the pieces of my life will magically fit together to form a beautiful pattern. (Beauty of course, lying in the eyes of the beholder, in this case, me). But why is that not enough anymore? Why are moments no longer adding up to life? Why am I after the bigger picture?

I know the answer to that one. And it goes like this. Ahem. Lets say, optimistically speaking, that i am dead 50 years from now. Again optimistically speaking, I go to heaven. And still optimi... you know what, from now on, i speak optimistically unless explicitly stated otherwise. So I'm in heaven. There being nothing much to do in heaven i get to travel, meet other souls, exchange life stories and in general, eat a lot. (Souls do not put up weight, do they?) During my travels lets say I bump into one of those factory fresh, starry eyed wanna be souls and it wants to know what life is all about. What do i tell it? That its about climbing tress and jumping into rivers and in general being yourself? Or that its about touching other lives and letting yours be touched? Or that its about pushing yourself to be the best you can be? All good, none good enough. What is that one thing I can tell the rookie that will make it want to sell itself for a slice of life?

Those of you who thought I actually had an answer, shame on you!

There are some days...

- when rearranging your CD collection gives you a sense of purpose in life

- when wearing a sweater makes you feel protected

- when shared laughter over a silly joke bridges over the deepest divide

- when a song sets you free

David wins over Goliath. And you live to see another day.

How to cvw a nbd in ten days

(I write the story with a she. Feel free to substitute with a pronoun of your choice.)

Day 10: You notice her for the first time. A colleague is working with her. You know you are not supposed to stare, but you cant help it. She is so perfect, you don't even want to find out if she is for real.

Night 10: She is all over your dreams.

Day 9: You cant believe how utterly blind you've been all these years. A different kind of blindness takes over now, the right kind. Like Arjuna, you have eyes for nothing else.

Day 8: You work up the courage to go ask your colleague for an introduction. He knows the symptoms only too well. With a wicked grin, he says yes.

Day 7: You notice the competition. Suddenly, everyone is smitten. Doubts creep in. Do I have a chance in hell?

Day 6: You are ruined. Nothing will ever be as good. The half an hour you spend with her convinces you of that.

Day 5: You cook up dozens of elaborate plots all with same end - you spending 5 minutes with her. Some of them actually work.

Day 4: Everyone knows. You couldn't care less. Up in seventh heaven, other people don't really exist.

Day 3: Its tearing you apart. You cannot ask her, you cannot not ask. In a mad moment you blurt out everything. She doesn't mind.

Day 2: But the world does. Everyone sees a problem, everyone has an opinion. You pick the genuine ones and deal with them.

Day 1: D-day. All clear. You have paid the price. You cant wait to get her home. The macbook is yours!

Like Barney says, true story.

(Apologies to the Apple clan for the calling the macbook a she. Please do not kill me.)

Gimme your lunch, or else...

Human beings expand to fill the space available. Not physically, like gases, but terrirotially. What i want to say can be best expressed in Hindi. Jahan chalti hai chalate hain. Imagine each of us as a goon (complete with a oily bald head and a twirlable moustache, if it helps) out to spread our influence. We crush until we get crushed. What stops us is not a sense of right and wrong, not boundaries, not fences but simply a bigger bully.

Do we ever grow up?

A nursery rhyme with inappropriate words

99 red balloons
Released into the summer sky
See how they stick together
Looks like they are a little shy
The brave ones float apart
Experiencing what it is to fly
Soon the others follow
Grinning, shouting, all eager to try!

99 red balloons
Spread out in the open sky
Each leaving the other behind
In a race to a new high
And when one red balloon
Bumps into another flying by
They rub a little off each other
And go their way with a merry cry!

(What? Big words are inappropriate for a nursery rhyme. Something tells me I will do well in journalistic position with TOI.)

Too much democracy?

Its a duel to death. You fight his strength with skill, his skill with strategy. But what decides in the end is not how well you fought, nor your cause. What decides is whether people see you as a murderer or a martyr.

I want

To be responsible, but have no responsibilities.

To spread my wings and fly, not fly away.

To grow up, not grow old.

To give in if I must, but never give up.

To use the mother of all cliches, I want to have my cake, eat it too and lost some weight in the process!

Yours is not to reason why

If you tell me to go jump in the well, I will do it. Somewhere along my way down, I might casually wonder why you asked me to. If I am in a deep mood, I might even get to wondering why I am doing it.

That I am alive and kicking is testimony to the fact that my life is filled with nice people.

Who am I?

Am I a log floating in the river
Flowing where the water flows
Going where the wind blows
Convinced that higher powers are on my side
Content to sit back and enjoy the ride
Knowing but not caring that one day I will end up in the sea?

or

Am I a fighter with an axe
Making my way as I go
Meeting everything that comes with a blow
Getting bruised along the way
Hurt and hurting because that is the game
Knowing but not caring that I my end before the fight does?

Why

Like there aren't enough already, i come up with yet another basis on which to classify people.
- those who ask why before the act
- those who ask why after the act
- those uncomplicated, carefree souls who do not bother

I, of course, do not bother.

But, having been subjected to several post dated whys recently (Yaaay! I'm at the top of the tree. Now why did want to climb it? Or more interestingly, this is the secret password that will give you access to all my millions. Now why did i tell you that?), i decided to ask myself one. Just to see how the other half, err... third of the world lives.

Why do I write.

Sometimes it is because i want to. (Earth shattering, isn't it?) Some interesting event or idea that i would like to put to words. The words are as important as the idea, if not more. (The beauty of language, that kind of thing) A friend says I end up being a tad artificial. I think he is being polite. But the whole point there is to show off! I may be the only one being impressed, but hey, I count a lot with me.

At other times I write because i have to. The thing just wont stay inside me. Writing it down makes it more real, somehow. Like it has been engraved on stone or something. Also, there is always the hope that someone reads it and it rings a bell. I wont hear the bell, but i like the idea of being connected to invisible people. (Hmm. I thought i had more sense than that.)

Hah! Post dated whys are fun. Provided of course, they affirm what you have already done.

Much ado about nothing

Spoiler - If the whole thing seems like a lot of noise about nothing, it is because that is exactly what it is.

A parent and a grandparent were to leave on a trip to the Motherland, to oversee additions to the family. Partly due to the Great Indian RailwayTamasha, it so happened that the parent had to catch a bus from Pune to Bombay to catch a train, that, left to its own devices, would have anyway made its way to Pune. So, it fell on the kids to deposit the grandparent at Pune Railway Station. At 3 in the night. Since the family car was not yet part of the family, they had to stoop to a rick. And thus started the hunt for the Great Indian Looter. After several atrocious candidates who left them laughing with tears, they stumbled across one who seemed too reasonable to be true. Desperation won over suspicion however, and an exchange of mobile numbers later, the kids were home. The next day being a regular working dayand the kids being, at least in the outside world, responsible working professionals, bed time that day was Calvinistic. (Calvinoian?) She slept to the sound of Karan Thapar droning about a racist calling Shilpa Shetty a Big Brother. He slept. With two mobiles and an old fashioned alarm clock set to signal the end of the world at 2 a.m.

Everything went off at 2 a.m. and they wished the world could have ended instead. They spread the morning cheer by waking up therickshawala . The grandparent of course was all packed and ready to go. There is something about the people of that generation. Sometimes, the seem more alive at 80 than you did at 20. Dressed forAntarctica , they stepped into the surprisingly warm January night. The journey to the railway station passed in relative silence because before they could really get down and dirty aboutrickshawalas, the specimen driving them confessed to being a Tamilain. She could not have been entirely awake during the journey because later she distinctly remembered feeling envious of the sleeping homeless, all tucked in and comfortable on the footpath. The railway station was surprisingly full of life. The train was surprisingly on time. A brief family reunion and the kids were off, with warnings about eating food offered bystrangers and footboard travel. All this work had made her hungry. A midnight snack and a motorcycle ride later, they were back in bed and fast asleep. The world had not ended, after all.

(Nope. No forgotten tickets. No wrong station, no wrong platform, no wrong train, no wrong grandparent... Me and the Indian Railway come together and the world does not end! Almost makes a believer out of me.)

Who yells wins

To the silent ones,

The world listens to the one who yells loudest. If you do not speak up, it means you do not have an opinion. If you do not yell, it means you do not respect your opinion enough.

Eat or be eaten. Its that simple.
(Thanks B, for that and for a million other things)

Pop goes the New Year

It may be to a different beat,
But march I do.

Those were the days...

I have been told (and can see for myself) that I have been weeping all over my blog. So, in the spirit of the new year, I have decided to post positive. And to give the past years their due, nostalgic.
Me and three other people met for an hour of badminton yesterday. Its surprising how cooperative , efficient, pushy, fearless and utterly devoid of responsibility that one word makes people! And of course the memories had to follow. We've had such wonderfully nonsensical times on the court all that's to a bunch of crazy, super enthusiastic and most importantly, quirky individuals. Before I elaborate, a note to the folks this is about. Kindly do not take offence. Writing about how excellently you play would be infinitely boring. A good story is my only motivation.

Its 6 p.m. Snacks have travelled far enough for it to be unlikely for any physical activity to make them come out the way they went in. As if on cue, pairs of eyes all over the building go to the rackets kept on the desks. A few owners of the pair of eyes (not necessarily same as the owner of the rackets) valiantly try to get the pair back on the computer screen. Wiser ones simply pick up the racket and leave for the indoor badminton court. (Which, along with the sofa at the reception transform the office building from a place of work to a place of well being). Sitting, standing, lying all over the court are other PEOs (pair of eyes owners).

The narrative now shifts focus to a particular group of PEOs, identified by seemingly random letters of the alphabet.

R, by far the most talented of this particular bunch of PEOs, is dancing on the court. He just cant wait for the game to begin. Impossible to guess that this impatient guy has truckloads of patience for those less gifted. Also impossible to guess that this newcomer's dream hides a mercurial temperament that goes from boiling to grinning with the span of a shot.

Giving him company is D, the queen of quick returns. While the audience may be pardoned for occasionally thinking she is one of them, even though she is standing on the court with a racket in hand while a game is in progress, anyone who has ever made the mistake of placing the shuttle in the vicinity of her racket has lived to regret it.

On the other side of court is A. But how much longer she will be there is impossible to say. She has been known to answer hunger calls in the middle of a game, even in the middle of a shot. She is also known to race after the shuttle as if her life depends on it, raise her racket carrying arm to deliver the death stroke, only to have it stuck there in mid motion. With an enigmatic atak gaya, she walks off the court, hand raised in submission.

Next to her is S, the grand old man of the game, who has nurtured generations of PEOs. His presence on court is predicted with complete certainty by everyone but him. He appearance on court follows a rather peculiar ritual whose outcome he stubbornly defends as being unpredictable. When called to play, he politely refuses citing doctor's orders (signed, and in triplicate) as a reason. 5 minutes later, he is found on the outer boundary of the court. Just come down to watch, of course. 2.35 minutes later, he has displaced the nearest PEO and is poised for action, doctor's orders be damned in triplicate! One smash from the grand old man and the opponents are damned, the shuttle is damned...

The match goes on along thoroughly unpredictable lines, even though each player's game is as predictable as can be. PEOs are replaced at regular intervals (not always involuntarily) by others. Notable among them is K. And her compassionate serve (patent pending). Lest she send out mixed signals regarding her intentions to server backhand/forehand to her opponents, she follows an elaborate routine that involves rotation by 90 degrees and recalibration of the racket's alignment with respect to the position of the moon.

And then there is L. Though not a regular, he never fails to leave a mark. This is primarily because he believes the fool proofest way to create confusion among the opponents is to roll all over the quadrant where the shuttle has no intention of falling, in an apparent attempt to hit it. His success rate is impressive, if success is measured by the number of times the opponents are so busy gaping, they forget to play.

And E. Whose beliefs alternate between seeing his racket as a hammer and believing that the shuttle responds to voice commands. His voice commands. There are N and M but their quirks seem to have slipped my memory. (That they are normal is impossible).

To each of these PEOs (and a few other unalphabetized ones) I owe my love for the game. And this is how I pay them back!

Auntygiri

(Or should it be Auntiegiri?)

Not new, the concept has been around for as long as Auntys have. But now, cutting across age and gender, it has attracted the unlikeliest of followers. So, how much of an Aunty are you? Take this quiz and find out!

1. Do you always assume that everything that can go wrong will go wrong and prepare accordingly?
(reaching the (Indian) railway station an hour in advance, carrying food for 3 days for a 12 hour journey, umbrellas a month after rains have officially bid goodbye...)

2. Do you think that taking risks for non life and death issues is stupid?
(stupid to go out beyond ankle level into the sea, stupid to climb the gate when you can call the watchman, stupid to sit on the terrace parapet wall...)

3. Do you subscribe to the idea of society as a watchdog?
(that barks when you get home late, barks when you go watch a movie alone, barks when you do not follow the prescribed life cycle...)

4. Do you believe that our ancestors have figured it all out, and all we have to do is follow?
(they knew what to eat, when to eat, how to eat and I represent them, so eat! In other words, do you see the world the same way your parents do?)

Score: Give yourself one point for each question you said yes to.

Score                 You are a
-----                    -----------
0                         Antiaunty
1                         Miniaunty
2                         Semiaunty
3                         Superaunty
4                         Megaunty


No, you do not get an opinion. You are not being judged, not by me at any rate. I just show you where you are. Where you want to be is none of my business.

Its not just a moral issue, this not wanting to pick a side. I just cannot see the thing in black and white. Auntygiri has saved my life more times than it has messed it up. I was once saved from walking back home several hundred kilometers because one miniaunty told me to keep my money distributed. In case your purse gets stolen, she said, which it did. We all know (and if we don't, we can guess) what happened when there was no Aunty around to remind me to carry my train ticket. If its about the numbers, Auntygiri wins, hands down. But its not. Cause when Auntygiri messes up your life, what remains is this unrecognizable mess that you can neither own nor disown.

There i go. On the middle path again. I wonder why i bother thinking at all, when i know that for every yes or no, i will come up with a maybe.

Kahani ghar ghar ki

(Its all very cliched, i know. But it hits you only when it hits you)

Her fight beings before she does. The walls of her mothers womb are not strong enough to keep the big bad world out. They want to get in, they want to get her. She doesn't know why, she doesn't know how, but she fights. For her right to life.


She knows that the earth goes around the sun. She knows all about oceans and seas and snow and rain. She knows her tables up to 10. So what if she has never been to school? Her brother has, and if second hand knowledge is all the world allows her, so be it. She will take that and fight. For her right to a better life.

She had come first in her class. She couldn't quite make up her mind whether that was the high point of her life or it's biggest joke. Whatever happened, no one could take that away from her, but how did it matter? Did it make her a better wife, daughter-in-law or mother? For that was all she was and if life had its way, all she would ever be. Unless she fought. For her right to be all that she could.

Such a handsome guy! And in such a great job too. And from such a respectable family. I wish all girls were as lucky! How many times had she heard that? Square peg, square hole. What could be more sensible? How does it matter what peg you fit, as long as it is square? If only people were like pegs, she thought. Wouldn't life be infinitely simple? She would never have to fight. For her right to the guy that fit her soul.

She was good. She knew that. It wasn't enough. She knew that too. She had to prove herself, everyday, to people who were waiting for her to fall or even stumble, so they could write her off. She had to be on her guard all the time and yet be friendly because she needed them. They were the opponents as well as the judges in her fight. For her right to her heights.

She wanted to dance. Run barefoot in the grass. Spends days in the woods with only trees for company. Travel. Stop in the middle of nowhere because the sunset looked nice. Hear the old man's tales all day long. She wanted to be a butterfly, flitting from flower to flower. The word fight did not really belong in her world, but she had to let it in. For her right to fly.

A country living in many centuries. It doesn't really matter which century you are born in. All that changes is the fight you have to fight. Is live and let live really that difficult to practice? Why do we have to fight the past to get to the future? Why does every saas forget ki woh bhi kabhi bahu thi?

Not to be

I've found something else i don't want to be. I figure if i keep at this long enough, I'll eventually be what i want to be.
I don't want to be included in the log that people seem to fear and respect so much when they say "log kya kahenge". I do not want to dictate peoples views, actions, lives, definitely not indirectly, definitely not as a nameless, faceless mass that cannot be argued with. I do not want to be the reason Mrs Subramaniam's daughter cannot cut her hair short. I also do not want to be the reason Mr Sharma stubbornly refuses to take his errant son back into the family. I definitely no not want to be the reason Srygdh abandons his plan of murdering his wife and running away with his secretary. Not that i am for his plan, not for a moment, but I'm not comfortable with that kind of power. I cannot walk around knowing that one encouraging nod of my head and the next thing i know, poor late Mrs Srygdh's ghost has taken up permanent residence in my bathroom, moaning about how her life was incomplete because it ended before she could get her daughter married.
Seems to me there is only one way to not be what i don't want to be. And that is, to stop letting log's opinions dictate my life. Once i do that, i automatically lose the right to disapprove of any one's life choices. I'll be so far down log's morality scale, I'll be out!

Murder she wrote...

(I could kill. But instead I write. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword.)

Why do I have to choose?
Why does no one review my code?
Why is it that each time I expect (and hence am prepared for) my neighbours dog to bark my arrival, he is safely inside? More importantly, why am I never prepared when he does bark?
Why am I not the way I am supposed to be?
Why am I not the way I want to be?
Why are the two so irreconcilably different?
Why is my hand in a cast for an operation on my finger?
Why is there not a single coffee addict in office?
Why is there no beach in the world where it snows?
Why am I always always always in two minds? (Does it mean I'm twice as intelligent?)
Who do I feel better even after writing crap?

I eat therefore I am

In a completely nonsensical attempt to explain the mystery that is Vinaya to a friend, I came up with the answer "I eat when I am hungry". After I said it I realized that it actually makes a pretty good mission statement. Excited, I came up with many more. And then I got bored. These don't even cover all the people I know well, so I doubt you will find yourself in there.

1 . Eat when hungry:
Keeping life simple. Cause and effect. An uncluttered mind. Living in the present.

2. Eat at mealtimes:
Living by the rules. Safe. Predictable. Inflexible.

3. Eat if ( (hungry && you_like_the_food && you_have_company && food_is_hygienic && (!not_going_to_gym_in_10_mins)) ||
(mealtime && you_not_likely_to_get_food_for_a_long_long_time) ||
(food_going_waste) || (mom_says_so && in_the_mood_to_listen) ):
Complicated. Unpredictable. Will take so long to decide whether to eat or not, might end up having no time left to eat. But will be happy with the decision all the same!

4. Eat if the weather is good:
Random. Totally unpredictable. Mysterious.

5. Eat during a public speech. Your public speech:
Shock effect. Living for an audience. Rebel without a cause. Unconventional.

6. Eat if and only if you feel like it:
Very determined. Not swayed by anything, sometimes including logic! Unpredictable. Unconventional.

Hmm. I don't think people can be boxed neatly into categories. Like, I see a bit of myself in 1, a bit in 2, also some in 5 and almost but not quite entirely none of 6.