The Namesake

He liked writing stories, and always tried to surprise his readers. Though some of his readers said he wrote well, he was never quite sure. After all, he just wrote on his blog. The appreciation was limited, never a huge number, and that was why he was quite amazed and humbled when he saw this.

until next time, lol, couldnt help it :D

Playing favorites

He changed screensavers four times every year, each with its own variations. Every change was an occasion people looked forward to. It was just a screensaver for him, but for them it was much more. Although all screensavers were his creations, when he looked down, he liked rain the most. Even He allowed himself favorites.

until next time, whats your favourite screensaver?

And that leaves only

Kolkata. Which is phenomenal by my standards, as though of you who've read the previous post might have realised. As for the others, all it takes is one sentence to bring you upto speed- i hate travelling.

But this year has seen me visiting 3 of the (erstwhile only) 4 metros in the country.

Mumbai - February - last visited 2006 April, and that was only because i had to get inducted, professionally, that is. Judging by my tenure, fat lot of good it did. I was a frequent Mumbai visitor in the 80'sthough - before the bhai stuff became popular. No, there's no connection. Shivaji Park was the usual venue, with a bit of Peddar Road and Malabar Hill thrown in. And then i stopped going to school, and that ended the summer vacations.Sigh

Chennai - August - last visited 1999 or was it 95? Damn, i'm really getting old. 95 is easier to remember because of the 12th Std results and the giant B&W poster of Aishwarya Rai to celebrate it. Yup, its 99 coz i boarded the Corromandel Exp from there for my first Kolkata trip.

Delhi - September and October - last visited 1993. And a much forgettable trip.
I dont think I'll do Kolkata, at least that leaves my tarnished record some chances of redemption ;)

until next time, traveller's outlook

The Travel Bug

All the travelogues, all the travel programming on TV, and all the photos on image sharing platforms- I've read them all as messages, but never picked up the bags and set about travelling regularly. Now, i can give operational excuses, but i also know that those are not the real ones. For quite sometime now, I've had a block in my head, but could never decipher it myself. And the worst part is that it wasnt always like this. While i've never been a travel freak, i've never shied away from it either.

It took Nude Ellie to give me an insight into this bug. The first and easiest insight is that i am incredibly lazy. Even that trip might not have happened if it werent official :). And it is perhaps only fitting that it was an office space that gave me a thought.

I've realised that travel necessarily means meeting new people. And not just meet, but also see large amounts of humanity that i may not meet, but faces that i know exist. In this case, floorsand floors of cubicle farms.

Now this might sound weird to many, but that to me, is a bit like those starlit nights. And while i love staring up at the sky, I've slowly built up a revulsion to the other thing that evokes in me a feeling of insignificance, a feeling that i haven't done anything to be truly special.Ego/ Frustration? Or plain old existential angst?

untl next time, wanderbust?

Ok Tata Bye Bye

And its time to say bye. Its been a long time and I’d been planning this for sometime now, never actually got around to doing it. But it’d be sheer injustice to postpone this any longer. Most readers would agree that this is way too melodramatic for a week’s vacation. But hey, its a 55.

until next time, see you next monday

Insectuous relationships - 55

These days, there's tremendous amount of sexual activity happening in our house. I confess, I do not spend a lot of time thinking about it, but D does and she is extremely unhappy about it. After all, she's the one who has to deal with the increasing number of cockroaches and lizards in the house.

until next time, did that bug you? :D

Mind Games - 55

He didn’t mind the rain. It meant that the idiots who paid lots of peachish Gandhis got to see only 50%. He wasn’t much into the mass sport now, 20-20 win notwithstanding. He’d get up early tomorrow to watch the F1 race. He did, and saw a track beset by rain. His expression was priceless.

until next time, are Suzuka and Bangalore cosmic twin cities?

One degree of separation

"...like two shores separated by an ocean,

and the ocean is our ego...."

until next time, love beaches :D

Nude Ellie

That was the status message on my Google Talk for a couple of days last week... A lot of guys who dont bother saying a hi when i have a normal green button insisted on saying one when i had this custom message with a red button... It happened to elicit a lot of responses ranging from numbers associated with Ellie - her vital stats and her mobile number to social questions - whether i could do a quick introduction.

Now, it was the first time in 14 years that i was seeing this subject of extreme curiosity and i must say i was pleasantly surprised. Cleaner, calmer and most definitely hot, changed my perspective completely. And thanks to this reacquainting, i also got to meet two people who i have known only virtually. While i spent only a few minutes with N, since we were both on working time, i had dinner at J's place. While i exhibited my usual atrocious sense of humour and other anti social skills, she really couldnt kick me out, since she had a plastered foot.

But, i digress, this is about nude ellie, only Shobha cracked it, and the most heartfelt response i got was one i got on facebook was this

(reacting to the status - Manu is exploring Nude Ellie)

He: I want to explore nude ellie too.

Me: All major carriers have flights from Mum-bai to Nude Ellie

He: Manu, you are terrible

until next time, have you met Erica ? ;)

Reality 55

The birthday boy gave us a piece of his cake. He really wanted to give it to Aishu only, but we were with her, so... As we wished him, Aishu shyly ran away to her mother who was sitting at the next table, the birthday boy walked back to his friends. We ate the cake.

until next time, cake khane ke liye......

To be Shore..

And "Alan Shore fans" makes it to my orkut communities because of this...
Alan Shore: Well you need to hear it! ......... to abuse a talented, selfless employee only because his social skills lack the polish! To allow him to work tirelessly under the delusion that he could make partner! A delusion you carefully nurtured so as to make piles of money off of him in the short term. That’s a betrayal, Shirley. Not just of Jerry, but of you! And your character! Which up till now I haveconsidered undeniably decent.

Shirley Schmidt: Are you finished?

Alan Shore: No. Jerry Espenson, no doubt, will go off quietly into the night as the meek often do. But somebody around here has to get angry about it. Otherwise you’ll just go off and blithely do it again.

Shirley Schmidt: We have not yet made a decision concerning Jerry Espenson, when we do I will call you first to tell you, “It is none of your concern!”

Alan Shore: There’s a saying Shirley, perhaps you’ve heard it. ‘All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to say, “It’s a business.”

While that might have been boring to the non-followers, what interested me was that it addresses an issue that i have found constantly encountered in professional life - social skills, or the lack of it. I've been ambivalent about this myself, but it irks me when people with lesser skills tend to be able to push their case only because they are aggressive, especially in situations where the hard skills are more important than the soft ones..

And sometimes i see this aggression being used in a social context when the people who prefer to exist in the background are subject to the sort of bullying that usually is associated with school life... And each time i see it happen, i thank god for a reasonably sharp humour sense and a dichotomy of personality :)

until next time, the meek shall inherit the earth...

Social Currency

Was chatting with a friend last week on the complexity of human relationships. Of course, she is of the view that it is not so complex after all, and i tend to complicate it with my penchant for over analysis :D I admit to the anlaysis bit, but in this case, am not convinced about it being undue. Double the negative, double the fun.

Coincidentally, also saw a movie last weekend, which brought out my stance almost perfectly, almost, because the character of the protagonist does a U-turn midway. Anyways, the crux of the matter is that i believe that every relationship, even, rather especially the close ones are tinged with a selfish motive, actually, not tinged, more a strong undercurrent. There are precious few exceptions.

It depends on the individual's choice whether this gets acknowledged or not, but i strongly feel that there is always currency involved, and it is not always unconditional love or any such seemingly pure emotion... the acknowledgement does not happen perhaps because we mould ourselves to fit into a society and its forms of expression...The undercurrent may be that of emotional security, convenience or anything else - based on the situation, but its most definitely there. And for every help/favor/token of affection etc there isa meter ticking, some of us keep it in mind, and some of us keep it deep in the recesses of our mind

until next time, mind it :)

Faced Out

I asked a question on facebook recently 'Is facebook just a phase', like cerelac, toy cars, comics etc and more importantly, as we become older, virtual orkut and real relationships. Its perhaps part of the overall picture of decreasing attention spans, the need for instant gratification and the gradual extinction therefore, of patience.

Patience to seek and find answers, patience to sit through the 5 minute ad break, patience to discover new things, patience to wait in the atm queue, patience to understand people, patience to wait till the site loads, patience to work on relationships and so on...Since that's being lost, is virtual networking an easy escape route, where virtuality allows us to bypass the difficulties of working on relationships, where entry and exit strategies are much easier, where scraps can be started and ended with scraps, and the writings on the wall are easy to do and undo, where it might be easier to live with masks?

Or is it the opposite, moving on to a plane where masks become redundant? Is that why we are so hooked on, is that what we mean by convenience? Is it wrong, hell no, i am just wondering :)

until next time, face off

Fictionary

The uneasy feeling you get when your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend peers at a person of your gender in an appreciative manner - Peer Pressure

until next time, peerless? ;)

Ram Gopal Varma ki ma!@#$%^

Ram Gopal Varma's gags should be stopped, period!! His next movie should be "How to make a big B movie with Big B". Coz thats what he has done, taken 3 national award winning actors and made the biggest B-grade movie ever. (with due apologies to B grade movie makers, dont sue me)

With Mohanlal, Big B, Ajay Devgan, Sushmita Sen, guess who gets maximum screen time - Nisha Kothari as ghunghroo, basanti's new age avtaar!! I wouldnt have minded much if she stuck to her regular attire, but no, RGV made the cardinal mistake of trying to make her act. Since basanti's horse cart was replaced by an auto, she had to do both Basanti's and Dhanno's roles, and as far as dubbing goes, she succeeded, coz she sounded like a child that they might have had while horsing around!!!

And poor poor Mohanlal, who in my view is the finest actor around, bar none. i wonder how RGV convinced him to wear a beard that must have come out of Anil Kapoor's waxed remains or something, I am sure RGV didnt pay for it. That, or somewhere, some bear is missing its posterior fur!!

And Chakravarty (Satya), Rajpal Yadav and VJ Gaurav, all in roles which competed with Nisha Kothari's regular costumes and acting talent in terms of miniscule-ness. To cut a long story short, the only entity that deserves Aag is RGV's factory, they really should set fire to that place.

Until next time, aaaarghhh

Source: Unknown

PS: This post is issued in public interest (the fact that this blog has attempted a review is proof of that)