1 month ago
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Wowbagger speak...
Now this is something Calvin would love to know.They say that chickens came from dinosaurs.So what you get on your plate roasted to perfection from the grill could have eaten you millions of years ago,had you been alive.No cause for worry..In all probability you were just an insignificant speck of an amoeba then.Not that you are too significant even now,but thats besides the point.If you want to feel happy about yourself thinking you are the coolest of all beings,think again.Of all the species on this planet,we are perhaps the most vulnerable to elimination.That cockroach you killed yesterday has been there since the time of dinosaurs,and will be there long after a nuclear explosion wipes us all out.Most probably in a trillion years evolution would have played the same trick it did on the dinos,and we would we the size of chickens scurrying to save our lives from giant cockroaches.Or worse giant chickens!Maybe this is already happening in some planet in some universe.I certainly don't buy the story that earth is the only life supporting planet in the universe.Our technology and intelligence is just too primitive at this moment to find out or detect other life forms elsewhere. I don't know if the U.F.O sightings that have been reported are true or not.I myself saw a lion's face emerge from a nescafe cup once.O.K...It happened under the influence of some excellent herbs from manali...But it did happen.Or did it?As primitively developed as our brain is,it can play awesome tricks on you causing all sorts of hallucinations...Auditory and visual.What if someone told you that your entire life is a figment of your imagination? Yes,i do sympathise with you that your imagination is pretty fucked up if your life still sucks so much,but still..What do you? How do you know whats real and what's not? That cute girl next door who finally agreed to go out on a date with you just doesnt exist my friend.Neither does your ex girlfriend,your best buddy,your dog,the school teacher you had a big,big crush on. I am not saying you are the only one who is imagining things.I am not talking about schizophrenia out here.It's not so simple for that to set in,plus your knowledge of the subject would be from seeing a couple of badly researched films,so basically you understand crap about the subject!What i am saying is that not only you,but everyone around you see what you see,hear what you hear. With due apologies to Mr.Dawkins,lets call it the god delusion. Think abt it...Millions of ppl thnkng wht u thnk,feeling wht u feel.Just tht it doesnt exist. I'm sorry my friend..You've just been had. Or have been for the last whatever miserable years of your existance! Now if you had some sense you would be feeling more like a loser than usual,but that's your problem. You know what Arthur..You're a jerk,a complete asshole.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Maktub...
We were sitting in a dimly lit pub at Alibaug,laughing at the jokes that Ajay was cracking. We had met him at the induction programme for our first job, and most of us had taken an instant liking to him.Without fail he would come in exactly 10 minutes late to every class,look at his watch and shake his head as if he couldnt believe he was late,then wink at us as he occupied a seat in the last row.From time to time he would pass an outrageously witty remark while class was going on and maintain an innocent face while the rest of us struggled to hold back our laughter.Outside class he was always interacting with someone or the other,spreading his good humour.
It was our last evening at Alibaug,the following day we would be going back to Mumbai to start our careers.The conversation turned to what we had done previous to joining a B School.There were a few stories passed to and fro,none vaguely interesting in any manner, then Ajay told us his story.
Ajay grew up in a small town in eastern Uttar Pradesh,the eldest of four siblings.His father worked in a small post in a government job and spent most of his time worrying how he would raise enough dowry to marry off Ajay's sisters.Ajay was written off as a no gooder a long time back by his family and relatives.He had flunked his board exams in the 12th standard,somehow cleared it the following year, and managed to complete his 3 year B.A degree in a span of 4 years. His friends comprised of mostly local hooligans and by the time Ajay scraped through his graduation,he knew more about country made revolvers and the intricacies of booth rigging than the subject he had graduated in.
One day as he was recuperating from a bad hangover brought over by the excesses of the country liquor of the previous night and his father's shouting the same day,Ajay chanced upon an article in the local newspaper which mentioned about the salaries drawn in by freshly recruited MBA graduates. Ajay thought that the figures were mind boggling. He began to imagine himself doing a MBA, earning a lot of money,helping out his father financially,redeeming himself in front of his family and relatives.The article had mentioned of some coaching instutes in Delhi which prepared you for MBA entrance examinations, and Ajay made up his mind to go to Delhi and join one of these institutes.
Ajay's father burst out laughing when Ajay informed him about his plan. A bad egg is always a bad egg, he said.A person who found it difficult to pass college would never get into a MBA college, and he was not willing to spend several lakhs on the whims and fancies of a son who had never done any good in his life. The money would be needed for finding a suitable groom for his daughters, Ajay could as well forget about this silly notion of doing a MBA for all he cared. He advised Ajay to apply for a government job as a clerk somewhere.
Ajay ran away from home the next day. He was carrying two thousand rupees in his pocket which a friend had lent him and set off for Delhi in an unreserved compartment. He had the phone number of a friend in Delhi who had promised in the past to help him in case he needed anything. Ajay reached Delhi and called up the number his friend had given him. It was that of a PCO.Ajay asked for his friend,and when he came on the line, informed him about his situation. His friend said that he busy and asked Ajay to call back in a few hours time. When Ajay called up again, his friend did not receive the call. Ajay kept trying for the next few hours, but didnt manage to get through his friend. Slowly realisation struck that he was standed in an alien city where he knew no one and had nowhere to go . For a brief moment Ajay thought about returning back home,but the thought of the sneers and the caustic comments of his relatives was enough to make him drop that idea.
Ajay called up another friend back home and managed to get the number of someone his friend knew who lived in Delhi. After another phone call and a bumpy bus ride to the outskirts of Delhi, Ajay landed up in the place where this person lived. The gentleman gave Ajay dinner and promised to help him out,but told him that since he lived in a one room flat with his wife, Ajay could not stay there. However,there was a godown next door, where Ajay could take shelter for a few days.Borrowing a bedsheet to put on the dusty floor, Ajay set off to make the godown his new home.Ajay spent the next two weeks roaming the streets of Delhi knocking from door to door at the offices looking for a job during the day and listening to the rats scurrying all over the godown at night.
After getting bit by the rats one night,he moved in with an acquaintance of the person who had helped him to stay in the godown.Ajay stayed in a small room with three other people,who made their displeasure very evident at the fact that he was staying there as a free lodger. They would order him around at will. He was told that he would have to sweep the floor,wash their clothes,do the dishes in return for staying in the flat. Ajay bore all this silently. He had no choice till he found a job.
A couple of months passed before Ajay finally managed to get a job as a salesman in the direct sales agency of a credit card company.His office wardrobe consisted of two shirts , two pants and a pair of shoes, all bought second hand from a pavement in Delhi. He would stand in the hot sun whole day pleading with passerbyes to sign up for a credit card. Ajay lived on a budget of 30 rupees a day for a couple of months. He would have puri-vegetables from a roadside stall for breakfast,lunch and dinner.At other times when he felt hungry ,he would have water.
Slowly Ajay saved up some money and moved into another room on his own. He was doing well at work, and got a promotion shortly.He allowed himself the luxury of buying a Reliance mobile phone to keep in touch with his family.The first time he made a call from the phone to tell his parents that he had bought a mobile phone with his own money, there were tears in his eyes.
The MBA dream still on his mind, Ajay went to a coaching institute and enquired about enrolment.He was told that he would have to pay an amount of twenty five thousand rupees for the course. Ajay was heartbroken. There was no way he could gather so much money to prepare in time for the MBA entrance examinations. Ajay went to another lesser known institute the next day and explained his position to the manager there. He asked for a discount and after a lot of haggling was allowed to join at a fee of ten thousand rupees.Ajay paid this in four instalments.
After attending a few classes at the coaching institute, Ajay realised that he would have to put in enermous effort to even come to par with the weakest of his fellow students. His major problem was that his education had been primarily in the Hindi medium, and communicating in English was a pre-requisite for getting into a MBA college.The teachers at the institute used to openly riddicule his accent and his shabby appearance,a few even wondered why he was wasting his time trying to become a MBA. Ajay fought on inspite of all the discouragement. He started reading english newspapers and magazines,underlining any word he did not undertand to look up in the dictionary later,kept on pestering his teachers to help out with any problem he was facing. He would wake up early in the morning to attend the coaching classes,then head off to work.At night he would stay up till late working on mathematics,data interpretation and english.
Ajay sat for the entrance examinations that year.The application forms itself cost close to a thousand rupees per institute, so Ajay just filled the form for the Common Aptitude Test conducted by the IIMs. He gave in his best effort, but was not able to make the grade that year.
He decided to give the examinations another shot the following year. He re enrolled at his coaching institute paying the same fees he had in the first year, and set off working harder than ever before.He started skipping meals in order to save up money to buy books for MBA preparations. He used to walk several kilometers a day in order to save the bus fare.That year he filled in applications for two more institutes apart from the IIMs.
Ajay got into one of those two institutes that year.When he gave the interview for the company which had recruited us, the interviewer commented on his English accent. Ajay replied that he could carry on giving the interview in chaste hindi without using a single word of English, and challenged the interviewer to do the same. He got the job. The years of struggle were over at last.
As Ajay finished his story, there was a silence in the table.As we went back to our hotel that night, we felt humbled thinking about his story.None of us had had to struggle even one hundreth of what Ajay had to in our lives.We felt happy that he had the courage to fight it out in order to realise his dream. Maybe it was written.
It was our last evening at Alibaug,the following day we would be going back to Mumbai to start our careers.The conversation turned to what we had done previous to joining a B School.There were a few stories passed to and fro,none vaguely interesting in any manner, then Ajay told us his story.
Ajay grew up in a small town in eastern Uttar Pradesh,the eldest of four siblings.His father worked in a small post in a government job and spent most of his time worrying how he would raise enough dowry to marry off Ajay's sisters.Ajay was written off as a no gooder a long time back by his family and relatives.He had flunked his board exams in the 12th standard,somehow cleared it the following year, and managed to complete his 3 year B.A degree in a span of 4 years. His friends comprised of mostly local hooligans and by the time Ajay scraped through his graduation,he knew more about country made revolvers and the intricacies of booth rigging than the subject he had graduated in.
One day as he was recuperating from a bad hangover brought over by the excesses of the country liquor of the previous night and his father's shouting the same day,Ajay chanced upon an article in the local newspaper which mentioned about the salaries drawn in by freshly recruited MBA graduates. Ajay thought that the figures were mind boggling. He began to imagine himself doing a MBA, earning a lot of money,helping out his father financially,redeeming himself in front of his family and relatives.The article had mentioned of some coaching instutes in Delhi which prepared you for MBA entrance examinations, and Ajay made up his mind to go to Delhi and join one of these institutes.
Ajay's father burst out laughing when Ajay informed him about his plan. A bad egg is always a bad egg, he said.A person who found it difficult to pass college would never get into a MBA college, and he was not willing to spend several lakhs on the whims and fancies of a son who had never done any good in his life. The money would be needed for finding a suitable groom for his daughters, Ajay could as well forget about this silly notion of doing a MBA for all he cared. He advised Ajay to apply for a government job as a clerk somewhere.
Ajay ran away from home the next day. He was carrying two thousand rupees in his pocket which a friend had lent him and set off for Delhi in an unreserved compartment. He had the phone number of a friend in Delhi who had promised in the past to help him in case he needed anything. Ajay reached Delhi and called up the number his friend had given him. It was that of a PCO.Ajay asked for his friend,and when he came on the line, informed him about his situation. His friend said that he busy and asked Ajay to call back in a few hours time. When Ajay called up again, his friend did not receive the call. Ajay kept trying for the next few hours, but didnt manage to get through his friend. Slowly realisation struck that he was standed in an alien city where he knew no one and had nowhere to go . For a brief moment Ajay thought about returning back home,but the thought of the sneers and the caustic comments of his relatives was enough to make him drop that idea.
Ajay called up another friend back home and managed to get the number of someone his friend knew who lived in Delhi. After another phone call and a bumpy bus ride to the outskirts of Delhi, Ajay landed up in the place where this person lived. The gentleman gave Ajay dinner and promised to help him out,but told him that since he lived in a one room flat with his wife, Ajay could not stay there. However,there was a godown next door, where Ajay could take shelter for a few days.Borrowing a bedsheet to put on the dusty floor, Ajay set off to make the godown his new home.Ajay spent the next two weeks roaming the streets of Delhi knocking from door to door at the offices looking for a job during the day and listening to the rats scurrying all over the godown at night.
After getting bit by the rats one night,he moved in with an acquaintance of the person who had helped him to stay in the godown.Ajay stayed in a small room with three other people,who made their displeasure very evident at the fact that he was staying there as a free lodger. They would order him around at will. He was told that he would have to sweep the floor,wash their clothes,do the dishes in return for staying in the flat. Ajay bore all this silently. He had no choice till he found a job.
A couple of months passed before Ajay finally managed to get a job as a salesman in the direct sales agency of a credit card company.His office wardrobe consisted of two shirts , two pants and a pair of shoes, all bought second hand from a pavement in Delhi. He would stand in the hot sun whole day pleading with passerbyes to sign up for a credit card. Ajay lived on a budget of 30 rupees a day for a couple of months. He would have puri-vegetables from a roadside stall for breakfast,lunch and dinner.At other times when he felt hungry ,he would have water.
Slowly Ajay saved up some money and moved into another room on his own. He was doing well at work, and got a promotion shortly.He allowed himself the luxury of buying a Reliance mobile phone to keep in touch with his family.The first time he made a call from the phone to tell his parents that he had bought a mobile phone with his own money, there were tears in his eyes.
The MBA dream still on his mind, Ajay went to a coaching institute and enquired about enrolment.He was told that he would have to pay an amount of twenty five thousand rupees for the course. Ajay was heartbroken. There was no way he could gather so much money to prepare in time for the MBA entrance examinations. Ajay went to another lesser known institute the next day and explained his position to the manager there. He asked for a discount and after a lot of haggling was allowed to join at a fee of ten thousand rupees.Ajay paid this in four instalments.
After attending a few classes at the coaching institute, Ajay realised that he would have to put in enermous effort to even come to par with the weakest of his fellow students. His major problem was that his education had been primarily in the Hindi medium, and communicating in English was a pre-requisite for getting into a MBA college.The teachers at the institute used to openly riddicule his accent and his shabby appearance,a few even wondered why he was wasting his time trying to become a MBA. Ajay fought on inspite of all the discouragement. He started reading english newspapers and magazines,underlining any word he did not undertand to look up in the dictionary later,kept on pestering his teachers to help out with any problem he was facing. He would wake up early in the morning to attend the coaching classes,then head off to work.At night he would stay up till late working on mathematics,data interpretation and english.
Ajay sat for the entrance examinations that year.The application forms itself cost close to a thousand rupees per institute, so Ajay just filled the form for the Common Aptitude Test conducted by the IIMs. He gave in his best effort, but was not able to make the grade that year.
He decided to give the examinations another shot the following year. He re enrolled at his coaching institute paying the same fees he had in the first year, and set off working harder than ever before.He started skipping meals in order to save up money to buy books for MBA preparations. He used to walk several kilometers a day in order to save the bus fare.That year he filled in applications for two more institutes apart from the IIMs.
Ajay got into one of those two institutes that year.When he gave the interview for the company which had recruited us, the interviewer commented on his English accent. Ajay replied that he could carry on giving the interview in chaste hindi without using a single word of English, and challenged the interviewer to do the same. He got the job. The years of struggle were over at last.
As Ajay finished his story, there was a silence in the table.As we went back to our hotel that night, we felt humbled thinking about his story.None of us had had to struggle even one hundreth of what Ajay had to in our lives.We felt happy that he had the courage to fight it out in order to realise his dream. Maybe it was written.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Feeling Lost in a City Under Siege
It’s been a long day at work and you just need to unwind by having a couple of beers with your friend from college who is in town. He wants to go to Leopold’s, the popular pub at Colaba. You think about the beef chili out there for a moment, then refuse to yield to temptation. For some reason you don’t want to travel today. You meet him at a sports bar close to the office and have a great time talking about old times and catching up with each other’s lives. Your friend is in a touristy mood and wants to go to Marine Drive after you are done with the drinks. You turn down the offer again. Somehow, you are feeling too lethargic for words tonight. You decide to take a cab back home, even though a train would have been much faster and much more economical.
The roads are surprisingly empty at that point of time. It’s just 10 p.m., and usually Mumbai traffic is at its peak at this time. You don’t give it another thought. You will get to reach home in 30 minutes today instead of the usual one and a half hours it takes. A friend calls up from Bangalore to inform me that there have apparently been shootouts at Leo’s. A gang war or something, he says. You tell him how you would have been there at this time but decided not to go. Another call from Delhi comes just as you are about to reach home. There’s been a bomb blast at Ville Parle. A cab was blown up at a traffic junction. Alarm bells start ringing in your mind. You were in that very spot just 15 minutes ago.
Phone calls start coming in from friends and family members all over the country to find out if you are safe. There’s been multiple terrorist attacks at various places all over the city. Apart from Leopold’s Cafe, they have struck at the Victoria Terminus Railway Station, the Taj Hotel, the Hilton, some of the most prominent locations in Mumbai. You feel a shiver run down your back. Another close shave you have had tonight—Marine Drive is a stone’s throw away from these locations. It’s daytime in America and as the news reaches foreign shores, you start getting calls from Chicago, Boston, Seattle where your friends are based. It’s late in the night, but you can’t sleep due to the inherent tension in the air.
The following morning you decide not to go to the office. Admit it or not, you are scared to go out, scared that you might be the next victim of a bullet or a bomb blast. News has come in that some terrorists have stolen a police vehicle and are apparently on the loose in the city, gunning down anyone in their way. The death count has crossed a hundred and several hundreds have been injured. The terrorists have taken hostages at the Taj and the Hilton. They are singling out foreigners, mainly Americans and Britons. There’s a hostage situation at another relatively obscure building called Nariman House, which houses members of an Israeli sect.
The audacity of the attack leaves you puzzled and confused. This time, it’s not the common man on the streets who has been singled out for embracing the jaws of death. This time it’s the rich, the foreign tourist, the head honchos of multinational companies staying at the poshest hotels in town. The message is loud and clear. No one is safe anymore. The pictures of two terrorists taken by a security camera at the station further shock you. These are young men, barely in their 20s, clad in T-shirts, jeans and sneakers. Except for the automatic weapons in their hands, they could easily be mistaken for college students.
More than 30 hours pass since the siege—the terrorists still manage to hold the entire city to ransom. The streets are deserted, you hardly find any vehicles on the roads, the trains ply with a handful of passengers. There is a fear psychosis all around. You never know where and when they will target next. The only place you feel relatively safe is in the confines of your house. There are reports of fresh attacks in various parts of the city. These eventually turn out to be rumors, but by now you don’t know what to believe and what to ignore.
News that the terrorists came in from across the border and that the government ignored intelligence reports about a possible strike has not been taken lightly by the people. The citizens are teeming with anger. They don’t want to follow Gandhian principles any more, they have had enough. You pray that a communal riot does not break out in the city as it did after the ’93 bomb blasts that ripped the city apart.
Another agonizingly painful day goes by; the terrorists still hold out against the elite commandos who have been brought in to handle the situation. Finally, as you watch pictures on TV of the heritage wing of the Taj Hotel up in flames, the beautiful architecture raped by the assault of grenades and bullets, you hear that the Taj has finally been secured. You heave a sigh of relief, but then you hear reports that a few terrorists have managed to slip out of the hotel by pretending to be hostages.
You know the situation is better for the time being, but the hard fact remains that the city is still as unsafe as ever. It’s a cat-and-mouse game you will be playing with death each time you step out of the house. The vehicle you travel in might be blown up any moment; there might be a bomb explosion or firing in the market, the mall, the hospital, any place you might be in at that point of time.
At one point in time, you would have declared without doubt that Mumbai was one of the safest places in the world. Now you know you can’t say that. May the Mumbai I once knew rest in peace. Amen.
This article has got published in a newspaper called Berkeley Daily Planet in San Francisco on 4th December. Thanks to' Lois Lane' for contacting me and asking for an article. Here's the link :-http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-12-04/article/31716?headline=Feeling-Lost-in-a-City-Under-Siege
PDF version of the newspaper :- http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/pdfs/12-04-08.pdf
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
10...9....8....7....
I am totally ashamed of not blogging for ages... will be back soon...Or lets say as soon as I find my way out of all this maze of confusion. Amen to that!!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Stool Pigeon
They say a bird in hand is worth two in a bush. Bullshit! I do not want a bird anywhere near me, and certainly not in my hands. Don't get me wrong, I love birds, especially when they are cooked properly. Just that I have a problem with pigeons.It will probably go down in history that our man Sritanu was as brave as a tiger, but he did his best to avoid pigeons in all forms,shapes and sizes.
Lest anyone think that I am scared of pigeons, let me put the fact straight. I am not scared. I am terrified, petrified, mortified by them! Especially when they sneak into a room through an open window and then struggle to find their way out,their wings flapping with that scary sound that breaks me into a cold sweat every time I hear it.
Take today morning for example. I wake up to this sound emanating right behind me.One of those blasted birds had come inside the room and was stuck in the curtains.If there was a world record for the longest jump from a supine position, I would have beaten it by miles.Only if this was an event at the Olympics, India would never have to worry about not winning medals at all.
In a split second not only was I wide awake, but standing in the other corner of the room trembling from head to toe.The flutter-flutter of those wings continue in full volume.I arm myself with a broomstick and pick up my bed sheet. A new age gladiator ready to take on the scourge of the aves.
I gingerly try and slide the window open, hoping that the blasted bird will fly away. Mistake! The window opens a bit, but the bird gets released from the curtain and starts flying frantically around the room. I manage to turn the fan off and go and hide in the bathroom.Lets call it a strategic retreat.
Once my heartbeat comes down to normal, I brace myself for the next round.Summoning all the courage I had, I peep into the room. The pigeon has nicely perched on the curtain rod looking very pleased with itself.It looks towards me and smirks. Bastard! I shake my broom towards the bird. It calmly poops on my bed.
This was war now. No holds barred. It would either be the bird or me in this room. I leave the room and go into the kitchen hunting for air rifles,bazookas, missile launchers, hand grenades,anything I can find. No luck! I settle for a steel plate and a spoon. I start hitting the plate hard with the spoon, hoping to scare the pigeon away. The damn thing starts tap dancing to the tune.
I go back to my first choice of weapons. I pick up the broom and mange to open the window a bit further,gingerly keeping a watch out in case the bird tried to attack me. It shifts a bit to tease me, but doesn't fly out. I drop the broom in disgust and just stand silently observing the evil thing. Suddenly it makes a move and flies diagonally across the room, giving me a heart attack in the process. I fall down backwards and watch my life flash in front of my eyes in slow motion.
The bird circles over my head a couple of times and suddenly flies out of the window. I am half dead by then. I stay frozen for sometime in the same position before managing to get up and close the window.I swear I hear some pigeons having a good laugh in the background. Must be my visitor regaling his friends about what happened just now. I ignore them. Maintaining a stiff upper lip is the only way to deal with these beings.
Lest anyone think that I am scared of pigeons, let me put the fact straight. I am not scared. I am terrified, petrified, mortified by them! Especially when they sneak into a room through an open window and then struggle to find their way out,their wings flapping with that scary sound that breaks me into a cold sweat every time I hear it.
Take today morning for example. I wake up to this sound emanating right behind me.One of those blasted birds had come inside the room and was stuck in the curtains.If there was a world record for the longest jump from a supine position, I would have beaten it by miles.Only if this was an event at the Olympics, India would never have to worry about not winning medals at all.
In a split second not only was I wide awake, but standing in the other corner of the room trembling from head to toe.The flutter-flutter of those wings continue in full volume.I arm myself with a broomstick and pick up my bed sheet. A new age gladiator ready to take on the scourge of the aves.
I gingerly try and slide the window open, hoping that the blasted bird will fly away. Mistake! The window opens a bit, but the bird gets released from the curtain and starts flying frantically around the room. I manage to turn the fan off and go and hide in the bathroom.Lets call it a strategic retreat.
Once my heartbeat comes down to normal, I brace myself for the next round.Summoning all the courage I had, I peep into the room. The pigeon has nicely perched on the curtain rod looking very pleased with itself.It looks towards me and smirks. Bastard! I shake my broom towards the bird. It calmly poops on my bed.
This was war now. No holds barred. It would either be the bird or me in this room. I leave the room and go into the kitchen hunting for air rifles,bazookas, missile launchers, hand grenades,anything I can find. No luck! I settle for a steel plate and a spoon. I start hitting the plate hard with the spoon, hoping to scare the pigeon away. The damn thing starts tap dancing to the tune.
I go back to my first choice of weapons. I pick up the broom and mange to open the window a bit further,gingerly keeping a watch out in case the bird tried to attack me. It shifts a bit to tease me, but doesn't fly out. I drop the broom in disgust and just stand silently observing the evil thing. Suddenly it makes a move and flies diagonally across the room, giving me a heart attack in the process. I fall down backwards and watch my life flash in front of my eyes in slow motion.
The bird circles over my head a couple of times and suddenly flies out of the window. I am half dead by then. I stay frozen for sometime in the same position before managing to get up and close the window.I swear I hear some pigeons having a good laugh in the background. Must be my visitor regaling his friends about what happened just now. I ignore them. Maintaining a stiff upper lip is the only way to deal with these beings.
Friday, August 15, 2008
The return of the Jade(d)-i
Joy to the world, my laptop is back! The blasted blue screen of death had put me out of action for quite some time, but thankfully the evil has been vanquished and here I am, more than ready to continue spreading my garbage into blogosphere!
Several thousand bucks lighter in the pocket, but managed to recover all my data thankfully, and save the hard drive! Two important lessons learnt from this :- 1)Always create backups of the data you don't want to lose at any cost 2)You are 26 years old...STOP surfing for random porn on the net you pervert!
Anyways...lappie is back, and I get to wiki and blog as much as I want again. The net connection sux, but at least I am able to browse in fits and starts.They have blocked the Internet at office (death to the @#$%# insensitive louts who came up with that idea) and I was getting withdrawal pangs like crazy when the lappie had gone for repairs. Life is seriously sadder than ever in office now. I mean one of the very few sites that opens now is this. Gimme a break!! Yes..I know I work for a bank...go figure out for yourself how much I love my job :P
Managed to settle my credit card bills at last sometime back. Nearly 90% of the bonus I had received got wiped out at one go. Pinched like hell to see all that money being debited from my bank account, but at least I'm debt free now.The collection agents who were getting ready with their arsenal to come at me have been called back. I swear I heard this tough looking guy mutter 'Baach gaya Saala' as I was crossing the street one day. Too bad guys...better luck next time. Go bash up someone else if you have to! (For those uninitiated with the sorrows of my life... my credit card bills had touched 6 digits...please don't ask me how!)
Shifted to a new place...again! 4th time in the span of an year...and that's not counting the stop gap arrangements at bro's place while I was shifting from one pigeon hole to the other. Methinks I was a gypsy in my past life. I just can't stay put at one place for too long. And just in case you are wondering... I am most probably again shifting in December. :D
Have started travelling by local train full time to and fro office... the horrors of it I shall describe one day, but tis not the time. I bet the Britishers would have fled earlier had they seen the aggression our people display while boarding and unboarding from the local trains in Mumbai! I play it safer. Try and leave for office before the crazy rush starts (even if it means waiting 30 minutes till the first person comes to open the office), and return home by taking a train in the opposite direction and again board from the station where the trains originate. Atleast I get standing space in this way! Life eeej haard as you can guess !
O.k... enough of blaberring for now. Feels good to blog again! :)
Several thousand bucks lighter in the pocket, but managed to recover all my data thankfully, and save the hard drive! Two important lessons learnt from this :- 1)Always create backups of the data you don't want to lose at any cost 2)You are 26 years old...STOP surfing for random porn on the net you pervert!
Anyways...lappie is back, and I get to wiki and blog as much as I want again. The net connection sux, but at least I am able to browse in fits and starts.They have blocked the Internet at office (death to the @#$%# insensitive louts who came up with that idea) and I was getting withdrawal pangs like crazy when the lappie had gone for repairs. Life is seriously sadder than ever in office now. I mean one of the very few sites that opens now is this. Gimme a break!! Yes..I know I work for a bank...go figure out for yourself how much I love my job :P
Managed to settle my credit card bills at last sometime back. Nearly 90% of the bonus I had received got wiped out at one go. Pinched like hell to see all that money being debited from my bank account, but at least I'm debt free now.The collection agents who were getting ready with their arsenal to come at me have been called back. I swear I heard this tough looking guy mutter 'Baach gaya Saala' as I was crossing the street one day. Too bad guys...better luck next time. Go bash up someone else if you have to! (For those uninitiated with the sorrows of my life... my credit card bills had touched 6 digits...please don't ask me how!)
Shifted to a new place...again! 4th time in the span of an year...and that's not counting the stop gap arrangements at bro's place while I was shifting from one pigeon hole to the other. Methinks I was a gypsy in my past life. I just can't stay put at one place for too long. And just in case you are wondering... I am most probably again shifting in December. :D
Have started travelling by local train full time to and fro office... the horrors of it I shall describe one day, but tis not the time. I bet the Britishers would have fled earlier had they seen the aggression our people display while boarding and unboarding from the local trains in Mumbai! I play it safer. Try and leave for office before the crazy rush starts (even if it means waiting 30 minutes till the first person comes to open the office), and return home by taking a train in the opposite direction and again board from the station where the trains originate. Atleast I get standing space in this way! Life eeej haard as you can guess !
O.k... enough of blaberring for now. Feels good to blog again! :)
Monday, July 21, 2008
The soothsayer's tale
The catastrophe finally happened. The soothsayer knew it was coming, the impending gloom had warned him much ,much before.It's as if the elements just came together for a second and whispered into his ear what would happen.
The cyclone came and struck, leaving him half dead in the process. But at least he was still alive for some more time. He muttered a silent prayer to Kibza, the God of Protection. There was still hope in the face of all opposition. That's what keeps me alive, he thought. Hope. Funny four letter word isn't it ? Even when it seems apparent that nothing can save the situation, there is always this hope to look forward to.
As far as he remembered,he could always predict things in advance. There were always the few instances when he was way off target, but otherwise his sixth sense was far more developed than other people. It was disturbing at times, but he never told anyone what he knew would happen.... It was his gift, it was his curse. And he had no time for fools who would come to him asking for details about the future. He couldn't do that, only sense what was about to happen. And more often than not his doomsday prophesies came true. He lay tossing in bed every night wondering if at times he willed these things to happen by thinking about them, by worrying about them.
The six suns of Chroma were shining more brightly than usual when the cyclone hit. On his planet, cyclones were not an unusual event. But this one was different. The soothsayer had created this particular cyclone from a part of his heart. He didn't care that part of his soul would be torn to create it. The desire to play God was too strong. He had thought that he would get happiness by creating something so powerful, so strong, so magnificent.
When it struck him, he was surprisingly calm and composed. When a part of you tries to destroy you, you don't feel any sadness. Just a bit confused as to why it had to happen. And a pain that refuses to go away.The soothsayer just stood in the middle of the destruction feeling his life ebb away from him.
The gods seemed to mock him from above, taking sadistic pleasure to see a man humbled like this ! The soothsayer smiled to himself. The gods have their own whims and fancies, he thought. The cyclone has taken my life,but I still have some time left. I may lose the battle in the process, but this time I know I did not give up without trying my best.
The soothsayer never really realised what had gone wrong the first time he tried his hand at this thing. But then, intergalactic phenomena were never his strong point. This time with the cyclone he had acted with clockwork precision,fully knowing it would try to destroy him. But it was a mad hope that this time he wouldn't be wrong. This time the gods would be with him. Funny thing is that he still had that hope alive as strongly as ever.
The soothsayer looked up at the sky. There was no trace of the cyclone. Maybe this is what hurt the soothsayer the most.It had just vanished from his life after striking him down,leaving the shards inside to ensure that he bled continuously from time to time. He had exposed too much of his soul to the cyclone, it knew very well that internally the soothsayer was as frail as he appeared strong on the outside. So when it struck, it made sure that even though the physical wounds would heal, the internal ones would keep tormenting the soothsayer till his miserable life ebbed away from the pain.
Some stars sprang to life as the sixth sun completed it's revolution. The soothsayer dropped to the ground as his legs gave way. The shards are reaching the brain he thought. Just a few seconds more. He gathered up all the strength he had remaining and prayed his last prayer to Kibza. As his brain exploded, he smiled as he saw the cyclone glimmering away in the distance.
The cyclone came and struck, leaving him half dead in the process. But at least he was still alive for some more time. He muttered a silent prayer to Kibza, the God of Protection. There was still hope in the face of all opposition. That's what keeps me alive, he thought. Hope. Funny four letter word isn't it ? Even when it seems apparent that nothing can save the situation, there is always this hope to look forward to.
As far as he remembered,he could always predict things in advance. There were always the few instances when he was way off target, but otherwise his sixth sense was far more developed than other people. It was disturbing at times, but he never told anyone what he knew would happen.... It was his gift, it was his curse. And he had no time for fools who would come to him asking for details about the future. He couldn't do that, only sense what was about to happen. And more often than not his doomsday prophesies came true. He lay tossing in bed every night wondering if at times he willed these things to happen by thinking about them, by worrying about them.
The six suns of Chroma were shining more brightly than usual when the cyclone hit. On his planet, cyclones were not an unusual event. But this one was different. The soothsayer had created this particular cyclone from a part of his heart. He didn't care that part of his soul would be torn to create it. The desire to play God was too strong. He had thought that he would get happiness by creating something so powerful, so strong, so magnificent.
When it struck him, he was surprisingly calm and composed. When a part of you tries to destroy you, you don't feel any sadness. Just a bit confused as to why it had to happen. And a pain that refuses to go away.The soothsayer just stood in the middle of the destruction feeling his life ebb away from him.
The gods seemed to mock him from above, taking sadistic pleasure to see a man humbled like this ! The soothsayer smiled to himself. The gods have their own whims and fancies, he thought. The cyclone has taken my life,but I still have some time left. I may lose the battle in the process, but this time I know I did not give up without trying my best.
The soothsayer never really realised what had gone wrong the first time he tried his hand at this thing. But then, intergalactic phenomena were never his strong point. This time with the cyclone he had acted with clockwork precision,fully knowing it would try to destroy him. But it was a mad hope that this time he wouldn't be wrong. This time the gods would be with him. Funny thing is that he still had that hope alive as strongly as ever.
The soothsayer looked up at the sky. There was no trace of the cyclone. Maybe this is what hurt the soothsayer the most.It had just vanished from his life after striking him down,leaving the shards inside to ensure that he bled continuously from time to time. He had exposed too much of his soul to the cyclone, it knew very well that internally the soothsayer was as frail as he appeared strong on the outside. So when it struck, it made sure that even though the physical wounds would heal, the internal ones would keep tormenting the soothsayer till his miserable life ebbed away from the pain.
Some stars sprang to life as the sixth sun completed it's revolution. The soothsayer dropped to the ground as his legs gave way. The shards are reaching the brain he thought. Just a few seconds more. He gathered up all the strength he had remaining and prayed his last prayer to Kibza. As his brain exploded, he smiled as he saw the cyclone glimmering away in the distance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)