murighonto

don't look back in anger

2011-03-26T01:35:00.003+05:30

Originally published on www.metal-hq.com on 6 December, 2010. Republished.

It is December. And I do not have a plan. In 24 days time, the year will melt. That's when you will probably be doing something stupid, romantic, nostalgic or pathetic. With or without your loved ones. In a new city or a house party in some stranger's log cabin that you will never go back to.

If you are lucky you will get stoned, attacked by lesbians and win a lottery the next day. And also have a fantastic new year's story to share with nervous colleagues in hushed voices. Perhaps you will tweet through the ordeal. Maybe you will even write a book, sell the rights and make a killing. Everyone is in on the intellectual rights business these days. (Don’t believe me? Hell, I just got a buyout quote from a not-that-big music director for a 30 second strumming of the guitar. And it stands at 10 lakh.)
I digress. The point is it is time to wrap up the year. And everyone is in a mood to do the damn job as quickly and painlessly as possible. You know, sum up all the good parts of the year in a line or two, swallow the heartbreaks and the bad parts with a hurried grimace and move on. To another 365 days of trying and stumbling while doing the same things and pretending that they are different. And I shall attempt to do the same. I have been more than decent at my job. Setting up an advertising agency is no joke really. And apart from all the real problems to solve – like who gets the better computer, there is also a genuine, burning desire to do good work and build a great culture.
We are getting there I think. I have been an average photographer. Though I don’t walk around with the camera any more I am investing a lot of time and energy in learning a lot more. Trying to understand myself is also a significant part of the process. And not a very pleasant one, if I might add. But having said that, I also managed to shoot three major campaigns this year. Add to that one book cover for Penguin and three more in the pipeline sort of makes it liveable.
I have been a hopeless son. I don’t call my mother as regularly as I would like to. And when I do call I am usually in a hurry to hang up. I am making up for this one even as you read this. #ashamed I have almost given up squash because of my very rare and debilitating condition called procrastination. I am back on twitter. I have a larger shoe size. I have a smaller head. I went to London (and Scotland) and often start stories with, "When I was in Scotland..." I haven’t saved a penny. I have made a new friend.
Thus, I have decided basis my own pretzel logic that my last few days of the year must be spent in sheer joy. Hence, I officially refuse to take stress. I refuse to let other people tie me down. I have decided I will follow what I am good at and only do that. I will not let dumb people irritate me. I will give in easy if that means I escape unhurt. I will cook more often. I will lose more weight. I will not harm you. And just in case, I have hurt you in the past one year, I am truly and deeply sorry.
Blame it on the drugs.

the physics of happiness

2011-03-26T01:32:00.004+05:30

Originally posted on www.metal-hq.com on Sep 13, 2010. Republished.

He walks with his camera. Plodding the negro streets from dusk till dawn. Waiting for a smell. A mere whiff. Of black and white. He walks for an answer. Or perhaps a question. The last piece. His hands are unsteady from the cigarettes. His feet torn by science. But a heart lifted by every new sight and sound that periodically and infrequently assaults him from every corner.

By the tube station he stands. Mumbling the names of almost every station on every line. Slowly and repeatedly to strangle time. Scanning the faces around him. Waiting for one to leap out and enter his camera. And maybe even his life.

By the theatre door he stands. Half-cigarette dangling. Half-missing home and yet not. The impatient crowd wouldn't give him a second look but for the intrusive and protruding long lens. Held precariously at half-mast. Waiting.

By the supermarket exit he stands. iPod, check. Brand new five pound shoes on sale, check. Tired backpack, check. Camera with freshly charged battery, check. The city smells of fabric softener.

Notes are being made. Copious and detailed. Images drawn, erased and redrawn in the head for a future sense of deja-vu. The tape rolls on. The faces merge. The songs confuse. The feet plead. The batteries drain out. But the hungry mind lunges on. Taking in both the trash and the graphically new. And every blink of the eye is a picture taken. Click. Click. Click. The mind is a gigantic memory card.

Three hundred thousand steps and 136.789 pictures later a story emerges. Woven by the nameless faces frozen in time. A collage of personalities looking in our faces and telling us about who the one behind the camera is. The one that spells it out however is the most imperfect. Perhaps because he was grossly unprepared for it. Or by the trembling fingers from years of smoking. Or nervousness. Or all of the above. He doesn't even remember where he was when he took it. It is but a blur. Technically and like a fading memory.

Brittle and disintegrating with every recall.

There are more pictures. Not all of them are nice. Click here if you want to see them.

invisible

2010-05-04T11:13:00.001+05:30

And in the morning all is forgiven. The monsters that danced around your sleepless bed at night have retreated to the dark and dank corners. Lest a stray beam from the sun reflects upon an invisible shiny surface and destroys them. And they wait. Their hideous formless bodies breathing in and out the noxious gases they inhale to stay rotten. For you, the unconsoled to return. They wait. Just so the vicious assault of insomnia and sweaty sheets may continue. Night after night. They wait.

In the solitude of darkness.

full frontal

2010-04-21T11:39:00.001+05:30

The promises to self have been broken. The self-afflicted wounds have turned to scabs. The saturation is at it's velvety wettest. The days pass by swift and uneasy with every move of the celestial cog. The restless mind still seek the comforts of a past routine. Lungs collapse and then rise again in habituated boredom. The heart pumps relentless.

The machine has been turned on for thirty years. And it continues to grind through space and time. Producing nothing but a continuous deep and mournful grating sound.

umm..best wishes?

2010-01-04T20:15:00.003+05:30

Four days into the new year. And things have changed. A lot. More for better than worse. My job is more fun. My mind is clearer. I am fitter and healthier. Heck, I even like someone. And I am addicted to my camera more than ever before (perhaps, that is one of the major reasons for me being away from this place).

My apologies for neglecting this space (and boy, when I ignore something I really do). It's just that I have been very hesitant to put finger to keyboard. So I decided to let things be. Till the right time i.e.

I promise to take out more time. Though I am sure I have lost all my loyal readers by now. And like most things in my life, my fault entirely.

Catch me on flickr and my tumblr for more regular updates on life, love, the universe and other habits of highly asocial (but very lovable) people.

half-past

2009-06-20T20:48:00.002+05:30

No, it was of no use - I had not changed, and never would.
There was a soft spot in my nature, a strain of weakness, a
sensitivity that would never harden. All that I longed, and
had striven, to be - cool and stoical, detached and aloof, a
true Spartan - was beyond me. Marked ineradicably by my
singular childhood, by an upbringing in which too many women
had participated, I was, and always would be, the victim of
every sentient mood, the unwilling slave of my own emotions.

The last few lines of A Song of Sixpence by AJ Cronin, my most favourite writer in the whole world. Possibly because of these lines itself. It rains today. And I sit here trying very hard to shrug it all off and slowly, calmly collect the scattered pieces.

up

2009-05-18T08:29:00.004+05:30

Monday mornings can be made fresh and crisp with notes from long-lost friends, a dead cellular phone, a cup of freshly brewed Darjeeling and the brittle remnants of a dream at dawn. The mind suddenly lifts above the obvious, the smoke and the haze of a big city and finds itself transported to a winter morning, ten years ago. Wrapped in the comforting smell of a woolen pullover and freshly washed hair.

of movement

2009-05-12T11:10:00.008+05:30

Just because I have been away from this place doesn't mean I haven't been doing. I have. Terribly big things. Part of the evolution process. And I am only getting better. Sharper. Smoother. Shinier. Longer lasting. With extra additives for more power. Home delivered occasionally (on request). With great discounts for early birds.

Now there are a few things that I have been ignoring as well. Littler things. Invisible to the naked eye. Things that require complicated math. And round-shouldered, bald-headed, musty accountants to reprimand you mildly on occasion.

It's the last thing I need to do before I can label myself 'new and improved'. For your collective benefit. And perhaps even, mine.

brief

2009-05-06T12:10:00.002+05:30

And these are the last lines I will write for her.

re-route

2009-02-28T08:43:00.004+05:30

One morning as you wake up you suddenly realise that the best parts about your life exist only in your head. As little videos running at varying frame rates. Yellowing memories with smiling faces of people who are not part of your world anymore.

redo

2009-01-06T23:38:00.005+05:30

This is a time when all are hopeful. When everyone is obsessed with shedding the old and looking forward to newer things. To stronger relationships. To better investments. To tastier diet plans. To faster, more fulfilling gratifications. To functional governments. To hair-fall products that actually work. To new-fangled substitutes for loneliness. Towards betterment. And in my quest for a future, enhanced me, I too will be abandoning a lot of my possessions. My intangible accumulations of more than two decades that I will give up, perhaps forever. An eclectic mix of habits, traits, mannerisms, fears and anxieties collected from a variety of sources. Gun-toting heroes of Spaghetti Westerns, hand-me downs from not-so perfect gene pools and dated, fictional idols from books.

And as I carefully pull each one out from deep within me, I remember a former self from a few years back. Comfortable, irreplaceable and invincible. And if only I could get back, to have a little chat with myself and exhibit the most pathetic specimen of my casual recklessness. Also known as, Me.

Above: Calvin and Hobbes travel time in a cardboard box. I think Bill Watterson could see the future.

preface

2009-01-03T10:23:00.008+05:30

Like every other new year, this too slipped in. Cunningly amidst much fanfare and drunken revelry so that no one would be alert enough to notice the large, rather inconspicuous bag of red days. Days that will start like any other. Days with leaky faucets and elevators that refuse to budge. Days with irate phone calls and the apparent stench of defeat. Days that will suddenly change gears mid-way and present you with the opportunity to change your life forever.

If only you notice.

Trust Mark Stivers to come up with this. Through this New Year I am determined to change a lot of things. A part of my evolution towards Phish 2.0. As a small step, I started with the template of my blog, an experiment that has been received well. The next step is towards being a better listener. Hopefully and completely. Happy New Year. May you find love.

Image courtesy Mark Stivers. He is a very funny cartoonist and a piano tuner from Sacramento, CA. I am a huge fan.

in my life

2008-12-27T15:51:00.010+05:30

Approximately 2000 kms away from the shiny, happy people of Bombay I have a little vault. In which rests the collected paraphernalia of a now hazy life. The vault lies patiently in wait. For me to come by occasionally and turn the contents over, slowly and meticulously. Like a collector of fine china, taking in each piece to quietly marvel at it and yet be terribly careful not to chip it. It is where I stumble upon faded smiles, doodled notepads, dog-eared comic books and smudged photographs of happy dogs, all of who are probably in heaven now.

Even before I landed here, I had decided to walk the city. To plod heavy on the grey pavements that have nourished thousands of the starving souls that needless youth over the world seem to acquire at some point before adulthood. To give in to the unique sights and smells of every serpentine lane that vein across the grimy, sweat-stained heart of the metropolis. Hence, armed with a heavy sense of motivation (and brand new saintly-white Adidas shoes) I started walking. And with each dusty step, I found a little note. Left behind by a younger, former me.

I found the little cafe that we could never walk into fearing it to be expensive. The shuffling old ushers, bent with consumption, at the local cinema, now as derelict and run-down as its light bearers. Our bumpy (and very dangerous) pitch at the cricket field which the kids from the other neighbourhood never dared to step on. The corner newsstand where we flipped through trembling girlie magazines. The dusky, winter evenings spent on park benches huddling and coughing as we struggled with perfecting smoke rings. The window that became the cynosure of our lives because of the unseen, pretty girl who lived behind it.

In varying degrees of intensity they came back. The bits and pieces. Broken and in parts. Shrapnels of memory that are impossible to remove surgically. Lodged deep inside, destined to cause pain for as long as I live.

inertia; a short but moving story

2008-12-19T13:26:00.013+05:30

30 days of leave lie in front of me. 30 (apparently, very expensive) days that the company that I work for granted me. 30 terribly short days that I have to get maximum purchase out of. 30 days of potentially life-altering circs. 30 days of uppishness. 30 days of colour. 30 days of blank pages.

And I just wasted the last 45 minutes to find an appropriate cartoon.

I don't know who drew the cartoon. But I think I understand what he's trying to say.

observation

2008-12-16T09:16:00.003+05:30

You can always tell a rich girl by the way she does her hair.

me, two

2008-10-22T15:57:00.005+05:30

Someone once told me that man, intrinsically, does not change. The very core of us remains the same. Irrespective of time, environment and experience. So if you were a procrastinating, lazy, run-of-the-mill, average, vanilla advertising writer with no remarkable skill sets, chances are you still are. And will forever remain to be. People don't change that fast.

But the efforts are exemplary. To learn more. To know more. To grow exponentially and without limit. Academically, financially, socially. To seek out and grip that invisible rung that's keeping us from reaching the top and the world beyond it. Every few seconds the auto mechanism kicks in. Tweaking itself a little to adjust, recoil and take yet another frog leap into space. Recording the data of every unsuccessful attempt with absolute precision. Only to repeat them. Over and over again.

Which is why the decision to upgrade myself is not so bad. To quit is harder than I thought. To change altogether, excruciating.

But evolution is a good idea. That's what they all say, anyway.

When in doubt, get Gary Larson. And sure enough. The image is copyrighted. I used it because I am a fan. Not a pirate. Or a scumbag. Though, sometimes I can be both. With utmost efficiency.

butt, seriously.

2008-10-14T15:23:00.005+05:30

Been close to two months ago that I visited this place. Armed with a middling philosophical treatise about loneliness and an abstract justification of an addiction. Fifty soot-slimed, grueling and acidic days of work later, I am here again. With an entirely different self and purpose. And a little surprise (worth one cm displacement of either eyebrow, either way) of a announcement.

I quit smoking.

It's not a resolution. I am not in love with a non-smoker. And I am not playing out a silly macho bet with anyone. I just quit. One sultry evening inside a taxicab I decided to just give up. I have been smoking for 14 years. It has been a good, loyal friend holding me up in the empty hours between good and bad times. Providing me with a warm, crackling glow and a temporary haze. Just when I needed it.

Been ten days now and I am still surviving. The first three days were horrible though. I don't really know what or how long the detox process is. But I am willing to go through with it. After a long time I am doing something for myself. And it feels good.

Really.

That's from Gaping Void. With just the kind of words that were forming in my head. Forty seconds ago.

ashtray

2008-08-13T00:32:00.009+05:30

All I really need now is a lazy cigarette. To create a cloud bank of suspended blue smoke coils over my head. Much like a speech blurb in a comic book that the artist forgot to letter in. Condemning the character to eternal silence. And you never know if his facial expression is contorted in laughter or in pain.

There are days that last a thousand hours. And all you need is a warm, safe smell to crawl into at the end of them

Life in Hell is a weekly comic strip by Matt Groening. The strip features anthropomorphic rabbits and a pair of gay lovers called Akbar and Jeff. Groening uses these characters to explore a wide range of topics about love, sex, work, and death. His drawings are full of expressions of angst, alienation, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom. And I can see why some of you are smiling.

intermission

2008-08-06T02:32:00.016+05:30

2.30 in the morning is a fine time to reassess your life. The fading sounds of sleepy vehicles, the rhythmic pattern of rain, the silent hum of the air conditioner and the distorted, moving light patterns on the ceiling create the perfect setting. To the cranking of rusty machines in your head, as you twist the handles of memory, wincing with each painful print it pushes out in exhaustion.

So I decide to write. I need to put an end to this break. Time and I have severe compatibility issues. Actually, like most things in my life, I have never given it the importance it deserves.

I went to watch a film yesterday. After 16 months of finding excuses, yesterday I finally ran out. The film was good enough. I quite enjoyed it. Drank two-thirds diluted coke. Used the men's washroom twice. Choked on a popcorn kernel. Smoked the exact length of a cigarette with three seconds to spare. I also managed to fall in love with the actress (I still am, I think).

In the last few days my social self was at its best. I was invited to a friend's house for dinner. A college re-union of sorts. Most of these people are now married. I sat there slowly getting drunk as the women fluttered their wings around me cooing infrequently that I should be next in line. Their husbands just looked at me glassy-eyed like cattle after yet another exciting afternoon of chewing cud.

I also met up with Gaurav (read: the life of others). I was one of the chosen few he decided to give away his stuff to. We got talking (got dangerously drunk on some extremely potent martinis actually) I never really wanted any of his stuff. And I told him so (though he is giving away a selection of his precious books to me). I really wanted to meet him and figure out a few things. About him. And maybe, in the process, a little about me as well.

That's also because I am a little confused today. Setting up the apartment has taken up most of my productive hours in the last few weeks. I have spent a lot of time thinking of ways to ensure it is liveable. And likeable. To get the futon at the exact angle that faciliates the flow of positive energy and yet make the living room look bigger. To carefully select and arrange my assortment of framed pop art posters. To get lamps that best reflect my delicate disposition. To ease out the slightest oohs and aahs out of the people I allow inside. Which in turn helps me to mould their view of me just as I want. Without seemingly trying too hard.

And I wanted to meet someone who was really shedding all of that. I was interested to know if that means we are really changing our intrinsic selves. Our core. That what makes us, us. I wanted to understand if we are really giving away mere objects or are we really shedding ourselves of all the little layers that we have accumulated since birth. There is no real answer. Gaurav's situation allows him to experiment with the concept. Something that gives him more elbow room. And I wish him luck in his endeavours.

I, on the other hand, find myself in a cupboard. Stifled and yet comfortable. But I don't chide myself. There's still a lot to do. A lot to find out in my cultivated and nurtured darkness. And only once I know what exactly I am hiding from can I face it completely. The inertia, the sleeplessness, the longing, the battery of self-abuse can only stop then.

The mission statement has been written. I need to manage my information systems and processors more efficiently. To better understand my motivators. To strive to meet the exacting standards of self can only be possible once we have the necessary qualifiers. One that enables me to stay on the road. And not meander away into the fields to have chats with smiling scarecrows.

Or develop a sudden, intense schoolboy crush on an actress.

Theology was never my favourite. But Peanuts is different. No?

the life of others

2008-07-13T14:10:00.004+05:30

It’s a nice house. Though given the circs. I would have settled for just about anything. It is big, airy and though somewhat noisy, has all the psychological and emotional strokings that add up to, for the lack of a better word, cosy. After being without an address for 45 days in one of the most volatile cities in the world, this seems like a dream. And I am surprised at how in the short span of a week I have taken this for granted. As if this was always meant to be. The delirious hunt seems like a distant nightmare. The body seems amnesiac about the rising blood pressure woes. And friends and family are luxuriously nonchalant about the entire thing.

I could have written a book. Another ‘drawn from self experience’ that I just had to share with the world. Or perhaps, made an appeal to people through this place to please allow me the use of their apartment (one, very sweetly has done just that). Even if it didn’t work out the traffic on my website would definitely soar. That is an intangible asset these days. But I don’t really know how many alert marketers would really pay heed since my blog isn’t really about anything but potatoes.

It was then that I read this. And I admit, the man did honestly put me into a spin. I am quite monk like myself. I have no fascination for cars or the frills of a large backseat. I don’t really care about what I am wearing most of the time. Quality means more to me than quantity. But here was someone taking to a whole new level altogether. To renounce everything, he had to a complete stranger and live the life of a leaf. Hoping for a strong wind. My first reaction was that of excitement. Here’s my chance to get back at life. For eight years of struggling against the system. For all the times I have been homeless or broke, or both. For all the times I have walked in the rain as cars arrogantly splashed by cars, smiling and thinking about where I am headed in the first place.

But then it got me thinking. Do we really adopt minimalist ways (or yet, advocate it) because we cannot afford to see what lies on the other side? Do we merely hide away from the harsh reality that we can never possibly get that much and hence positively reconcile ourselves with what we have, sometimes taking it to the extreme of actually not wanting some of the stuff in the first place? I mean, do you really, really need a bidet?

I light a cigarette. It’s time to cross over to the other side. To Gaurav’s experiment. The off-consumption life. From a marketer, whose genus believes in spending every second of available time devising somewhat evil ways to sell soap to people like you (Often taking the help of equally devious and misleading wordsmiths, like me. It is a happy, torrid relationship that borders on organized crime and very long and complicated ‘back-scratching’ instruments that would have been banned even in the medieval ages).

What might he have been thinking? Is he really giving away all of it? I love my books. I adore them. I don’t even let people flip through them for more than a minute in my house, leave alone lending them. More than a few thousand odd, my books have never known the pleasures of promiscuity. I love my little, inexpensive bar. With faded bottles of Scotch that I dare not drink because I don’t know when I will get hold of another bottle. Stacks of DVDs, painstakingly catalogued by genre. My inexpensive cane furniture. My photo frames of jazz artists. To give them away would be to give away a part of my life. And he is right when he says that. Do these define me then? Am I not complete without them? Do I need them for emotional support? For approval? The nod of assent? To impress and encourage women to go the distance? (Umm..with me…hopefully) To standout amongst my incestuous peer group? Oh Please Look At Me, I Am Different Because I Like Miles Davis And Philip Roth As Against Your Trash. And no, it doesn’t make a difference if you are a better human being. If you have found true love. If you can talk to birds. Or are concerned about the world. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t have the sea facing apartment, you are just not important.

I slip back into my being. I don’t think I can do this yet. There’s just too much to do. Important or otherwise. But I think it’s a delightfully crazy idea. I think it’s eccentric and powerful enough to change one’s life. If not the world. I don’t really think it’s for attention, but rather letting people know that it is possible in today’s world to move away from the glitz and get back to basics. A modern day Chris McCandless.

And yet I find myself a bidder. To be a part of his experiment. And I want the apartment, the books, the cane furniture that he has designed, the DVDs and whatever else comes with it. And, no I am not going to give it away. Not yet. Here’s my pitch, in 300 words.

“The apartment will be mine. I shall make friends the little nooks and corners. The corner shelves. The spot where you get the sunlight in the afternoon. The room with the creaking door. The bedroom where you slept after a harrowing day at work. The place where you sit and frown. And I will strip them off their old owner’s shadow. And if you happen to drop in weary, they will greet you warmly as a guest but not an old lover.

I will categorize and catalogue the books and DVDs and put them upon my weary shelves. Next to the ones that I have been having affairs with. This will be my personal harem. I shall not erase your names. But write my name under it. Duplicates will be forgotten in cafes, taxis and parks for others to pick up.

The furniture shall bear my weight. I shall rest on the futon on tired days. Frolick around the bed on others. Stare at them passively and think of where you might be at that very moment on off days.

The appliances shall be there. So will be the utensils. Serving out their remaining days and helping me in my endeavours to be socially acceptable. Washing machines will clean. Ovens will cook. I will treat them nice as long as they behave. Maybe sometimes, I will put in a shirt that looks like yours or cook something that you used to. Just to confuse them a little bit.

The bar will be for me to enjoy. I might put up a neon sign over them. The ones that flicker away in the night rain. They have a depressing quality about them that I adore. The glasses will be wiped clean and used. By a variety of lips. Promiscuous or otherwise.”

Gaurav, this is what I intend to with your constructed life. All the best with yours. Drop me a postcard from little misty villages that you come across in your life. The post offices are quaint. And there are beautiful women who don’t speak your language behind the counters. Selling stamps to backpacked strangers of no fixed address.

To everyone else, if you are in the mood to give away anything at all, please do not hesitate to contact me at phishpot@gmail.com. I need a cloud, for starters. To others, I would love to know what you think.

digs, dig?

2008-06-18T09:27:00.011+05:30

45 days is enough time to fund a revolution, woo someone you love, come up with a new, less painful method of waxing, make friends with a duodenum, cultivate an itch and maybe even learn how to brew a perfect cup of tea.

In short, 45 days is a long time.

And that is exactly how long my house hunt is taking me. Like fellow citizens of the big cities around the world, I am destined to change addresses (much to the collective irritation of bill collectors) once every few years. Throw the word bachelor into the mix and the picture is oh-so-very-clear. Ruddy furniture, half-baked kitchen, sentimental pillow cases, picture frames and 35 cartons of musty old books make up my world. And I have been carrying it all over weary shoulders as I plod my way through the world of estate agents and brass nameplates.

The problem is quite simple really. No one wants to rent out an apartment to a single male. We are perceived as a debauch group of individuals, perilious and of unsound disposition. Seemingly more vicious than serial killers, rapists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis put together. More volatile than ladies who have missed their beauty appointments. And as troublesome as vociferous advocators of non-smoking.

Apparently, we have sex all the time (I wish) with our loose, lady friends (if you know any, better still, are one, please do not hesitate to contact me, photograph mandatory) with a joint, dangling from our lower lip coupled with infrequent gulps of cheap booze. While I am happy that my single status merits me with such an outwardly Steven Tyler-ish glow, it is just plain unfortunate that I am also being denied shelter because of it. More so, because my only resemblance to the aforementioned personality is at best, limited.

And the drudgery continues. All my stuff lies locked in a warehouse far away. I make do with three t-shirts, one cellphone, one pair of jeans, my iPods and a tremendous sense of determination. My phone rings every 32 seconds with the news of another apartment that will definitely work out. My affliction with taxicabs continue. I frequently find myself at wrong turns and strange corners. The winds don't listen to me anymore.

As I type this, a fine muslin rain quietly wets the pavements. I think I will lose another umbrella today.

That's Top Cat. A New York alley cat who's always well turned out. Voiced by Arnold Stang, the series created by Hanna-Barbera ran in the early 60s on prime time television. He lives in a dustbin by the way. And still manages to remain rather unfazed. Cartoon characters have it easy. Even if they are single and presumably, gay.

review

2008-05-22T14:45:00.006+05:30

There is a phone right next to me as I type this. And the only thing that separates me from talking to someone is a speed dial button. And my head. Like a house ransacked by clumsy burglars, it lies in wait. For someone to come and raise the alarm. To maybe even attempt and create a semblance of half-order. I stand paused by nature, guilt and a ferocious gust of sadness.

I was good yesterday. And for a long time. All this time that I wasn't here, I was standing behind the camera and instructing excitable, young girls to look happy. Though I didn't really need to. I have noticed models have this mysterious vault of happiness. And they willfully scatter handfuls of it around. But it is of course, a professional demand. Like a gloomy philosopher who is contagious with his darkness. Or like an advertising writer, from whom you might contract a curious blend of arrogance and insecurity.

I deviate. The point is, that sometimes I go about life waiting for things to get better. Without doing too much. I am scared, lazy and completely unfair when it comes to myself. I refuse to give myself a chance. I accept things people have deduced about me. And if it irritates me, I try to sleep it off. Now with a recurring affair with sleep apnea, that too is becoming a problem.

I had a limited conversation. And I can recount from memory every word she used. I could almost see her. Weighing the words in her mind, forming them with quick taps of the finger, then a pause to read it over. Followed by a quick tap again to send. And though I tried my level best to tell her about how I feel, I failed. The wooden letters of modern messaging systems are completely and utterly unemployable as communicators of micro-emotions.

Not just that. I was also terribly afraid that her little acceptance of me would be lost forever if I pushed it. And before I knew it, she was gone. Back in her world of trinkets and magentas. And as I held on to the little magic brick in wait, I fell truly and deeply asleep. Unhindered by the chokes and gasps of big city nights.

Is it really too late for another dream?

That's Hagar the Horrible by Dik Browne. One of my original favourites.

sleepwalking

2008-05-03T12:42:00.003+05:30

I am telling you. Saturdays do smell different. In an cool, opiate haze you want to be entangled in those lazy curls forever. Just like her hair. Right after she'd washed it.

conquests and techniques; a synthesis of greatness

2008-05-01T15:16:00.016+05:30

I have been out again. In my head i.e. Trying vigorously to fight the inertia that settles in due to work, losing reason, engineering mini-failures, deconstructing the moral fabric and shifting logistics. Each time as I decided, this was it and sat down gassy-eyed, in front of the keyboard, my fingers failed me. The mind decided to play truant and the nervous system busied itself to make all the involuntary actions as painful as possible. The words came jumbled and no matter how hard I tried, stubbornly refused to obey and stand in a coherent line.

But I did find time to pick up on a few lost strands of my life. I started watching the now long since downloaded (yes, I do indulge in occasional piracy) episodes of Heroes. I had stopped mid-way of the first season, same time last year. And though I have lost my partner in crime to the world, I decided enough was enough. I needed my dose of digitally-enhanced pulp (if at the cost of a wasteland of memories, so be it). So I crept into it with the same nervousness and perseverance found amongst gangly individuals with names like Frederick Entwistle, Esq. or Norton Bladderby, when they decide to recite scabrous prose to pimply women at hash parties.

And how I raced through it. The time warps, the monologues about the mind, the scientific impossibilities (yet), the genetic mutations and the like. I am never short of surprise at how the packaged pop culture that America has thrived on, has been so successful the world over. Before I launch into a pithy commentary on the human condition and how all of us, regardless of race and sociological patterns, essentially yearn for the same kind of powers (in this case, invisibility, ability to fly, regeneration, reading minds etc) I felt a distinct change in myself. For starters, I felt light and heady. I couldn't feel my legs (maybe that can be attributed to pins and needles) and I was strangely ecstatic. Surely, I thought, surely I too am one of them. A hero with a unique and deliberate set of abilities. And these, just like the ones in the show, are just too powerful for me to control and exploit.

For instance, my ability to procrastinate is legendary. I can postpone anything for any given period of time. Sometimes, forgetting as a whole, what I shelved in the first place. Next, is my phenomenal power to shove things under the carpet. Third, my razor sharp (or thin) will power. My emotional resistance, is probably as bad as my physical one. I am what one would call of a delicate disposition. Fourth, my belief that everything will be okay in the end. My advice to those who believe the same, is simple. Don't.

Maybe, I am being too harsh on myself. Maybe. But I am currently experiencing these powers. Sometimes, they are so strong I have no option but to submit myself to their whims and follies. With consequences, that doesn’t really need a soothsayer to predict. So I lie low, spending most of my time reading, swimming and trying to touch tennis balls with a racquet. The books look heavy. The water's too cold. And someone increased the size of the court while I was away.

If anyone of you needs my services as a hero, therefore, do call me. I seem to be available. Unless of course, my aforementioned powers take over.

That's Super Duck, the cock-eyed wonder. A comic book from the Golden Age. Drawn by staff artist Al Fagaly, I stumbled upon the exploits in the early editions of Archie Comics. And today, after many a year, I know what he might have felt like after a hard day of misadventures.

eros stirred

2008-04-11T14:06:00.011+05:30

Most of my friends are married. And those who remain, seem to be in a dashed hurry to do so. Infrequently, I hear faint strains of the question being posed to me. I try to smile and answer as politely as I was taught in pre-school a long, long time ago. But I am not averse to the idea. Nor do I aggressively advocate the same. But some things are best left to greater things. It's just that I feel I am still rather immature. There are a lot of things that I want to do more. Besides, there is also the small problem of finding a candidate. Preferably, willing.

I was at a day long shoot yesterday. One of my clients is a big fashion (sic) house. And hence I spend considerable amount of time at photo shoots all over the country. Most of them involve beautiful women. All of them are attractive, approachable with varying levels of intelligence. The chances of making something happen with anyone is remote. Especially by someone like me who is fidgety, insecure and has a day old fuzz. Also I am clueless about the kind of language to employ that facilitates consummation (of any kind). Not to mention, that I am allergic to, if I may, a peculiar kind of silliness, accompanied by snortish giggles, that the female of the species use to continue insipid conversation. Overall, my demeanour is the complete converse of what is known popularly, as a chick magnet.

Hence, it is safe to assume my love affairs are shortish and often leave a lot of things unsaid. I prefer to communicate my very, intense feelings with watery eyes, faint mumbles and subtle, shuffling movements of my feet. The latter I hear is a very potent and promising technique practiced by migratory birds around the world. In season, of course.

It happened yesterday as well. I was shooting with the winners of the Miss India contest. Four of the most beautiful women in the country (or so they say). And it took me all of seventeen seconds to decide who is that I love. I played up to my affection, knowing fully well that nothing is to happen. Alternating between being sweet, a listener, intelligent and talented at the same time. Mild, pathetic attempts at that. She looked interested. Though to be fair she looked interested in everyone who was having a conversation with her. But she was truly delightful and I was really attracted. The shoot ended soon after. And as she walked out with her Mum she waved goodbye and was out of my life. Probably forever.

The best part of all of this is that I envisioned the end even before I left home. The "i-will-think- of- the- worst- case- scenario- then- it- will- not- happen- to- me" theory, I have come to see doesn't hold true for me. I don't even know whether this is Murphy's fault. Or Freud's for that matter. But I do know that this is the story of my life.

And in a strange way I like it. The romantic notion that we will never meet again. Or perhaps the feeling that we will. In another time and place where talking is easier and no professional ethics are under the scanner. Or intentions. Where the laughter is not polite, but free. And where watery eyes are better heard.

In another time and place.

Peanuts by Schulz has a delightful take on love. With Charlie Brown under a tree. Life is easier with a comic book, no?

das futile

2008-04-04T14:35:00.002+05:30

A month long absence. Attributed to nothing. Nothing significant anyway. I am in advertising. So while someone else might have an excuse like "I was fixing the nuclear reactor for the space shuttle" or "I was writing a paper about the the economic and social degeneration of spotted cows as against the non-spotted kind", I was busy trying to sell you stuff that you don't need. With a mighty swoosh of the pen I was trying to affect my microscopic world. Just so my peer groups notice me. And maybe someone else.

My apologies. To everyone who likes this place for whatever reason. Thank you for making the effort of dropping a line to figure out whether I was alive. Though I sometimes wasn't. Near death experiences in our field of work involves an ill-fitting garment on the day of a shoot. Or perhaps a typo in the right hand bottom corner of an advertisement that you notice well after release.

So busy have I been that my usual despondent self hasn't been able to react to various despondency-provoking stimuli. I have hardly been self-deprecatory or disillusioned. I didn't have an existential issue. Nor did I stare at beautiful women, thinking that I am in love. At best, I have been mildly sad. Mostly at night when it's quiet and there's nothing much to do anyway.

I haven't been taking any medication. Probably because I am not supposed to. I haven't been downloading music. I haven't been doing too much reading either. I have lost out on 30 days of my life without doing anything that adds value to my being. For 19 hours every day.

Hence, I bought a Playstation Portable.

That's a little Wizard of Id strip that seems to strike a chord somewhere. Created by Johnny Hart and Brant Parker of B.C. fame. Been a big fan over the years. And I wish I knew them personally.

an amazing grace

2008-03-04T15:24:00.011+05:30

I woke up dead. Heavy and pondering. The tea was cactus, the newspaper soggy and the insides out. As I carefully provoked myself to get out of the slumber, the scenes from last year came down. I sat in the early morning rain with my last cigarette of yesterday and got wet. Slowly. Helplessly waiting for the translucent clouds of memories to pass. With eyes wide open.

People have chided me for being stupid. For baring it all here. For being incapable of being mature (now this in today's day and age involves ignoring the subtler feelings of your being altogether and appearing calm. It also involves complicated, shish-kabobed thinking processes that benefit no one in particular, but apparently are beneficial to oneself). For attempting to hang onto something that has seemingly vaporised. Trying to hold on to images and words that have been a part of the best years of my life. And the people who contributed generously towards it. Millions of mornings, conversations and debates compounded into a little bitter pill. Now stuck at the throat. Halting any possible progress.

The scene at work isn't helping either. I am juggling four morons in one hand as they struggle to find their own centre of gravity. The other hand is busy trying to mollycoddle dim-witted, penny-pinching, rationale-eluding clients who seem depressed about my creative prowess most of the time.

And then the wishes started pouring in. Pouring is altogether a very strong word. Trickling, very slowly and infrequently is also grossly misplaced. But I will allow myself the luxury of a little exaggeration. Last night I slept after the third call. This morning my text inbox was overwhelmed by three pithy messages with the word 'dude' adorning the two little words as a prefix or a suffix. Also thanks to the inadequacies of Facebook, I got a couple of calls from old friends.

And then something happened. Just now. Something that can (and will) potentially alter the mood of this post. I got a phone call from my previous agency. They all came together and sang over the phone in various levels of cacophonic harmony. And I found myself sitting quietly again. Just like I did this morning. Only this time I had a smile that my face just couldn't handle. And entire fresh sets of previously unused muscles had to be called in to help out. I am better equipped to face the streets now. In fact, I am almost aggressive.

There's another reason for this mild arrhythmia of the heart today. I got a call that I wasn't expecting.

And that has made all the difference.

If you don't know Calvin, you have no reason to breathe. I wish Bill Watterson would come out of retirement.

the path of memory

2008-02-27T11:58:00.008+05:30

Its been 13 days of absolute insanity. At work. And in my head. I am feeling a little lighter today. Light enough to make good friends with the local winds. Just so they don't desert me mid-air. My absence from this space has been irritating me. But tired, sleepless shoulders are not very good executioners of thought. I have been drained the last couple of weeks. Most of the time it was unnecessary fatigue. Going back and forth. Some days even picking up the lukewarm cup of coffee was a strain. But I am better equipped today. The shelves of the mind have been dusted and re-arranged to meet acceptable standards that allow societal communication.

There's something that I have been obsessed with. It's about the patterns in my head. The residual images of the past. Archived by date, time and emotional appeal. And I have been going over them. Like the celluloid obsessed owner of an old forgotten cinema. And the more I go over them, the clearer things become. I have a very bad memory of everyday life. Entire conversations mean nothing to me. Maybe I am never paying attention. Maybe I am never even there. Which is why its curious. The fact that I can recall with precise detail things that have happened to me. The laughter, the sadness, the exact angle of her head when she scolded me. The aroma of the tea that I had to gulp down every morning for two years claiming its the best thing I have ever tasted. The exact temperature of her skin, early in the morning as she cuddled close, in half-slumber. The smell of the still summer afternoons, now lost forever. The feeling of doom before an examination. The first taste of the rain in Poona. Little details lost in the clumsy, detailed nothingness of urban life.

And as these images and words rushed back, I felt a volley of emotions. Happy, sad, anger, fear. All mixed together to create an alternate world where I infrequently found myself in. And it kept me going. Through the mundane jobs. Through the meaningless conversations. Through the nine to nine existence that we have labeled life. And so powerful were the emotions that I am trying to unearth more such vaults. I don't know if this is living in the past. Or whether this is an attempt to escape. To fortify my already rock-solid defense mechanism. But I like the fact that I am discovering a lot more about myself. One fragment at a time.

Strange that I had the time to mull over things like these with deadlines dangling like rusty swords just over the head. But standing in the middle of the freeway can bring a lot of clarity.

If you have made your peace with death i.e.

That's Groo The Wanderer. A comic character created by the legendary (and one of my childhood heroes) Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier. If anyone has read Mad Magazine and remember the Marginal Thinking Dept, you know what I am talking about.

joker and the thief

2008-02-13T10:35:00.014+05:30

How many synonyms for 'disgust' can you think of? For that matter 'disappointed'. Ok. Try 'foolish'. Or maybe 'repulsed'. Now put all the words in a large tumbler. Mix well. Top it off with a little sludge. Done? Now drink it slowly. Do you feel the cold, greenish smile slither down your throat meticulously burning tissue as it does so? Good. Now you know what I feel.

A rather roundabout way to explain my condition. And what happened at work yesterday. I am forever appalled by people who lie in your face. In complete knowledge that they know that you know they are lying. Its shocking if you have experienced it. It is enough to make convert you into a non-believer. Better still turn you into a two-faced animal yourself. And there are enough people who have made their peace with this alarming psychological condition and practice it rather comfortably everyday. The promiscuous wife, the politician, the secretary who smiles at you as you walk into your cabin, your internet guy, the garage owner, the man selling shoelaces at the corner.

People will argue. Everyone lies. True. So do I. And for society to function, you need liars. Even disgust and heartbreak can motivate you. Inspire you even. To fight a war. Or write a 327 word anthem that doesn't rhyme. It is not advisable to be completely honest, I agree. Self- preservation is important and we are forever afraid of our own vulnerability. Hence we withdraw. And the loneliness that we complain about heightens. And we make a habit out of eating out of a can, alone in the kitchen. Insecure, we take to the streets wearing our invisible helmets, shoulder pads and shin guards. Trying very hard not to allow ourselves to affected else's air. Walking with our heads to the ground, ignoring the good the bad. Like a giant anti-biotic that doesn't care before it starts the annihilation of cells. Both cancerous and healthy.

That's the price we pay. And much as my blog would give you the impression of me being a depressive, monotonous brown thing, I am on the contrary, a sunny sort of fellow who is generally amiable and good company. And I still remain optimistic. About global warming, ozone layers, the alarming growth of tech junk, depleting population of tigers, HIV, Hugh Hefner's sex drive etc.

But I moved closer towards becoming a true skeptic yesterday. And it's not funny anymore.

That's Andy Capp. One of the longest running British comic strip characters created by Reginald Smythe, seen in the The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror newspapers since August 5, 1957. I have all the books. Well, almost.

lift and up

2008-02-06T09:50:00.000+05:30

Devil Mood from Love is Stronger than Pride has awarded my blog with this. I feel humbled, high and bloated at the same time. Like a priest on a package trip to the Eiffel Tower. After consuming way too many salted peanuts.

I started my blog on a whim. Irregular and without the faintest idea that it would come this far. It's different now. I write because I like sharing my life with you. I try to be entertaining. And I have no idea how far I succeed. I have been caustic, vitriolic, eccentric, phallic and even electric. Using the well-known (and abused) tools of mild exaggeration and hypothermia to engage those who stumble here. Sometimes, everyday. I am in no way the perfect person. Nor am I even close to being a perfect writer. But I try to be honest with my feelings. Sometimes to the tune of self discovery. Without sitting in dark corners and occasionally muttering 'hmmm'.

But you are the real reason why I am here. I might not know all of you as combinations of flesh and blood, but you are to me, the world. I have made some exceptional friends (you all know who you are) and I have been continuously amazed at the things you have thrown up at me, sometimes to me.

Now comes the hard part where I have to award this to those that I think deserve it. And without further ado, here they are.

educatedunemployed - Her stream of consciousness is often more scathing than mine. She's vanished in the last few days though. I wish her the best.

gaizabonts - Writer, photographer, blogger, philosopher, friend. His words and images are like brush strokes upon your soul. And the scars stay with you long after you leave.

madelyn - How would you like to start your day with a dollop of sunshine? Madelyn radiates positive energy (just the way its written). She writes like frosted sugar. I am enamoured by her. I am comforted by her.

videoxy - Stumbled upon her one day and now we are connected. Her thresholds of pain and love is eerily similar to mine. Maybe that's why I love her so much.

I don't know if you guys have already been awarded. But you deserve this. This is my list anyway. To everyone I read, I love what you write as well. And I shall continue to haunt your space.

Like it or not.

of iron maidens

2008-02-04T09:26:00.000+05:30

I went for the concert. With a friend from another era. It was uplifting. Till such time the tectonic motions of sweaty metal fans had me scrambling towards the aisles. I am significantly weaker today. I fell down twice, almost broke my hand once, smoked kilos of second hand marijuana, perspired like pigs on a treadmill and yet, if it is possible, was the epitome of geniality throughout. I also head banged out of sync a couple of times, but was perversely distracted by this pyt with long hair next to me who was doing it way better than I was. And it remains, by far, the most erotic thing I have seen this year. Not counting my hands, of course.

With fragments of shrieking guitars still buzzing between our ears, we scurried for a drink afterwards. The bars were sparsely populated. With a sprinkling of b-list celebrities and people who were desperate to achieve that status. But we stood quiet, talking about old relationships and mentally sorting and tagging the sashaying women as they went about their birdlike ways. With tingling laughter and dropping hemlines, they all looked attractive, approachable and cold.

We drank quick. We ate fast. The alcohol conspired with the nervous system with utmost efficiency. There was a certain numbness that took over the joints. And the eyes, despite the well-known laws of optics, started doing a milder version of the shimmy. We decided we are one short. We headed out to an old joint to cap off the evening with a small whisky before submitting to now, rapidly approaching sleep.

In hindsight, it would possibly be the only decision of the evening that I would possibly rethink. As soon as I walked in, I saw her. Sitting at our usual place. With those she has replaced after me. In the last eleven months, though I have seen her a couple of times, this time I was completely and hopelessly unprepared to see her. She might have noticed me a few minutes before I did though. I'm saying this because it took her only a second, to practise and flash a polite and devoid-of-any-affection smile, in my direction. She is more evolved than I am anyway. I stuttered something. My legs gave way. I don't think I acknowledged her companion either before walking back to my table. I had started trembling. Out of excitement. Out of anger. And I didn't want them to see it.

They left soon, in about five minutes. I know that slow, deliberate walk. Without even casting a look in my direction, the woman that I was in love with had gone. Outside the door. And back into the world without me, again. And I will never know her know again in my life. Or hold her and hear her soothing voice lull me to sleep. Never know what crazy theory she comes up with next. Or see her jump in excitement as she spots yet another magenta something. Or fix her internet connection. Fight over changing surnames. Or visit the places that we have always wanted to.

As my friend held on to me with a 'what did you expect' smile on his face, I gulped down the remainder of the bitter fluid. I don't know if I was expecting anything, really. Maybe look for something in her eyes that I would recognise from happier times. I have done a lot of stupid things in my life. And I couldn't help but wonder how bad I might have been with her. For anyone to turn away with so much force requires an equal, if not more, amount of recklessness.

But she looks just the same. With or without me.

That's Mona Lisa by Don Martin. One of my childhood heroes, he was the one of the reasons why Mad Magazine enjoyed such an iconic status in the 50s through the 80s. He lies immortalised in my head.

flush

2008-01-30T16:37:00.000+05:30

What if, we forget the baggage.
Forget the floods.
Forget the stairs.
Forget the silent accusations. And the loud ones.
Forget the open window that used to let the rain in.
Forget the half-complaints. And the insecurities.
Forget the loud, echoing laughter, every 21 seconds.
Forget the lamp with the face on it.
Forget the trembling hands that ruined that shot.
Forget the millions of shared cigarettes.
Forget being pressurised.
Forget the mobile ring tones.
Forget the first conversation.
Forget micro-emotions.
Forget the bad hair days. Or the 35 minute morning regime that follows.
Forget the lyrics.
Forget the nicknames.
Forget the cooking.
Forget the anklets.
Forget the still, half-read Marquez.
Forget the carefully maintained soft board.
Forget the tear stained afternoon after Cinema Paradiso.
Forget the first photograph in Goa.
Forget the shouting eyes.
Forget what people said.
Forget the badly made ginger tea.
Forget the muted whispers over a long distance call.
Forget Bill Watterson.
Forget the t-shirt.
Forget the lies. Forget the truth.
Forget contentment.
Forget the marathon with bare feet.
Forget the unanswered mails.
Forget the jokes. Or the faces that came with it.
Forget existentialism.
Forget the red and black raincoat.
Forget the love. Forget the blind hate.
Forget the first time. Forget the last time.

What if we forget everything. And meet for a cup of coffee.

forty blinks

2008-01-25T11:21:00.000+05:30

Way too tired. The week has been heavy and persistent. And my efforts at self-preservation have all but gone in vain. I have developed chair sores (like bed sores but invisible to the naked eye), my fingers twitch uncontrollably without the intervention of the brain and I look like an Al-Qaeda recruit who didn't read the fine print when signing the "How I will blow myself up in the most beautiful cities of the world" document. But the most adverse side-effect has been the loss of sleep. It's back. And it would give me nightmares, if it weren't for the fallacy of the situation.

I have started dreading nights. They are slow and tiring. With a silence so pervading that sometimes I can hear my blood rushing and gurgling through my body, stopping at times only to pick up speed. Comfortable in its monotonicity. The body lies inert in foetul positions at various angles. The eyes, open. Staring at the little cracks and indentations on the walls. Drawing stories that no one wants to hear. The mind races on. Moving from friends to foes to love to regrets with a bull-headed recklessness. Searching desperately for the needle of sleep.

I have tried drinking. I have tried reading. I have tried the air-conditioner (at lower temperatures. at higher temperatures). I have even tried milk. They don't work. Not yet anyway. The mind feels dry and needs to look and absorb every detail much to heavy for me to handle. I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know whether it will go away. I don't know whether I should make my peace with it. Just lead a dual life of optimism and sleeplessness. On the road to becoming the hamming extra in a badly written script.

Maybe I can find something to do at night. Like brush up on my Scrabble skills. Or practice exorcism to get all the women I have loved out of my core. Try Origami. Or have a conversation with the moths that keep dropping in. Maybe seek out the shy lizard that lives behind my television set and thank him for keeping the cockroaches at bay. I could also clean out my Rotrings and start drawing cartoons again.

I need to make a list.

The image is a page from the graphic novel The Three Paradoxes by an upcoming and very, very talented cartoonist/illustrator/author called Paul Hornschemeier. Read his interview here.

a little chicken, a little courage

2008-01-16T22:40:00.000+05:30

I had a conversation. After a thousand odd years. It lasted six hours. And will probably remain and fossilise in my head for another thousand. Provided I am mummified of course. To excited future excavators, relax. There are no curses for defiling my tomb. Just be a little careful of my spine. I have one. Unlike most in my era.

I return to the conversation. I still remain excited and stimulated even after 48 hours have passed. That can be attributed to the fact that I remain an asocial being. Seldom going beyond my call of duty to entertain or be entertained. I have realised (with much disappointment) that I don't really need people around me. I am a tremendous socialiser, I agree. A great hit amongst goats of all ages. And yet, in the last year I have infrequently found myself alone in bars and pubs, quietly drinking the evening away. I drink fast. I tip heavy. And I leave without a fuss.

Besides most of my conversation at work is the same. The same words, the same contexts, the same frustrations, the same stock images, the same scripts, the same headlines, different clients. Hence, a real conversation with a real person is like a big deal, really. Add to that, the fact that the person in question, is a petite, attractive woman with the most revealing eyes in the world and you are like the cat. With that bird inside of you.

We spoke a lot. Mostly religion. The politicised nature of religious hierarchy. Of Christ. Of Buddha. Of Allah. Of Rama. Of history. Of science. The evolution of man through a series of happy co-incidences. Of karma. And, lastly us. A passionate (and often, heated) exchange of two lonely people caught with each other, out of a selfish need to be heard. To be with someone. If only for a few hours, before reclining to our respective shells. Where we sleepwalk the rest of the week in. With rude words thrown in for good measure.

And we are stubborn. Both of us. In our rights and wrongs. But there's a marked respect. And in another world and time could possibly have been lovers. Some of what she said was pretty preposterous though. And I wouldn't subscribe to them even if God told me to. Though she is way closer to Him than I am.

I had prepared some chicken. And when most people were being attacked by mutants or cost accountants (or both) in their sixteenth nightmare, we finally got down to eating it. She loved the chicken, she said.

The conversation continued. Unhindered. Through the chomp and clink of dinner.

And yet this is not about the conversation. In our little lives we have played out many wars. The debris lies there still. Motionless and scattered in unnamed ghost towns of the soul. Though we may not be prepared yet to sweep them clean, both of us still reached out to each other. With affection (though she claims to be unaffected by it). With trust. With longing. With desire. And though somewhere I am sad that she wasn't really mine on this ocassion, I know that one evening she will be. And I hope she returns. Not just once. But again and again.

Because with time, we will move on. To other people. To love. To family. To dependency. To routine. But I don't think I will ever be able to forget the soft request that melted my heart the first time.

And those eyes.

Cartoon: Off the Mark by Mark Parisi. But you already know him, don't you?

of mechanisms and pain

2008-01-13T23:59:00.001+05:30

The year has just slipped into it's 14th day. And there are tremendous scenes of mayhem unfolding in front of me. Caused by deadlines, egos and lots of real money at stake. My pledge to lie low in my pyjamas and eat lotuses, has been nipped in the bud. If you excuse my informal attire and the bad pun, you might actually see me fade.

But I am doing good. I manage to look lost for 12 hours a day. My lies sound better. My ability to divert attention from the real crises by pointing at random directions is being accepted. Being in this business teaches you a lot of things. Firstly, to bend the rules. To not conform to any given set of ideals. That's the way to a great creative product. But there are other things I have picked up roadside that are just as useful. Like the conviction to sell anything as long as its done by you. Or the ability to actually converse with a real model. And pretending to be genuinely interested in her chipped fingernail. Complete with aahs and oohs. Timed to perfection.

I am glad though that I am where I am. I don't think I am qualified to do anything else. I mean, I don't understand too many things about the world. I don't understand money. Or politics. Or why Obama will be better. Women for that matter. Or how the world's cheapest car can actually help a country with no roads. I am quite the fool really. And the fact that there are real people demanding solutions from me to sell their crappy product and make real money, scares the kidneys out of me.

My beautiful Sunday has just come to an end. Did nothing but drink a lot of wine and stare at an empty page for the greater part of the day. This campaign that will get me nowhere. I stopped now once the wooden letters on the Word document angrily started re-arranging themselves.

It must be the antibiotics.

That's Dilbert by the way. By Scott Adams. Check out his blog here.

easy, boy

2008-01-04T23:07:00.000+05:30

Back. The trip was rejuvenating. It's a different thing that at midnight on New Year's Eve I found myself in a parking lot of the Government Guest House in Nainital. I got two and a half phone calls. And 13 delayed text messages from numbers I didn't recognise through the next few days. The temperature was hovering about freezing point and for the majority of the trip I was excited about feeling cold.

Now that I am back, I have decided to take it a little easy. The people seem slower and their lives seem altogether undisturbed by my absence. My mail box is full of junk. I also think I am unauthorized to do any hard work.

Yes, the trip was rejuvenating. Check here if you want to see the pictures. Here, if you don't.

Happy New Year.

Vintage Superman cartoon from the New Yorker.

great escape

2007-12-27T21:11:00.000+05:30

This time it's different. Never have I been so excited about the prospects of a new year. And I just hope it lives up to its promise. I mean it can't possibly get any worse. Unless of course if I get meningitis, lose my job and get engaged to a bull horn. But the possibilities of that happening seem remote. So I am off to Uttarakhand for five days. With myself. And my camera.

So I wish everyone a very happy new year in advance. Enjoy the parties. Get suitably sozzled. Wipe your hands on your friend's curtains. Sleep with their nameless divorced friends. Lie about your stupid job.

Those of you who remember what all you did wrong, blame the punch.

Cartoon - Far Side by Gary Larson. Someday I will become him.

villain

2007-12-26T10:32:00.000+05:30

Someone I adore reached out to me yesterday. And all I could do was think of myself and make her cry. She always used to say that I am 12 years old. Last night, I proved it.

fork, fork

2007-12-25T12:25:00.001+05:30

The weekend was mixed. A little cold. A little scrabble. This time I didn't cheat. Nor make up words of my own. Met up with someone I knew a long, long time ago. She hasn't changed one bit. Apart from growing up I mean. We all have. Walked the path of life. And in the process shed a lot of skin and baggage. Some of it unknowingly. The promise of tomorrow is always, somehow more glossy and aspirational. Like a tourism brochure. The kinds that start with, "Hey there chump, ever seen a real sunrise?"

Miles of conversation later, she still remains a little delicate. The fork in the road seems wider. And the fact that a decision needs to be made, is overwhelming. It's not easy. But I wish her courage. Something that all of us need right now. Whether to put things right, or to acknowledge our mistakes. To fight the moment of weakness with one ounce of strength. Just so, a couple of years down the line, we don't regret the fact that we didn't make an attempt.

I too have made mine. And failed. But I tried. As much as my weak self would allow. The hours of fake laughter over lonely drinks haven't helped. As I sat yesterday, sucking yet another whisky-tinged ice cube on Christmas eve, the realisation of all that I have lost, hung heavy like a cloud. The city had finally disowned me. The entire weekend I took all the possible wrong turns. Got lost several times in the process. Much as I tried to remember, the little memories of places and people evaded me. I was a stranger yesterday. Faceless. Nameless. Looking for a fix.

And then I got the call. The pain was pulverizing. And it just wouldn't stop. Like a twisted little fork it went deeper into my chest, shredding all possible tissue or muscle that came in its way. The drunken revelry around me only compounded it. The Santa caps, the shrill giggles, the clinging glasses, the thunderous bass from the speaker. All went a notch quieter. And the only thing I could hear was a soft voice from the other side. "Please don't cry." It said.

Nine drinks and six hours of sleeplessness later, I had to leave. Back to Bombay. Back to work. As I sit looking at layouts strewn around me, I feel distanced and helpless. More so because I always knew this would happen. And I prayed and hoped I would be wrong. Like so many times before. Only this time, it wasn't to be. In our feverish pursuit of life and acceptability there is a lot to lose out on. Possibly the biggest being our innocence. We have traded it for muck. And we think its a good deal.

Merry Christmas to all of you. What did you get from Santa yesterday?

The cartoon remains uncredited because I am too tired too look for the artist. If someone is aware, please help.

the last bout

2007-12-16T14:36:00.000+05:30

In 15 days time, the year will melt. That's when you will probably be doing something stupid, romantic, nostalgic or pathetic. With or without your loved ones. In a new place or some stranger's log cabin that you will never go back to. If you are lucky you will get stoned, attacked by lesbians and win a lottery the next day. And will also have a fantastic new year's story to share with nervous colleagues in hushed voices.

I remember my post from a year back. Almost exactly at this time. I was busy trying to wrap up work and make arrangements for our trip to Goa. And it was good. Or so I thought. Too pre-occupied with feeling good to smell the first fumes of discontent. Too consumed with gratitude to hear the noises she was making. I often wonder how it was for her. I haven't really asked her. Did she start hating me then? Was she merely tolerating me? Was she listening? I don't know. It's time I stopped caring. At least, that's what everyone seems to be saying.

Thus started the year. And it feels like a thousand days since. A thousand days, memorised and logged with a detailed, accurate account of events. That I really don't want to relive. But not forget either. I owe myself that much. I have spent a lot this year. On booze. On unnecessary stuff that rots in my frig. On gadgets. On trying to create memories. On people that I thought would stay on a little longer. On freshly washed linen. Things that have managed to keep me distracted. One minute at a time.

It's Sunday. And I am at work. Working on yet another fashion campaign that's going rapidly downhill. Waiting for the last fortnight of the year to drain out. The year has been mostly terrible. Though I haven't bitten a dog. Or been to jail (not once this year, honest), I have been found wanting in most situations. Exposed and without an answer. So I let up my guard. And fight myself with a helpless, involuntary sense of humour.

Some days I am Woody Allen.

Cartoon by Paul Soderholm.
Courtesy www.gnurf.net. Check him out. He's awesome. Really.

resurrection, rhetoric and a reset button

2007-12-04T14:07:00.002+05:30

My malaria days are over. And just when I thought it is time to restart life, with fresh vigour and lettuce, the problem surfaced. Innocently enough at first. In fact, so subtle were the begininnings that I didn't even recogize it as one.

I can't hold a pencil anymore. Or when I do, I can no longer put it to paper and make it coherent. The lines are awry, tedious and communist. Like a reluctant dancer it flows for a while. And the mess is simply unbearable. Just yesterday I wrote a campaign for a fashion brand. It looks like a cow.

So this absence here cannot be simply blamed on sickness. (Yes, the health is still not what it used to be. I tire easily and am prone to bouts of fever. At the oddest seconds. It strikes. In the middle of a drink. While holding an umbrella. In a cafe. In front of a painting. I have learnt to ignore it though. It's not that bad if you get used to it. I think I will live. I have to. I am yet to meet Julia.) Everyday I opened this space and stared till the little pixels on the screen started assuming disturbing shapes. I could think of nothing to write.

Nothing that all of you will want to read anyway. I read other blogs. They are beautiful, heart-wrenching, sickly-sweet, life-changing, society-shaping, animal loving, socio-political, emotional trails of words that people read with tears in their eyes. Some even get goose bumps and email them to their friends. "Read this", they say, "It gave me goose bumps..". And all I can think of writing is like a personal, sometimes self-obsessed diary that seeks to malign everything that has been unfair to me. Or is in the process of being.

That seldom makes for interesting reading. I have been angry for a long time. And instead of moving on from this spineless anger, I periodically remind myself to remain just this way. The people that mattered have moved on. The noises that their scattered remnants in my house make are beautiful and unbearable. Like the photograph of an accident, taken in soft light. The stuff needs to be returned. Trinkets, bangles, CDs and smells. Packed and addressed to owner. Who wants them back. Who I still talk to in my head.

I deduce I am going insane. A condition that requires a shake-up. A manual reset. And I intend to return to sane mind with the pencil. The same one that is scrawling illegibles currently. And this is the first step. Towards better rhetoric.

And hopefully, a campaign that I can sell. Without resorting to con men tactics.

Cartoon courtesy www.markstivers.com. He's quite super. Take my word for it.

malaria, an ode to

2007-11-20T11:03:00.000+05:30

I returned from my month long vacation with good intent. I had a few bottles of Cutty Sark, a big book of crossword puzzles and two-and-a-half books that everybody wants me to read. Bombay suddenly didn't appear as big, smelly and dark as it normally does. Add to that the fact that I just got myself a new toy (the iPod touch), the prospects of an evening alone wasn't all that dreadful anymore.

Then Plasmodium Falciparum happened to me. Also known as, the bad malaria.

All it takes is a couple of mosquitoes to spread this rather aggressive strain of the disease. This one is known to affect the vital organs i.e. the liver, lungs, heart, kidneys and the cottage piano (the other organ that men keep fantasising about using, isn't apparently that vital).

I was immobile without food and drink and very high fever for three days before I had the sense to call a friend who took me for the tests. Post that I was shifted to my cousin's place, where I am being pampered. And I think I deserve it. Though I feel a lot better now, my blood reports are still not up to the mark. The doctor keeps glancing up from them and gives me an odd look that seems to say, "How come this one's still alive?"

The year just doesn't seem to end.

That's 'Off the Mark', one of my favourite cartoon strips by Mark Parisi. Introduced to me by someone special, not too long ago. I don't know where she is now.

tagged: a tail of words

2007-10-21T17:06:00.000+05:30

Do you know what good writing is? For that matter, do you know what good soup is? Or good art? Okay, how about a good song? Why call a beer good? Now that we are on the topic, what exactly is a good girl? Do you know any? Could you forward me their numbers when you are done reading this?

I have been tagged by Gaizabonts to shed some light, my light, on the subject: "strengths of a writer". The Writer's Meme, its called. And though this is a better tag, far better than the "spot the 18 lies about my homophobic uncle turned miniature taxidermist" kinds, it is also kind of pressurising.

But more relevant. Because as bloggers we write and share our lives, likes, dislikes, quirks with millions of nameless stumblers. And we try our best to make it as readable and interesting as possible. We proclaim, educate, amuse, impress and ocassionally seduce (yes, yes, yes). So it is but natural, that most of us will have sound and somewhat vociferous ideas of what makes the cut. And like all opinions, you might not agree with a few. But that's ok. We still have regular jobs. And working plastic.

So here I go. In my attempt to try and encapsulate all that I know about the myriad strengths of a writer. If you trackback, you might find that everyone who has been tagged has dealt with this their own way. I will try to keep it simple and unpretentious, just like the girl-next-door you wished you lived next door to.

A good writer.

Fits you like a sock. The first few lines. It's all in the first few lines. If it starts good, it probably is all the way. And the metaphoric advice isn't silly. Try it. Pull up a sock to your ankle and it fits you well you just have to pull it up all the way. It's karmic engineering (or plain good elastic). That's how I picked up most of my books that now take up more space in my house than the floor.

Wants you to enjoy his creation. Which is why he keeps it simple. No complicated 233 word sentences. Or a fiery volley of words that leave you with a weight upon thy tongue (apologies to the great bard). Their words are their arsenal. But not big, flashy ones. They would rather employ small, sharp knives that seldom inspire awe or fear, but cut red and deep. And the pain is scarlet. To illustrate with an example; Haruki Murakami in 'Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of The World, describes Dylan's voice as, "Like a kid standing at the window watching the rain". Feel that? Good. Next.

Is interesting. There's a plot. And it moves. The writer has a point of view. An idea, a theory, a concept. And he wants to share it. He wants to be heard. And the one's who succeed in talking to us, are the ones who kept them interesting. And this holds true from the very first time man learnt to write. They were stories with epic battles, brave men who fought dragons, rough seas and beautiful women who liked marmalade. All an attempt to keep us reading. And it worked. Still does.

Lets us find the magic. He seldom tries too hard. A regular slight of hand becomes fantastic, ethereal even. And it is done amidst the casual clutter of everyday. Do you remember feeling hungry while reading about the Famous Five? Or feel despair like the Joads? Didn't you feel like making aquiantance with a certain Bertram Wooster as he slipped into the Drones for dinner? You remember the littlest of details, the most insignificant ones that have nothing to do with the plot. Because one lazy afternoon, a long, long time ago, as you were reading in bed, you guffawed out loud or wet the pillow case with uncontrollable, little sobs. All for a few words, carefully and lovingly arranged for you to feel that way.

Respects you. There is a breed of writers, who write to assert their superiority. Their godlike grasp over the subtle nuances of the language. Their skills in weaving 3,076 characters in one episode. Their ability to manufacture fantasy characters with semi-Gaelic first names. It shows a clear lack of things to say. They aren't storytellers, or communicators, or propogators of change. They are there to fill up shelves of yellowish, chain, neon-lit, plasticky book stores.

Can induce change. That's because he makes you think. His idea is something that you spend time with, long after you have finished reading what he had to write. You argue with people over fictional characters you feel compelled to like or dislike. You are scared to admit that they scare you. That's how they bring about change. In acceptability. In society. In morality. Future states of being. There are enough examples to go around without me indulging in name dropping. And those of you who have reached this far are probably rattling off a thousand examples in their head as you read this line. Well, didn't you?

There are more things. Bigger, greater, more important things that a writer does to amass the kind of strength that he has. To move generations by a sweep of the pen. But these are the few things that I thought are the most important. That what gives a writer the keys to our kingdom. To enter our being and flutter there forever. Becoming who we are, almost.

I have to stop. Thanks again Atul for doing this. I am on holiday, but this was simply too tempting to give it a pass. Besides, it helped break my deadlock for the past ten odd days. Before I go, I need to tag people who will give it the respect it deserves. And here they are, in no specific order.

devil mood | delivered
kapitan niemand
tangled up in views
d h roark | delivered
crazybawa | delivered

I don't know how you guys will react to this on a musty Monday morning. But I am sure you guys will take this forward. In your own little quirky ways.

Topped with extra mayo.

Cartoon courtesy The Far Side by Gary Larson. Those of you who don't know him, die.

what, the herrick?

2007-10-10T09:57:00.000+05:30

Ten months into the year and I can still recall with amazing clarity the first day of January. As clear as a transparent fish on a crisp, cool day. But it's gone now. Relegated to the darkest parts of the attic. Forlorn and cobwebby. Waiting for someone to stumble upon it at some point in the future. Only to wake it up with a start and make it cry.

And post that day, life has hurled itself unto random quadrangles. With a casual disrespect towards its practitioners. With a purpose, it has disengaged the train off the tracks. Wiped the words off nervous lips. Refused you the right to sanity. Resulting in a stuttering chain of events, that could have been softly persuaded otherwise.

I struggle to move on. To suck an ice cream and say 'fuck it' or 'this too shall pass'. I try to adopt the characteristics of my favourite animal, the dog, to stay calm. Quiet and docile, with a practiced bored look. To eat only when hungry. To sleep without worrying about the flies. Fend off aggressors by baring fangs. To not let anyone into my territory. To not trust anything over a couple of feet in height. Especially with long hair.

But wag my tail and make a completely idiot of myself at the first signs of affection.

The dreams are back. And they are now getting strangely comic. Most end with me, feeding the midget with a jargon problem, to a herrick (hollow laughter throughout).

Pssst. A herrick doesn't exist in the real world. I made it up in my dream. It is a rather small, salamander like creature with a slender body and six legs. It has the face of a ferocious bull-terrier and long claws like no other creature known to man. Carnivorus. Extremely polite and aggressive. Their favourite food: Jargon rambling midgets who need a haircut.

wishy washy

2007-10-01T12:07:00.000+05:30

I want a red wall.
I want to wring his neck.
I want to quell the doubt.
I want to flick the switch.
I want free text messaging.
I want to relive the moment.
I want to derive the equation.
I want a playstation 3.

I want jazz.

I want Alan Alda to be young again.
I want to be rain.
I want a silent lover.
I want a recurring dream.
I want my own windmill.
I want my mum to be famous.
I want to meet andy warhol, allen ginsberg and a polar bear.
I want black and white movies.

I want to fit in.

I want to know someone called Julia.
I want to be a cold pillow.
I want to see Peru.
I want to hear you breathe.
I want a dangling conversation.
I want fingers to clasp.
I want the smell of comfort.
I want a long innings.

I want to smile at you.

I want to be a weatherman, a virus, a reformist.
I want a perfect average.
I want a dog.
I want a leather jacket.
I want a happy commotion.
I want the bigger piece.
I want a nice part.
I want a simple plot.

I want her.

Pic: Nostalgia by Luke Chueh from the exhibition 'Sad Paintings For Happy People'.
Courtesy www.lukechueh.com

scrambled. morning

2007-09-19T10:09:00.000+05:30

What did you think the moment you woke up today? Or is it a Who? How did you feel? Were you confused? Were you stressed? Were you smiling as the creaking reels of the last dream wound up in fading luminosity? Were you happy? Or were you merely ok?

I'll tell you how I was. I was angry. And I was angrier still by the fact that I was. Half-asleep and immobile with negativity. I was angry at how I am completely not in control of my life. I was angry at the people I love for dissecting me out of their being. I was angry at my inability to do so. I was angry that they still appear in my dreams, just how I remember them. I was angry at the people who have taken advantage of me over the years. I was angry at the people who despite wallowing in mediocrity, are making more money than I do. I was angry at the bedspread that kept slipping off through the night. I was angry at me not being in touch with people who have mattered to me over the years. I was angry at everybody. I was angry.

I sat up. I blinked to consciousness. It was then that I felt them. Tiny droplets of rain that had collected on my eyelashes. After travelling hundreds of miles from their nesting grounds way up in the stratosphere. To find me. As I wiped both eyes to look out of the window, I found myself smiling.

Today must be the day they sing about.

That's Andy Warhol. Courtesy Allposters.com

a long way up

2007-09-14T13:33:00.000+05:30

This disappearance is unpardonable. And unavoidable too. My work has always promised to take me places. And this time it did. I was in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Supervising a shoot for a fashion client. While the professional photographer went about his job, I too pointed my SLR in various directions and randomly went about my bumbling amateur self. And some of it is posted right here.

But now that I am back. And promise to be regular. I should have left a note explaining the absence. To all those who came when I wasn't here - my heartfelt apologies. To all who didn't, I hope you learnt how to speak in Icelandic in the meanwhile.

Photo by Phish. Rani ki Chhatri, Jaipur 2007.

first class pulley

2007-08-20T10:23:00.000+05:30

Find myself back at my desk. Littered with debris collected over the last 13 days. Dilbert comic strips waiting to be pinned to the softboard, circled birthdays on single calender sheets, panels from other graphic novels, portfolios of bad photographers, freelance assignment bills, old job lists, unsigned vouchers, food bills, beer bottle caps, withered little flags now at half-mast. Every insignificant object has a story to tell. Everything reminds me of something. And that's just in front of me.

What about the wasted wreckage in my head? The fragments of a rainy week that kick started it all. The well-known smell of comfort. The tiny shreds of laughter still ringing in my ears. The tinkle of anklets. The crumpled denims I see each time I open the cupboard. The favourite band that I can't stand listening to now. The side of the bed that no one fights over anymore.

There are stories that are, at best stories. And then there are the ones that forcibly hold you down and pulverize you. Intangibles. Desaturated images that burn the eyes. Bringing you closer to a vacuum that you have been denying to recognize for the last 27 years.

And as the day unfurls with a soft light and a pending job list, all you think about is how to play along with the day so that you don't get hurt. So that your ego doesn't take a beating. So that you don't think about the six trinkets you didn't want to return. To not get disillusioned by the mediocrity that surrounds you. To cocoon yourself from the petty treacheries and betrayals. To quietly play the role of the goalkeeper. Or emulate the silent strength of the rickshaw puller found roaming in the streets of Calcutta.

It's the worst possible form of labour. Man pulling man. But if you look carefully beneath the grimy, sweat-stained skin. Beyond the weak, quivering knee-cap and debt-ridden eyes, you'll find that he's really pulling himself. With a sense of abstract urgency. And attached is a tiny hand bell that he uses to warn the world that he still exists.

Make way.

mouthwash

2007-08-07T11:55:00.000+05:30

I finally threw out the assortment of toothbrushes from my house today. Some were red, some were blue, some yellowing with neglect. Caked and dry like fossils. Their owners have moved on. To different addresses. To different arms. To different morning smells.

I stared at them for awhile before I threw them out. I have been saving them. Half-hoping that one day someone will be back and be comforted by a resident familiarity. Exactly at the same angle.

But a toothbrush is the easiest thing to replace in the world.

After you i.e.

on your guard

2007-07-30T11:51:00.000+05:30

The week long hiatus has done wonders for me. I have finally understood the meaning of life. It is nothing but a self-winding ukulele. And like everything nowadays, it too is probably made in China.

All this serious hardship-overcoming, weepy, mostly obese people you see courtesy Oprah or "I Lived Without Hope in a Coca-Cola Can" equivalent, motivational, self-help bestsellers are great. For television channels and psychologists' waiting rooms i.e. I mean, it can make you go all goose-pimply. And occasionally you might even get all charged up to take control of your life. Sure. But if you think that you too can become one of them, think again.

That's because to take control, you will have to let go first. Firstly, of the obsessions that we don't recognise as ones in the first place. And more often than not, it is mere routine. Our lives are governed by a persistent, urban tick-tock that we simply cannot ignore. Wake up. Make tea. Scan the headlines. Rush to the loo with an unlit cigarette. Hear the phone ring. Mutter bad words. Run around the shower. Take a cab. Ignore the rain calling out to the finer senses. Argue with the cabbie. Swipe your card. Ah. You are there. Ready to sit for 12 straight hours, staring at a screen. Doing random big things that have the potential to change the world. Your very own chaos theory.

The best way out is to get lost. For a few minutes everyday. Amid the grey walls. In that comic book. Or a small fragment of childhood memory. A bowl of yoghurt. A rubik's cube. A hand-written letter. A long distance call only to recount an old joke. In trying to hum the beginning bars of your favourite song. Calling up Dad. Maybe even polishing your bicycle.

It makes us superior beings. Far more evolved than the briefcase-carrying dork who crosses the road thinking of what stocks to buy. Or the morbidly ambitious, jargon-blurting executive who does everything for himself. Or the madman television evangelist with a villa in Greece.

My last post was a little more than a week back. I felt happy that day. It's been two weekends hence and I cannot recall what I did on any of the days. Most of the time, I was just lying on bed trying to answer these questions. A mismatch of ideologies, cuisines and weather patterns.

But this Monday morning, something is different. I feel a strange readiness to face the week. Maybe even torment it, my own way. But I refuse to succumb to it's cold routine. So I take a deep breath. Here I come.

Ready or not.

miles in the sky

2007-07-20T14:09:00.001+05:30

One little Friday.

Take 5 days of 48 hours each. Put them in a small cardboard box. Throw in a little writer's block and petty politics. And maybe a half-eaten sandwich. Then wrap tightly to half it's size.

Now pummel the package with a baseball bat till such time it resembles a pullover. Wear it.

I am not averse to work. But an illegitimate refusal to unlearn, accommodate and expand one's horizon makes me lose my otherwise perennial smile.

The week has been hostile. And a slight, yet anonymous, exchange has made all the difference.

I feel like jazz today.

tragicomedy, on the side

2007-07-17T10:09:00.000+05:30

I need breakfast.

I believe it is the very cornerstone of a good day. At work or otherwise.

Yet, I don't remember the last time I have had a good breakfast. You know, the kinds when you politely burp, lean back and say 'Ah!' afterwards. The sorts that have the ability to relegate the associated worries of a Monday to the back benches. Or make you re-evaluate the meaning of your entire existence. If only for a second.

And I don't skip it because I am on a diet. At least not for the moment. More often than not my breakfast consists of fried potato fritters that look like little yellow hand grenades (the effect on the inner lining of the stomach is somewhat similar) consumed hungrily in a moving taxi.

There are no cafes on the way to work. Those that are there are usually shut when I am on my way anyway. McDonalds is way off. We don't have a cafe in the office, or even near office, for miles. If I want to have a chicken sandwich, I will have to settle for a mass produced, poly-wrapped, stringy chicken with tasteless mayo and dodgy bread at a chain cafeteria outlet. They are unfamiliar with 'I am not satisfied with this product because it sucks' concept. Or the 'You are a customer and I am supposed to help you' concept.

One can argue, 'Make your own breakfast'. And I try. I am a good cook, they say. But the little shaft of time that is available to me in the morning to brush my teeth and shower (sometimes together) disallows me the time required to prepare more than a couple of slices of toast. I am too busy in my head. Trying to clock in by nine thirty. Thinking of path breaking advertising. Attempting to theoremise behaviour of women (like a QED version of 'I told you she will say that'). Or even contemplating how long does it take to buy the sea facing apartment with the patio. The one where you can have wonderful breakfasts, or so says the realty guy.

Every big city habitually throws a lot at us. Deadlines. Beggars. Prostitutes. Advertising people. And in our feverish attempts to bypass them and still live, chin up, we learn to make certain sacrifices.

And I too have made mine.

Illustration (c) Becky Cloonan

soul fry

2007-07-12T17:38:00.000+05:30

If you are driving a car
and stop at a red light
look at the driver
in the car next to you
and smile

he always smiles back.

for a few dollars more

2007-07-09T16:05:00.000+05:30

In the 10 days that it has been launched, Apple has sold more than 600,000 iPhones (not counting Opus' purchase above). As an infrequent stumbler in the parallel world of blogs I have come across an equal number of posts dedicated to the same. I have also been politely jabbed in the ribs by the few who stray here, asking when will I say a few words about this gadget that has spawned a cultural revolution of the thumb.

This is not a review. Of the iPhone. Or the madness that preceded it. And I have heard enough stories of people who stood in line for days. Apparently a lot can happen to humans in an organised formation like a queue. The dangers of a modern landscape are also not be scoffed at. People broke down, fell ill, turned vegetarian, built a chopper and contemplated joining the Hare Krsna. Some even claimed they found the meaning of life.

All for a cool looking $599 brick that can can store and play music, play your favourite video files, download podcasts, resize images with your fingers and surf the internet.

But can it make her call you? Just when you are longing to hear her voice?

I can't wait to find out.

That's Opus. By Berkeley Breathed. An American cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director, and screenwriter, best known for Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip which dealt with socio-political issues as seen through the eyes of highly exaggerated characters. A personal favourite.

story of a species

2007-07-06T14:36:00.000+05:30

It's friday. My "A Wodehouse A Week" project is coming along very well. Finished 'Thank you, Jeeves' for the umpteenth time last night and almost immediately my world felt settled. The shoulders resumed normal shape and I could feel my elbows work again (i.e. they are bending). But I don't know how long 'pretty phase' might last. If I go searching for old books over the weekend maybe I can sustain the feeling till Tuesday. But that's good enough.

Been reading a lot of blogs of late. It is such a personal space. Yet so public. As you read this, a large number of people over the world are furiously scribbling away their lives in utmost detail. Waiting for a stumbling footprint of a complete stranger. Who comes unseen and leaves behind a small trail of words; that means the world. And it goes on. Someone shares a picture of her favourite flower. Someone writes of the abandoned dog he had a conversation with. And a faceless lover sits and pines for someone he has been in love with all of his life. But is yet to meet her.

There are endless stories. Some funny. Some exaggerated. Some vague. But all of them real. Well, as real as you and me anyway. I mean I don't know you, but you are here and reading this. And I have written it and hence you are. I don't know if it's complicated. On the surface we can blame/attribute this to technology and get away with it. Back to the usual stuff we do, everyday. Rip a small bag of peanuts, take a telephone call, suddenly remember the smell of an ex-lover. Or hear her mobile phone ring in your head and start looking around feverishly, nervous and excited at the same time. Things we do without realizing, understanding or questioning why. Sub-human almost.

That's why we blog. Because we know how we honestly feel for even a second a day, can now be communicated to someone else. And we don't even know their real names. Or how they look. What jobs they have. What books they read. What they like to eat for dessert. We don't know. We don't care if they are good in bed. We don't care if they are selfish. Or asthmatic. Or if they leave their wet towels on their beds. All we want them to do is read. "Please, I don't know you, but can you be involved in my life for just a brief moment. I really need you, even if I don't know you."

Please?

thank you, asparagus

2007-07-02T12:26:00.000+05:30

Monday mornings prefer to be jerky, unsettling and squarish. Somewhat like spinach, only wedged between the two front teeth. But today smells of distant rain. And an old Wodehouse adventure involving a banjolele.

precipice

2007-06-26T10:36:00.000+05:30

Inching closer to madness than ever before. And it's unlike anything that you've read. It doesn't fuel creativity. It doesn't foster random bouts of euphoria. It doesn't take you further away from reality. And it certainly doesn't manifest itself as uncontrollable facial twitches. Or loud singing.

It is a cold, odd feeling that you are indeed a duck. It is gripping. It hauls you deeper in truth. In negativity. In paranoia. It is haunting. It is depressing. It is milk gone sour. It is jealousy. A feeling of being replaced. It is when you can hardly get sleep. It is about midnight showers to wash off guilt. It is suicidal. It is a complete disregard for people. It is eerie. It is an intuition that comes off correct. It is a love for trash. Of self pity. It is an utter disregard for the norm. It is a desire to be touched. And a longing for a soothing voice that says, "It will all be okay. Breathe. I'm here."

bombay blue

2007-05-22T13:57:00.000+05:30

Metropolis. A city of maximums. Squeezed in a square inch of the universe. With a million sardines gasping for breath in perspired synchronisation. Collective gasps. Silent gasps. Unheard. Drowned in a decibel level so high that to truly understand this point you might have to think a little louder. Maybe even scream. Your 36,987th time today.

Bombay has an uncanny ability to outwit you. It's like that irritating algorithm in a computer game that makes the monsters immortal. Your cheat codes are rendered useless. And nothing you hurl towards it can diminish its power. In fact, it just seems to be getting bigger. All the time.

You sweat. You mutter. You give in. Sometimes when you think the city is sleeping, you even cry. Only to awaken the next day with a forcibly generated vigour to live through the day. All an effort to stay alive, till the next time you cry.

And we complain. About the workplace. The Sunday traffic. The rising prices. The turtlish auto rickshaws. The cancerous roads. The rampant corruption. The unseen mafia. The dumb bimbettes and the guys who fuck them. The lack of civic amenities. The deathly shadow that seems to follow us all. Quite like the gigantic guy standing behind you in a crowded, public urinal. You don't look at him. But you can't ignore him, so you try to finish faster. Almost semi-consciously.

We are consumed. Forever afraid. Of that young turk in office. The man standing at the bus stop. The muslim taxi driver. The ad that says, "Get this pimple cream or you won't get laid". Of the cell phone company. The policeman at the signal. The cable wallah. The shopkeeper who overcharges you on MRP. Of the internet provider. Of your building society. The stubbornly irritating maid. Of your girlfriend leaving you. Of loneliness. Very afraid.

And yet we wouldn't trade this for anything in the world. Most of us anyways. Because it's okay. Because the paycheck at the end of the month seems to be making it worth the while. I don't think we get paid because of what we do in our collective offices. It is not just the remuneration for nine hours of cut paste exercises. But for enduring the pain. For taking complicated calls from credit card companies who are going to refuse your application anyway. For trains squeezing your life out of your lungs. For missing your family. For the poor eating habits. For buying factory seconds. For people taking you for granted. For dirt that settles in so deep that you can't wash it off. For the tear stained face you go to sleep with. Every night.

I too am one of them. So afraid of everything around me that my defense mechanism hasn’t rested in half a decade. It’s worse now that I find myself suddenly alone. Though if I had friends, they’d say it’s not my fault. But I know it’s me. I am angry to have done this to myself. I am sad for I have lost one of the most beautiful people I have come across in my life. And I wish I could blame the city or the associated preoccupations that seemingly debilitate the working class.

Now as I travel back home from work, I look out of the window and try to make sense of it all. The pain and the anguish that I find inside me is only heightened outside the oblong frame of the taxi window.

I look up.

My obsession with my new camera keeps it close at hand. I start clicking. If you are a photography enthusiast, I request you not to critique them. I just wanted to show you the sky. And how it was smiling at me yesterday.

There are 300 million people living in the city. I wonder how many of them had noticed. All they had to do was forget everything. For just a few seconds. And look up.

calcutta. calcutta.

2007-05-07T15:30:00.000+05:30

Just concluded a two day whirlwind trip to Calcutta. A meeting was scheduled over the weekend and that was enough excuse for me to get out of a rather dreary existence (read post below) and get bodily refreshed. Home after all has therapeutic properties still unknown to science.

Here are 13 little experiential snippets. The picture above is not related. It is just trying (very hard) to capture the essence of Calcutta through a very popular iconic horse seen on rickety state buses that ply, sometimes very dangerously, within the city of the dead.

The Road to Calcutta. Episode 1.
Before sunrise. Airport. The musky smell of sleep pervades the air. Smiling, bird-like, head cocked to one side, "Good Morning, Sir. Going to Calcutta?" air hostess greets me as I get aboard. "Calcutta? Oh...Okay", I say. They gawk. I stare at the red carpet. A twittering later I am on Jethro Tull and bottled water.

A Calcutta Seance. Scene 2.
Reached. Hot. Like multiply the word by itself. In the company of the most boring people this side of the milky way. I'm wearing a red shirt. I'm smiling infrequently at stale jokes. This can take a while.

The Calcutta Diaries. Chapter 3.
Empty hour. Thirteen cigarettes and one hot, sweet as hell, sickly concoction later the word 'lunch' is finally being thrown about, casually. Emotions betray me. My stomach churns. Fingers twitch. A solitary tear smudges the doodle on my notepad. I'm supposed to be writing the minutes. Damn. I write a couplet on retardation. Tap. Tap. Ok. I think someone just asked me a question. I nod. Knowingly.

Calcutta Chromosome. Ver 4.1
Mogambo. Cold asparagus. Beckty Muniere w/ blanched spinach and lobster thermidor. Mangoes with ice cream to polish it off. Bombay, learn.

Oh! Calcutta. Page 5.
Back. The air conditioner hums on almost ignoring it's recipients. The copywriter with a gas problem scribbles unintelligibles on a scrap of paper. I appear serious. The client with the bulldog complex shakes his head with disdain at every layout, packaging, piece of paper we show him. I think the meeting is going good.

Chronicles de Calcutta n.6
First flush Darjeeling. The next most sacred thing in the city after Ray. On first cup. Antsy. The first sweatbeads of approaching potty. I try to appear calm. But something else is bothering me. How can one get a hard on at the same time? Maybe Ma is right. I am different.

Calcutta Case File #7
A humid day has bloomed into a fine evening. A cool wind picks up as I walk back to the hotel. I inhale deep and slow. It smells of me. Of ten years gone by. Too soon. The wind in turn smells me back. Like an old dog. Trying to remember. Wagging it's tail slowly.

Calcutta Scrapbook Entry 8
Nighttime. The city sleeps. A wandering madman contemplates the merits of a dry pavement. I stand at the balcony and look out. A memory knocks. And a thin strand of an old hindi film song hangs moist in the air. A droplet falls into the my glass. Whisky #3.

Calcutta Capers The 9th Report.
Sunday. Noon. Quiet empty streets. A cheery slumber grips the populi. It is a reluctance that's revered by those who practice it. A day designated to nothing. No wars. Just comforting sounds and smells. Resignation. A temporary envelope.

Calcutta; The Lost Files. Folio 10.
The afternoon. Motionless. Punctuated infrequently by the mating calls of birds unseen. I stand and stare at the hot stillness of the garden. Practicing smoke rings. I think about my footprint in the big city. And dirty feet.

Calcutta Monologue. 11th Verse.
Jazz at the club. People seem content as they down subsidised alcohol. The evening unfolds with an unwillingness akin to molasses. With friends from another era. They are with their wives. I like one of them.

Calcutta Postcard. 12 annas.
In cab. Speeding over a newly constructed flyover. Familiar landmarks rush by like old friends trying to avoid you. A violent poem of blurry lights. The mind wanders. To a special place. Albeit constructed. Where confetti is a small meeting and reckie, a mispelt abbreviation.

The Treaty of Calcutta. The 13th Song.
It's just turned tomorrow. I stand by the window smoking my last cigarette (or is it my first?). The sky is red. I stay calm. Collected even, as I think of the week ahead. In a few hours, I will be 2000 miles away. Closer. You only know what you feel for someone in their absence. The trip is over. It's been emotional.

The Calcutta Novella. Epilogue.
Aircraft. Early morning. 5 mins behind schedule. Hungry. Two hours later I'll be in Bombay, smoking with some trashy supplement in the loo. Can't wait. On some days, I am afraid of flying.

22000 songs. no respite

2007-04-25T12:28:00.000+05:30

"Ah! Welcome back!", I exclaim. To myself.

This is not really the best period in my life. Not all all.

I remain pensive. I am thoughtful. I am needled. I am confused. Sometimes angry. Terribly nervous. Always asphysxiated. Ocassionally heartburnt. Significantly better off financially. I am awfully lonely. This is what is helping me fight the empty minutes. That's an 80GB video iPod in my hand. Given to me by my best friend. Who I miss. Terribly.

Ok. Now check the date. See? This is the top of the line model as of today. The next best one exists in the Apple Labs. Or maybe in Steve Jobs' Head. Ha! I brag. Makes me feel better.

Been sleeping with the lights on for the past one week. These little things often make my day.

united nations

2006-12-20T14:14:00.000+05:30

Well, I've got my own country. It's called blunderbar. And the capital city is called Bboing. My citizens marvel at the astonishing advancements within the nation. And they work diligently to produce Marble and Oil as tradeable resources.

Er...what?

It's called Cybernations. And it's what got me seriously addicted for the last one month. That's what I have been doing whenever I have work. Create your own nation, collect taxes, govern it on your own. Not for people looking for bright pictures and loud electronic music. This is for the slightly intelligent ones.

check it out at your own risk www.cybernations.net
also check out the admins blog.

a date with anxiety

2006-12-04T12:07:00.000+05:30

The sweat glands are working overtime. The nervous twitches return at infrequent intervals. The eyes smart. The fingers are constantly looking for something to twirl and the acidity is just settling in. It happens every year at this time. And it is normally in reaction to a seemingly innocent question.

"What you doing this new year?"

I don't know. Last year I went to Goa and walked for four hours on the sand trying to get to some club. It was probably the worst experience I have had since trying a pair of Lycra Women's Jeans at Pantaloons. The sand was cold, my feet felt heavy and there were times when I was seriously contemplating my life as a plank. When we finally reached the destination there was complete silence from the group. We stared in awe at the 'club'. It was a like an Udupi joint on steroids; with extended families of gujjus on plastic chairs thrown in for the complete psychadelic effect.

It took us 800 bucks to get to another restaurant a couple of miles down the road. We brought in the new year talking about completely unnecessary things over plates of cold food and warm beer.

Singularly, I cannot remember any New Year's Party that I am proud of. But the week after is even worse. Everyone comes back with colourful stories of how they went skinny dipping with stupid American exchange students or got drunk in exotic locales. And all I have is a story of a long walk.

This year I am determined to change things. Though the plans aren't in place yet, I am looking around for some American exchange students to dunk in a river.

Might not be as easy as you think. They seem to be more interested in campus politics nowadays.

check this out

2006-11-18T11:51:00.000+05:30

A little pop culture. A little newsprint. A little satire.
Definitely a big thing in the making. Check out pigsandwings.
It works better than coffee in the morning.

blind till november

2006-11-18T10:18:00.000+05:30

A lot can happen in 6 months. You can get promoted, jilted, confused, educated, pregnant, develop asthma, perhaps meningitis, become fatter, bitchier, rule over a cybernation, get a crew cut, grow your hair long again, try orange pants, drink cheap port, memorise the entire blackadder series, read some part of suitable boy and even maybe even make enough time to get wet with a telugu siren in a sari.

Similar things happened to me. But more than that it was sheer pressure at work that ensured I stay away from this space. And you might not know it, but people over the world need a lot of swiss watches, flavored teas, marathi newspapers, broadband services, malls, gujarati magazines and woollen suits.

Yes, it is an important business it is. And it is called advertising. And I write ads for a living. complete with the bright yellow stars that say "Talcum Powder free with every connection! Hurry you middle-income asshole or you will miss the crappiest deal of the century".

We try to sound funny, mature, glib, matter-of-fact, conversational, strict, no-nonsense, smirkish, smart, intellectual and while retaining the essential characteristics of the british stiff upper lip, the american fat lower lip and the indian "my lip is like this only" rhetoric. It helps people make educated choices.

Maybe the fudged figures and a scam ad can win me a little golden pencil as well. (In case you are not from the profession, a golden pencil is an award given by the D&AD. Easily one of the highest honours in advertising, it works somehow like a second penis for people in the industry. For both sexes.)

But I am back. Yes. With good intentions. With unsound body and sinusitised mind. My collection of comic books have reached gargantuan proportions. So has my collection of objectionable debris. I have also started reading essays on grave, important subjects.

abode

2006-05-23T11:11:00.000+05:30

It's been 8 days. That's 5 days more than enough (read 'going, going, gone' below). I have stepped out of my house 11 times. That's 1.375 times a day. I exercise for 45 minutes a day. That's 360 minutes in all. Before we all start behaving like goldfish, the basic course in mathematics goes a long way to prove how aversed I am to stepping out.

So here I am putting up pictures of my house. This is where I live. This is where I eat. This is where I work. My parents think I am peace-loving and have a high-profile job that touches millions of lives everyday (sort of a Ramakrishna Paramhansa with a pen). I am actually an advertising writer with no significant releases in the last one year and a gas problem.

14.5 cms in two hours

2006-05-23T10:47:00.000+05:30

It did rain. And how. Things got pretty dark and the suspense in the air hung low and wet, like moisture. A sense of drama prevailed. My very old grandmother let out a hollow scream that chilled us to the bone. She had slipped with the fridge door open.

Actually, it takes very little to make my life dramatic. The first picture is our dining room (notice how dark it is), the second is a very creative endeavour where I am standing on the potty and pointing outside. I got significantly wet while taking the shot. But that's ok. Us photographers live lives fraught with extreme peril and danger.

going, going, gone

2006-05-18T16:45:00.000+05:30

Three days in Calcutta is enough for anyone.

Whoever said time is fleeting, obviously hasn't seen this part of the world. The very concept of time is different for different people, I agree. Important people have written important things about the concept. Man has lauded, rebuked and embraced enough philosophies about the concept ever since he learned to frown and say, "what if.." As I write this, I am sure there are round-shouldered, beady-eyed people who will claim that in some vortex somewhere, I will continue writing this same sentence forever.

In this erstwhile capital city of the nation, time passes like Superthick® honey through a very, very tightly woven metal seive. I am already younger than most people in three days. In another couple of Calcutta minutes as we stand staring in awe at frost free refrigerators, the world would have reached 2070. Be careful, I have heard everything will be mechanized then. My advice, wear clothes.

Calcuttans however do not bother themselves with arguments of such cosmic proportions. There are other things that are more important. A good education for one. Culture comes a close second (they say, the two are mutually exclusive). Thick, dusty, leather bound books in my ancestral house stand testimony to the fact. My grandfather was a very learned man who could talk about theology. But seldom went beyond the quality of fish, the price of mangoes and the East Bengal Football Club. He drank lots of soup at 7.30 every evening and ate dinner with his hands two hours afterwards. And he always had the time for anyone who needed him, as long as they could stand the smell of pipe tobacco.

This city is not about time. It hardly lives in the present anyway.
If this dying city has a heart, nostalgia is its pace-maker.

And there's enough of it to go around. Nostalgia makes good dinner table conversation. Nostalgia makes great business deals. Nostalgia makes cuisine. Nostalgia makes fashion. Nostalgia helps repeat history.

Hell, this time it even made the government.

This trip to Calcutta was long overdue. The last time I was here I was dying. Turned out to be acute gastritis. This time I am doing better. The paranoia has subsided. I am happy and content for the greater part of the day. It's just during early evening that I feel a little nervous. But the onset of evenings generally have that effect on me.

Twelve more days to go. I hope it rains soon.

first sunday evening in february - i, me, myself

2006-02-06T18:29:00.000+05:30

Some days are elastic.
They stretch almost wilfully, like a function that requires to be performed. A ritual of sorts, designed to co-operate with minimum resistance and maximum ease. Yet it causes unnecessary complications to one attuned to a more regular pace.

Today is one of those days. When suddenly, the bed that you spent the last 8 hours on, wants to expel you with an alien might. When tea takes a couple of hours to brew and you scan the headlines with a strange feeling that you’ve read them before. When everything around adopts a certain fluidity and a high-pitched noise pervades your being.

As you grapple with the physics of it all, all the time muttering under your breath, you realize that you’re merely standing. You’ve been a mute spectator to whatever is happening around you. And now that everything seems to be getting back to normalcy, you just keep standing there. After all, these things are way too cosmic for you to interfere.

Hangovers. Ah!

But I don’t drink. At least not yesterday. It’s a chest full of gas. And a mind numb with an assortment of useless things planned out for the rest of the day to relegate boredom to the back benches. I like that. Be boring and hence keep boredom out. That’s my theory. If you hate something, do it all the time. That way it will soon become uninteresting. Which is why I smoke and think about sex all the time.

As I write this, I’m uncomfortable. I shift. My shoulders ache and my eyeballs are doing the shimmy. I move to the mattress with the hideous blue bedsheet. Better. Now I am sprawled in bovine fashion over a collection of floral motifs that are neither flowery nor motiffy. On the contrary, they look like a bunch of aliens who found a vat of indigo inspiring, got blue and then somehow got out and positioned themselves on a 4 X 6 cloth thinking it would be fun. Now they will probably stay there forever. Absorbing sweat, semen, phlegm and dead skin of numerous nameless strangers. Now that’s a life.

But I digress. Horizontal arrangements do that to me. Very soon I am going to feel horny as hell. Attributed to my manhood (sans underpants) in constant touch with the warm mattress under me and my feet engaged in a nervous rhythmical movement that, though annoying to watch, makes for a tingling feeling elsewhere. Somewhat mechanised but enjoyable nonetheless.

I flick a page. Roll over. Moan a couple of times. Play with the light switch. Doodle on the cigarette packet. My girlfriend’s face flashes in front of me a couple of times. I smile. Feel horny. Want tea. Stare at my pen. Think about Tagore. Think about all the women he might have done while writing that sensitive third stanza. Play with my hair. Scratch my balls. Roll over. Contemplate the benefits of a wooden floor. Think of my girlfriend again. Ok. Full Circle.

That’s how I spend evenings. I can write a complete page about my mental state of affairs but cannot write a 40 second script that sells general insurance to people who might need it.

All miseries in life are directly related to education.

zero mile

2005-10-24T10:43:00.000+05:30

The delay is inevitable. In most cases certainly avoidable.
The gaping distance between the last post is not a casual detachment or sudden aloofness but a myriad of reasons.
1. Work
2. A rediscovered passion
3. An broadband connection that is anything but that

Another weekend shimmers by. One of those seemingly uneventful ones that silently shape your life as you stand by the mirror with the measuring tape. The complimentary side-order of pathos notwithstanding, it had all the ingredients that go into the making of a life extraordinaire. Add to that an interactive session on the associated illnesses of society with a beautiful woman over coffee as a finale – gives it the very charm of cinema. Especially the ones where the cigarette chewing hero makes the ultimate sacrifice by giving up his long, lost girl to the man who looks like a horse, because he didn’t read the script properly.

Within the grey walls of Monday, even a small peanut can bring about poetry.

the end is near

2005-10-06T12:49:00.000+05:30

A slightly eccentric start. But I am of the belief that every start is quite so. All stories of greatness had silent, slightly off-key, strange smelling beginnings. In fact, in most cases it was just a portable harmonium.

But let us not stop, stare and stutter at this point. A title is, well, just a title. And the only reason for it's existence is to be a morose, static masthead, announcing a post. A fatalist, I am not. On the contrary, I am a well-educated, glassy-eyed, socially misunderstood individual who can handle drinks as long as its on the table. People also claim that I dance to music infrequently.

My weapon of choice is a cheap ball point pen and I usually wear half-sleeved shirts.

Love comic books, cigarettes and women. Not in that order.

Follow Marx. Of the Groucho variety.

Think Blackadder should be made world president.

catching phish

2004-12-28T00:00:00.005+05:30

I have been told I am a bad listener. I think I can be.

But still if you have got something to say please drop me a line at phishpot@gmail.com

flickr: flickr.com/phishpot
photoblog: phisheyedlens.tumblr.com
twitter: twitter.com/phishpot
facebook: facebook.com/phishpot

I promise to give you undivided attention.

catching phish

2004-12-28T00:00:00.000+05:30

I have been told I am a bad listener. I think I can be.
But still if you have got something to say please drop me a line at
phishpot@gmail.com.

I promise to try and give you undivided attention.