Out, damned cold! out, I say!

my immune system sucks, a little night chill and i get a damned cold. many things have happened over the last week which deserve a whole post each, but im too tired and i'm walking around like johnny depp in the pirates... because i'm groggy with cetrizine, so lets see then, a brief recap of the week past :

monday: aah yes, the RVCE farewell, well what can one blog about something called the "at home function"?. gowday extracted a promise from me, that i blog extensively about it. i will. eventually when i'm bored to death and have nothing to do. i'm not a saree person, my previous two experiences with it have jarred me for life. first time was at the 10th standard graduation, where i kept tripping on the hem and the second time was at the 12th standard graduation, where i needed to go to the loo urgently but couldn't do so because, a saree is a volumnous bulky shit and makes life miserable. forget bras, burn sarees. i honestly can't imagine how women like me mum work in them. where are you madhu kishwar? our nation turns its lonely eyes on you.

oh btw, gowday gave me a free ride to coll and back, so chics who read my blog, hes single and ready to mingle, i'll pass on ye resumes to him, and i promise no sting operations

tuesday: the house was spruced up to get it ready for my brother. i was asked to wet wipe my room so that the dust wouldn't affect the phoren returned. it reminded me of the times when aunts and uncles, returned from the states, trundled about with boiled water, crinkling their noses at all things indian and telling their kids not to drink colas and other stuff because it contained "germs". No wonder all of them grew to be such sissies.

wednesday: well dear anna came out from the immigration at midnight, and we all hugged, rather a huddle. that indian cricket team is a bloody bad influence. when we got home, we all talked, mom & dad slept, but anna and i talked till 5 am!!!. i got a pink ipod mini. yayyy. hoot.
okay, i confess, i didn't know the ipod existed till i saw it in the september issue of cosmo last year. it was featured in the girly girl's "must have" section. my bro vehemently objected to pink, but for me white is albino and i don't like my posessions to be white, because after a while it will become dirty and then i'll wistfully look back at the time in which it was white and then chide myself for not handling it better. white has such potential to be tainted. i hate the feeling!. so pink it was, even if it was just 4 gb. its so girly i love it!!!

thursday: went to forum and shopped for anna, the man hasn't bought any clothes!!!. just a huge suitcase filled with chocolates to keep the relatives happy.

friday: went shopping with kay for some "unmentionables". my favourite kind of shopping. i love girl friends because they coo so soothingly from the outside when you're infront of the fitting mirror, thinking aloud that you're fat. went shopping for shoes too, i got two pairs of real trendy low heels from Soles. i can't wait to start working and spend my pile on shopping. after that i went shopping with anna again, this time to central. i love shopping malls. clothes, clutter music, escalators, price tags, ingratiating smiles from the staff, aching feet... my future is retail baby. Mango here i come.

saturday : submitted my project report, developed a sore throat and gave up tickets to bunty aur bublee. the latter ofcourse was the silver lining to a gloomy day.

sunday: slept all day. the sore throat developed into a full fledged fever, i'd like to think it was anyhow. one gets more sympathies when its a fever. i hate being under the weather. it dampens the vivre.

and before i go, some posy poetry.

well there, that was my week,
my life is a bore and my throat is sore,
the drugs are taking over, i'm off to sleep.

goodnight world.

From inside the quizcorp "huddle".

shiny happy people

thats right, we can-can !!
ashanka

last tango in RVCE. *ing: gowday and jalan Posted by Hello 

at your own peril

been busy. anna's come home and i'm feeling pretty neglected :(
not really, he's bought a huge stash of chocolates and got me a new ipod mini, so yayy! anna

anyhow, acqueising to gowday's demand for farewell pics, i'll put it up, but readers be warned, these quiz corpers in no way reflect my mental state and oh, im not putting up any pics in which i feature in a saree or feature at all. that would be priceless wouldn't it? :P

Before Sunrise

i just finished seeing a wonderful movie, you know the type that you recollect when you're watching scenary from a moving bus or that brief interlude when you're just about to sleep, when you watch the ceiling and silent images come back.I have poor taste in movies sometimes, i really don't understand supposedly brilliant cinematic techniques, the only ones i like are the ones that come back to me on the ceiling.
its late in the night and my time, i've just learnt is finite. i have my very last internals morrow, i don't give a hoot naturally, but i think that if not spectacular, i should atleast make a graceful exit. but my nonchalence has been dented somewhat, knowing that the time between my internal and now is finite. But it is filled with so many possibilities. i can do so many things while the clock ticks away, i can study, watch another movie, the sequel, talk to strangers, do something terrifyingly exiting, hmmmm. i'm going to say something very trite, but oddly feeling good about it. finite time but infinite possibilities.

Sur la Table

thats the dessert restuarant i will run when im done saving the world.

yes this is a random post, where i ramble on topics as i please with no regards to structure or metre.

what did i do today? well i made money, the only way i can, by quizzing. its the the only thing that has saved me from impecunious circumstances, largely. i like quizzing, i really do,hell it even got me on t.v, but i generally found that i had a dichotomous attitude towards it. i liked it but i also consciously tried to keep away from the nerdiness often associated with it, i tried to be the hip and cool quizzer and today i realize what i fool i was. i drove all the way to the back of boon docks to take part in a quiz today and i get nostalgic about sunday morning quizzes at the KQA. i finally realize. I'm throwing my lot in with the nerds. *hugs*

the UTPT blog looks awesome, Bib and Ganj put up two superb posts. i miss those days, when we were the juniors and had these guys to look up to. i miss that. its such a comfort when you have someone to look up to. i went to IISC today after coming back from the aforementioned boondocks. put up the UTPT poster in and around IISC, un-aided by a roll of terrible scotch tape. i HATE badly behaved scotch tapes. but the poster looks great though, jalan, has done a fantastic job and its absolutely magnificent, makes you feel small and significant at the same time. the awesome picture of the buddha is by Mando gomez who acquiesed and allowed us to use his picture for the fest.

my house is an accent wall mess. mom's busy painting the house and my main pre-occupation these days is coming up with ways to avoid being in the house. the flooring is on, everything is displaced, construction goin on and mom is generally armed with a million shade cards, harassing me to pick colours. sigh. She's majorly into accent walls this time. she saw one at a friends place and now we have one in everyroom. the living room has a bright orange accent wall, dining chrome yellow, my room has a purple one, the kitchen has a buff coloured one......... sigh. momsy they are called colour consultants, for heavens sakes!

found a couple of good links on the guradian, simon schama my favourite historian talks about the recent elections in the U.K. i loved Schama's "the history of Britain" on the beeb. i've always loved history, but this show was so stellar, that i often stayed up till 3 am to catch the second telecast. British history is fabulously checkered. Drama, intrigue, lust,sex.... like a toe curling soap opera.

also found Margaret Atwood's excerpt from her new book "curious pursuits", in which she talks about her first visit to europe. i've always wanted to do that, backpack across europe armed with a lonely planet guide book, inshallah, one day i shall.

A little house on memory lane

well i'm back to my curling up with a book habit. people from RVCE will flog me if i say i didn't have time to read because of engineering, but the truth is i had a little falling off with reading, ( do people have that? hmmm) half way through my engineering, can't think why, anyhow finished quite few books in the past week and really utilizing my Eloor membership.

i don't know why i picked up Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone, i scoff at all things IIT, i can't stand the mythic hype that surrounds this institution, and the inside cover said, Mr. Bhagat graduated from IIT and IIMA, and was now an I-banker (yawn), obviously this book was going to be one annoyingly cloying ode to his Alma mater right? (he even dedicates the book to it!). inspite of all these disconcerting misgivings, i began reading the book and did so for five hours straight till i finished the book.

it was absolutely antithetical to my preconceived notions, far from an ode, this book is a rant against the entire IIT system right from page 5, but thats not why i liked this book. i liked it because it made me utterly nostalgic about my own engineering experiences. its a story about the trials and tribulations of three guys, Hari, Ryan and Alok and their attempts to sucessfully complete the mechanical engineering course at the IIT. Right from the start when the protagonists groan at Manufacturing process classes, i remembered my own class, their fidgety doodling, bored yawns, those smart ass comments that elicited a tired chuckle, those nerds at the front benches, licking their lips and axiously copying notes, it brought back so many memories, this book started a nostalgic movie in my head.

Ryan the bored genius in this book reminded me of one such guy in my own class. i used to sit next to him and during classes he would drum his pencil on the desk furiously, fidget and sometimes even sing handle's Messiah, give everybody the "can't believe you want to listen to this crap" look, then go on to design a radically different dog clutch, and would give me a triumphant look and say " these classes kill creativity!". he was right! and i felt like a pro-establishment loser.

the mention about machine labs reminded me of the first time i handled a lathe machine, a serious boys' toy. being the sentimental fogey i am, i desperately wanted to keep my first ever machined part, but was not allowed to do so. now during machining, the metallic chips have this beautiful way of curling up. watching them curl up was like watchin a waterfall, or waves breaking, it was mesmerizing. i even took the curled chips from my first machining endeavour and made it into a bracelet and wore it so proudly, showing off to all my classmates, who rolled their eyes at such "girly" antics.

semester exams brought back tons of memories about my own harried semester exam preperation (rather the lack of it!). the all nighters, midnight SMS's to find out what to leave or to check the status quo of the other person, the smart alec who tells you 30 minutes before the exam that a chapter you thought insignificant was infact very very significant, the subsequent panic attack for not studying the aforementioned chapter, the malicious determination to cause panic attacks among other people who have also not studied the said chapter, the bored genius traipsing through as if life was sunshine itself, and finally dying a million deaths during the exam, because the only chapter you did not study features prominently. you know the last bit has happened so many times that i'm sure theres a science to it

i did not review five point someone because tonnes of people have already done that and my reading was too intertwined with nostagia for me to be objective about it, but i really liked the writing, it had some chuckle worthy smart lines and ofcourse the three of them are such goofy idiots that they are utterly endearing, but it would be really interesting to get a non engineers perspective though.

soon, college will be over for good. our farewell is in the last week of may, and i owe a full post dedicated to the idiosycracies of my all male class and as one discerning senior rightly pointed out, sometimes, nostalgia is opium enough
sigh

Who's gonna drive you home tonight?

i hate riding on bangalore roads, absolutely loathe it. i've been riding on it since i was 15. those were the halcyon days, i was one of the very few kids who got to come to school on a bike, and perks included, running the school security guard over, (truly fun!). mom wouldn't send me out without a helmet, so i looked like a mysterious school girl biker chic lol. mornings were fun, school was at 8:30 and i left home at 8:15, and covered a nice 8 km in 15 minutes, not bad huh? on the way i'd meet guys from the boys' school and well it was fun racing them, i did not like to "race", but those guys used to get severely affronted every time i overtook them, and so gave these smirks when they in turn over took me, i can't handle men smirking, it wakes up the feminist demon in me and so a race was on.not any more though, driving has become a nightmare. i used to be a rather timid, unadventerous person before i started driving, it unleashed the thrill seeker in me. but now, i'd rather trek through leech infested forests than drive in bangalore traffic.

its a bloody nightmare,honestly, trained baboons can drive in a more orderly fashion. people yell, honk, take atrocious turns, swerve, brake, speed...... so i've had it with atrocious driving, i really want to educate people about scientific driving. yes, theres a method to this madness. bangaloreans please start taking notes.

#1. If you can't drive, don't drive.
cardinal rule methinks. people who can't drive, shouldn't, or if they wish to, should do so with a giant L sticker on the left of the road where all the other inconsequential things are

#2. Right, left or centre
believe it or not your speed should determine which side of the road your vehicle should be on. since you can over take from your right (on the side of the driver's rear view), the fastest vehicles should move on the right of the road. so if you are zipping home to have sex you should be on the right, but if you are puttering around taking in the sun, stay to the left, and if you are pacing yourself, stick to the centre of the road

#3. don't go hamlet on the lane
this is driving that would make a schizophrenic feel pretty well adjusted. i hate people who change lanes to suit their convenience. when traffic on one lane gets blocked, mr (or ms.) selfish decides to switch lanes causing an "in situ" traffic jam. urgh. and then theres the tiresome business of reading these "to be or not to be" souls. they swerve madly from lane to lane, its almost like watching a tennis match

#4. yellow yellow, makes you mad and mellow
i personally hate it when the green changes to yellow, just when im about to cross the signal, but the done thing is to stop at the signal when the yellow comes on. people are such rotters that they move on even when the light turns red, thus blocking traffic at other signals.

#5. don't dream when its green
this is especially for those people who are making grocery lists when they are at the forefront of a stop signal. isn't it odd how people with the slowest response times always tend to be on the frontlines and you, who just want to bolt, is at the back, honking madly, trying bring attention to the fact that the light is green?

#6. scourge on the free left blocker
this for those people that block a free left at a signal because, they duh, obviously don't want to turn left, but they just have to encroach on the space, move to the front of the line and make grocery lists. hate you guys.

#7. send those running pedestrians to the olympics
damn straight!. people just dont understand how uncomplicated and unimportant their lives really are. i don't get why pedestrians scoot, scram, bolt to the other end of the road in between busy traffic. all you have to do is wait at the pdestrian crossing till the walk sign turns green, and then you can stroll about, breathe in, listen to the birds, swish your hair a lil bit. no., they insist on running to the other end of the curb, when the green signal is on, when most vehicles are going full throttle on their accelerator pedals. honestly its olympics or road kill

#8. you ruddy fool, when you have an indicator light, use it!
my favourite pet peeve. people who don't indicate which way they want to turn. its like they're going, ..going, still going, and suddenly they have a "oh fuck theres my right" moment, and swerve suddenly. people, indicator light is to INDICATE which way you're going, not because its particularly psychadelic. sometimes, a person intending to go right, goes to the very left of the traffic signal, usually by squeezing & snaking through traffic, and then when the green light comes on, its diagonal movement towards the promised land, without using the indicator.

#9 you ain't no moses and the red sea ain't gonna part
when you are stuck in a signal and some car outhere cannot seem to start, please don't honk your annoyance out. everybody knows its green, and its time to go, so honking really doesn't serve any purpose, it just makes the driver of the car more nervous, unless its me, then the honking could be counter productive because i refuse to start my car in excess din and when my chi is broken so :P. why do people honk at a traffic jam any how?. its bizzarre. traffic's not moving, you are on a road thats like the lunar surface, life sucks and then you honk.(???)

#10 antichrist is an autorickshaw driver from bangalore
ummm, nothing much to add to that one. yup nothing.

there goes people, if i think of a few more i'll let you know. meanwhile the cutest thing happened to me while i was riding back home. i stopped for this guy who was crossing the road. (cute too), and then he stopped to let me pass, i smiled and indicated that he should pass, but he stood right there and gestured at me, to pass, and then i smiled at the irony of chivalry, and said " pedestrian's right of way", he gave the broadest smile ever, also sensing the irony, how chivalry, is not a male bravado act, but something that shows people you respect them

oh i bet he was married!, he had that "happily married" aura :(

Discography of me- part deux (the rise of the radiohead)

as we know in episode 1 (here i'm inclined to mention that there wont be an episode 3, ever, i really don't want these posts to sound like star wars prequels), i put forth my musical influences till standard 12 and left off saying that music in college was a raging inferno. actually that last bit was a bit of an exagerration, i'm not sure if it was an inferno as much as it was different.

very few will say that an alarm clock changed their musical (i meanter say, taste in music) preference for ever. ok a bit dramatic. actually my alarm clock had a built in radio. it also had that inventively clever snooze button. ordinary alarm clocks, jangle the firt moment of waking existence, my snooze button was so hip i got 4 minutes of grace snooze time everytime i hit it, and well you know would politely wake me up in stages, from deep slumber to light slumber to breakfast aromas, and then finally to "oh shit, im fucking late for school (or college)", oh yes about the built in radio, well see it required 4 extra batteries, and we are not quite the household that leaves 4 extra batteries lying around, so i never did use the radio for a long time, till my brother scrambled out and got them to hear cricket commentary for an important match when we had a power outage. so i fiddled with the knobs, i quite like the radio disturbance, the crackle of mangled sound waves, infact i read recently that these crackles have the remanence of the big bang, (kou!) anyhow i came across unknown stations, i love listening to AIR news, the person reading the news has such a "all is calm"quality, and one day while twisting the knob hoping to get some good music, i got this voice, a voice that was so soothing and strong and comforting, that melted my insides into a fine goo, a voice that i'd like to have for a blanket, and amazingly, that was talking about western classical music. that day i realized i was going to marry a man with a great voice and that i liked western classical music. the show was preetham koilpillai's friday night rendezvous, he introduced me to the music of my life, beethoven, bach, mozart, swan lake, so much so that i took up violin lessons for 3 years after that. trust a man to introduce you to these things!. its funny how men have influenced me the most in my music. my brother influenced me because he was the feudal lord of all the electronics in the house, and wouldnt let me play any teeny bopper song, the men i've been involved with introduced me to artists im still hooked onto.

the radio scene started to pick up and bangalore got its firts FM (private) station, radiocity 91 in 2002 (july 4th). im a radio person, im not one for videos, for me videos distract from the essence of the song. 91 fm was a english station and i loved all their shows especially the late show (10pm- 12 pm) hosted by priya ganapathy. she had the most endearing of giggles, now i sincerely believe that if you can't be a beautiful idiot or a brilliant lunatic you should atleast have an uplifting giggle, she played the most amazing of music and introduced me to the doors, when i first heard riders of the storm, i wanted to die right then, because surely there could none better than it. the late show was this period of calm and stock taking everynight. priya giggled, gave words of advice, cheered us up and crafted a wonderfully hum world filled with great music, if i ever meet her, im going to gush unashamedly. she also hosted the retro show on sundays and i never ever missed it. there were specials on bob dylan, the disco era (fav), divas (fav), nina simone (fav), elvis presely,( i got on air for this one!!). then one fineday they went hindi, inexplicably, and the music stopped. i really miss the english 91 fm, they used have this show on relationships and sex, after 12 and people used to call in about their sex problems. one time, this guy called up and asked the expert if size really mattered, and the "expert" told him that 2 inches was sufficient !( yea right, for conceiving!!!). jonzy and santosh gnanakan had this metal head show on thursdays, where all these "serious metal heads" (oxymorons!!) would call up and ernestly ask for metal, thats where i heard sound garden. im in love with chris cornell and his "spoooonman" voice. especially, the humming interlude in audioslave's "show me how to live". aah soo delectable.

college was such a sea of change from school. for one thing there were men around, coming from a girls only school, a very big plus. and when there are men around, you can be sure there arn't posters of the backstreet boys. i too had that mandatory pink floyd year, and the mandatory angst that came with it. some people thought of it as the ultimate sensory deprivation tank. on retrospection pink floyd was the anthem for every non conformist in the first year, the us versus them, the che guevara affiliation, where we promised to see each other on the "dark side of the moon", yea the conformity of the non conformists, lol. my pink floyd year, was nicely wrapped up by the roger waters concert, that concert was fun, he sang time, and shine on you crazy diamond with an anti-commie animation as a backdrop. it oddly reminded me of 1984 and i never listened to pink floyd again!. i had great seniors who were into a lot of great music. through saigo i got urban hymns ( verve) and 14 albums of the grateful dead, and i guess friend of the devil is a friend of mine.

well my radio phase is still alive and kicking. im on internet radio now and its simply fabulous, any and every artist is on it. i once got onto radio guyana, where all the islanders called in to request, and a scottish radio station where the RJ had the yummiest scottish accent ever!, well now im hooked to the radio station i customized on yahoo's launch cast. its plays a lot of jazz, lot of REM, mazzy star, a lot of my favourite divas, not too much rap, some hip hop, a good deal of experimental music, an album of nick drake's........

yea im happy now.

currently ruling my playlist 

Fumbling Towards Ecstacy

stayed up late last night waiting for a sarah mclachlan torrent to finish downloading and im beginning to resent the fact that torrents are determining my waking hour. i have no idea what it is that prevents me from shutting the comp down and sleeping, but no, i can't leave for the life of me when 80% has been downloaded and the time remaning comes to an hour. this phase for me become psychologically critical, im hoping and praying fervently that the download rate continues, that no additional leecher comes and spoils my perfect world, all i want is for that bloody download to end, yes in this phase i start morphing into an obsessed psychopath

after getting broadband, i've noticed a huge change in my existencial well being. my state is determined by the health of my precious downloads, when one of my downloads is going particularly well, getting 15 KB/s, i feel so elated, rather like god's specially anointed angel, for whom the red sea of downloaders has parted to make way for an unobstructed download (DL from now on), and when some of them remain poised at 0%, life is filled with anxiety and existencial queries. i've noticed a rather scary phenomenon, when the DL reaches 99% i become really nervous, hoping that no destructive force on earth will come between that DL and me. i don't feel this possesive of any guy for that matter. these days oddly most of my DL's are getting stuck at 99%, leading to a whole day of restlessness, and sometimes even questioning the ineffable plan, (i did that for the CSNY DL)

thats half the story, once the album has been listened to, and if its not particularly enticing it opens another flood gate of issues, damn im unlucky in life or why do i get rotten quality etc, so i've devised my own method of time and more importantly emotion management. artists like alison krauss, REM, CSNY, rufus wainwright, fiona apple, pearl jam are generally good return on investment (time & emotion), where as radiohead, portishead, mazzy star, well it can sometimes get weird. i think i've become a sort of guru about the art of downloading and one cardinal rule is to read atleast 6 music reviews to really gauge how excited you must get about the album.
wait, am i really that weird?
well coming back to my sarah mclachlan DL, i can't express how excited i got about it. i almost nurtured it, made sure my other DL's didn't get in the way, kept the comp open for 7 hours refreshed my connection when i thought the speed was slowing down... well im extremely happy to state that she didnt disappoint, fumbling towards ecstacy is stellar, but then i've been in love with sarah's voice, i almost want to fall asleep enconsed by her voice, ah theres nothing like a good diva's voice first thing in the morning( ok i admit its noon now)
well im off to lunch with kay, and well the lil psycho me is happy, thanks sarah

Agaetis byrjun

i've been wondering how to describe Sigur Ros's music. someone called it " whale in heat music", while k called it "the music of radiohead and enigma's mutant child", but methinks it has a rather pagan wombish quality. like the ideal background music for the floating ophelia.i first heard Sigur Ros's Svefn-G-Englar on the OST of Vanilla Sky and the odd thing about it is how free it makes you, so free that you want to save the rain forests, baby sea lions, erase third world debt.... hmm its a pagan music that makes you feel like Bono at Davos.
i've never understood why all these people "in business" scramble off to a posh ski resort to talk about business and irritatingly third world debt. Bono talks of it, Bill gates talks of it and most annoyingly Koffi annan talks of it, in switzerland, where all they are concerned about is the alacrity of the cuckoo in their clocks.when you are in a place where everybody is talking about the "pooahrest of the pooah" (POP, for convenience) who gives a damn, when everybody is pretty much giving the same soundbites ? now if Bono ( lets not forget the shades) went to the hinterlands of mozambique, among the semi clad natives and rallied for third world debt erasure, that would make for good television, but when you're in a ski resort the only thing one should do,is ski, me thinks.
well anyhow, heres the link for Agaetis byrjun, its a free download, (many thanks nag)

Not with a bang but a whimper

i'm very happy that the cricket series got over. i was tired of having to see all my programmes on the second airing, or sometimes even the third, just because my cricket crazy family didn't want to miss a single second of cricket. i'm not as crazy as them. partly as a reaction to the affection shown by my family to the game. my brother, who was by all accounts the daimyo of t.v, would mercilessly switch from a paul newman movie (that i'd be watching) to a kenya- zimbabwe highlights faster than one could say kamikaze, mom on the other hand can belt out match stats that could make Wisden blush with shame and dad has sent the remote on so many aerodynamic journeys, following every middle order collapse, that im seriously contemplating putting shock absorbers on it. but me? im generally fruit cake, oblivious to any cricket brouhaha. simply because sports for me is entertainment and eye candy, and cricket has none of it. its grossly over rated me thinks.
entertainment is watching sportsmen display sublime fluidity of motion. like zidane's poetry etched football play or motion like a delicate brush stroke emanating from a maestro's hand, like roger federer's tennis. when i see cricket, it looks ugly.cricket these days is devoid of delicate wristy shots and more inclined towards ugly and loud slog shots. its obscene. like serena williams's tennis. entertainment, is watching unbelievable consequences of human motion, like zizou's goal vs england at the euro, or Hoogenband's desperate 50m dash to defend his olympic title, and watching these feats make you feel like a sinner redeemed, purged and pure. cricket just doesn't have that excitement. and as far as eye candy goes, i can't fathom how the women of this country voted tendulkar as the #2 sexiest man in the country(#1 was shahrukh khan, i can't fathom that either!), flanneled men are as charming as onion icecream on the female senses, unlike those footballers, in their cute shorts with a hint of finely cut muscle peeking out (slyly), now thats real eye candy *wink*
and finally, after what seems like an eternity of DD coverage, and an unpardonable assault on the english language, "the batter is now facing the baller", i really wish, black holes had a thing for DD's comentary team (post match analysis "experts" included)
wishing and hoping

Irony is the best medicine.

few people can experience in their life times what im experiencing right now. the left butt is on a painkiller induced la la land trip, while right butt has no clue whatsover. so when i walk, things alternate between sensation and no sensation. like the butt (punster, funster) of a very obscene joke. so without further ado, i shall launch into how these things came to be.
i blame it solely on Oprah.
she flaunted this theory of substituting muscle for flab ,yada yada , long story, and which resulted in me lifting weights and i prolly lifted a little too much and i ended up with terrible back spasm. i thought it will pass in a few days, and heck a lil pain is nothing compared to what i shall experience bearing quadruplets, so good training and stuff. yes i know one day i shall end up writing a sucessful self help book , about turning negtives into positives and such. finally the pain was unbearable and i had to see the doctor.
i was adamant that i wanted to see a female orthpedician only, i didnt want some guy to fondle with my back, especially after my lecherous knee doctor. but as the receptionist at the hospital put it, " madam, if you want a female orthopedician, you'll have to leave the country!". pig!!. anyhow. my dad reassured me he'd blow the doctor to the moon if he tried anything hanky panky. and so we chose the oldest geriatric doctor available.
when the doctor heard that it was a gym mishap, he burst into peals of laughter,. bag of bones, enjoying himself goes, " you want muscles to become a female wrestler?" ho ho ho hahahahahahahahahha heheheheheheheheheheh hoah hoah hoah tsk tsk tsk. after a lot of needless mirth, he asked me what the need for weights was?. i can wax eloquence on a lot of things, but infront of a doctor who was laughing so uncouthly, i lost my confidence and said, lamely " ironically, it was a back strengthening exercise". hohohohohohoho hahahahahahahahahahahha hehehehehehehehehehhehe hoah hoah hoah hoah tsk tsk tsk and whole bit of phlegm ratteling also.
finallly, after he wiped his tears, he wrote me a painkiller, which a mallu nurse expediently administered to me. in the left butt which is now in lalala land, while the other is rather befuddled by all the fuss.
anyhow, part 2 of my magnum opus will be a little late in coming. my back is still weak and when the back is raring to go for a spot of strengthening exercises, ill get around to it.

discography of me- part 1, (albeit a little too hyphonated).

although, the comments don't reflect it, certain sections have subtly (and not so subtly) hinted that its getting too diatribe-ish, vendetta-esque, ranting looney- like (oooh i'm liking this hyphonated odyssey).
so to cater to the palettes of those subtle (and not so subtle) epicurean connoisseurs, i shall present the decent aspect of my personality, my taste in music. when i started writing this blog i thought i'd include music reviews of artists forgotten by the world at large , to serve the double purpose of appearing like an indie- arty-bohemian-chutzpah type and ofcourse attracting more traffic. to be honest i've had notions of people flocking to my site and the stat counter swelling and me getting a fabulous book deal because of my astounding talent and writing the fabled book in an exotic place, say marrakesh,and abetted, by a fabulous bronzed muscle-ey muse. sigh......
anyway, before i start reviewing music by little known artists i thought it prudent to put my own musical history upfront. like everything else, this too is a story.
it didn't begin in 1983. ofcourse not. but much before that. when my mom was pregnant with me and dad decided to play the saturday night fever soundtrack till the tape frayed. then he switched to boney-m , and before they could ra ra rasputin for the billionth time, mercifullly i came out into the world. but relief was shortlived in a house that swayed to "shes crazy like a fool, but what about daddy cool?". it was only a matter of time before dad switched over to cat stevens. i admit i like cat stevens. that song about morning breaking and what not is an eternal favourite. but not too much boney-m or the bee gees, (too girly)
then dad got tranferred to mumbai for nine years and these years i refer to as halcyon days because dad brought some eclectic music from mumbai, marathi bhajjans to samantha fox i listened them all. between dads marathi cuss words and the bhajjans, i can say i even learnt spoken marathi. i developed a huge crush on morten harkett, the lead singer of A-HA who looked like a perfectly chisled norse god.

i had a terrible time in school, during the nascent years, because nothing made sense. everything was confusing and i was always falling sick. i used to fall sick for months on end, and be alone at home with my grandmom. she had this wonderful habit of keeping her pet transistor near my ear and this mellifluous voice, would break out in karnatic rhythms and restructure the haze in my mind. karnatic music is one of those wonderfull genres of music, that bring order among chaos. i loved M.S, gangu bhai hangal and bala murali Krishna , the latter especially, singing, “bhagyada lakshmi baramma”

when the 90's broke and MTV came into our house, i got my first lesson in culture. women abroad dont wear six metres of cloth. it took 3rd standard intelligence to fully comprehend that shock. I was finicky eater (still am ), and would steafastedly refuse to eat lunch, so dad decided to literally hand feed me in the morning with the treat that I could watch MTV most wanted. This is my favourite memory in life. The first video that made an impression on me was chris de burgh’s lady in red. My mornings rocked. I saw the video of November rain and was utterly bowled over. It was so popular that it was requested every morning, I could even guess the timing of the video. Then there was this cool song by john secada, that my father absolutely loved and the food plate would start to sway. But my favourite video was one by Madonna oddly (and we are talking strictly of videos here). It was for this song called “my playground”, and the video was in the form of a photo album and very gimmicky. It was oddly stimulating.

Because of my poor eating habits, my parents put me in another school. I loved it. It had a swimming pool right in the middle. It was so calming, and all the other girls had this snooty habit of calling you a nondescript “girly”. I loved it there. sadly the early morning hand feeding from dad came to an end. The upper class girlies predictably welcomed the backstreet boys with open arms and made them richer by buying their posters by the droves. The snooty clique, whom every would copy, used to coo and purr when BB went “ quit playing games with my heart”, and that whole wet clothes in an basket ball court routine, had the entire school drooling.(retrospectively, Egad!). In an 8th standard hottest men pole. The backstreet boys occupied the first 5 slots and boyzone the other five. In 9th standard, there was a huge upset, boyzone occupied the first 4 slots (Stephen gately declared he was gay, and thus broke hazaar hearts, incidently that announcement saw a massive drop in boyzone merchandise), peter andre came in 5th, while the backstreet boys evidently on the wane, occupied the last 5 positions. Since I was not in the snooty clique, I was not privy to such polling, then some of them got married, many girls shed a lot of tears, BB posters were burnt, the tapes were abandoned , or passed down to hapless 8thies, if you were especially sadistic and everybody parted company in the 10th in relatively good spirits, owing partly to numbers like the Macarena, the spice girls etc.

It was in 11th and 12th that a huge musical tide swept me. This one was of the world music variety. Alyesha and I had become best friends and I avidly drank up her arab music collection. I’ll unashamedly admit to being partial to Amr Diab. No one can quite muster “habibie” like he did. I listened to a lot of arab tribal music, good bit of Arab pop, learnt some fine points about belly dancing and interesting stuff like that. Alyesha also had the entire collection of the Eagles. Since “hotel California” was done to death and literally put out to pasture, piqued, I sampled “hell freezes over” and fell in love. “tequila sunrise” is a song that gives you a taste of what it feels like to be in love. It was a bet between ‘lysh and me that got me listening to simon and garfunkel. Reading the poetry of T.S eliot and listening to S & G, are the memories that stick with me of 11th and 12th. What a charming prelude to the raging inferno that music experience in college turned out to be.

Dan Brown and associated farts

as i stated in a previous post, i finished 148 pages of "Angels & Demons", at the airport book shop before i was shooed off. Since i hate leaving books unfinished, i asked a ardent fan of DB to pass me an E-text of that book. nobody should ever buy any book by DB , infact he ought to pay us for reading his tosh. and what a tosh. Angels ..... had the lamest ever ending of all the books i've encountered, Five findouters included. dear god!!! and what makes me really really angry is that his books get accused of being Literature ( blasphemy) and that he has revived the art of reading among masses. this is to all the "masses", go obese, become fat, drink lot of beer , see t.v develop a high cholestrol but don't for heavens sakes read DB or read DB and say what a effing good author he is because he so is not!!!!!.
DB is essentially a Sidney Sheldon spawn which is what makes him a fart in the first place. he apparently read a Sidney Sheldon book while holidaying in Tahiti. thats what makes him a bigger fart. who reads while sitting on a beach in Tahiti?? what a loser!!!!. and who gets inspired by Sidney sheldon???. Sidney sheldon is another fart, who has an avid fan base in Khalsa college if you please. so DB , all inspired decides to pen an international racy thriller called "Da vinci code". and now i shall gleefully proceed to trash this magnum opus. this book is shitty to say the least. get this, a dead man with arms and legs spread out in the da vinci gallery of the louvre museum, and our hero, robert langdon goes on a pentacle rant. and 80 pages later realises that the "clue" is prolly the vetruvian man. and no sex!!!!. what kind of racy thriller has no sex?? and she was french for heavens sakes!!. bobby is prolly the only protagonist to have made it to the bestseller list without demonstations of virility. sad.
im not angry with DB for laughing all the way to the bank, bill gates, another fart, who makes far lousier products is the bloody bank. no it ain't that. what makes me angry is that this clever manipulator is hailed as the messiah of reading!!!. hes a terrible author with a penchant for ultra lame endings and people who think im wrong can go obese, become fat, drink beer, see T.V and develop a high cholestrol!!!
oh before i forget woe betide any quizzer who uses DB "fundaes", IM Pei indeed, stop being a fart !!!.

as Jack Sparrow says, "Savvy?"

its been an eventful week. not necessarily a happy one, but definitely a happening one. it started off great. we won the KQA metaquizzicks anniversary quiz, last sunday, for the second consecutive year, and i had this nice post i wanted to write then, about how we, Tonic, were the quizzing equivalent of weapon of mass destruction, the australia of college quizzing and barring the moon landing generation, superior to all( yes, including a certain moody liar), but couldn't quite write it because i developed a sore throat and writing isn't fun when you feel like arthropods are scurrying down the hatchet. that sore throat developed into a full fledged fever by monday and by tuesday i was wheezing like steam engine . savvy?
wednesday our guide at IISC decided, that we were a bunch of squeaky clean no goods and ordered us to fill sacks of charcoal, so i was drenched in charcoal dirt and wheezing like an engine, some heat and i would have made stephenson proud. thursday i lost my sex drive. i don't use it much, but i really like the feeling of knowing its alive and kicking. i also saw this newsbyte on NDTV. seems they are about bulldoze Delhi's oldest and beloved dog shelter. and the clearly agitated lady dolittle went " don't they realize that if they bulldoze this place, it will go literally to the dogs!!!!". sigh. she had my sympathy, till she uttered the last sentence. some people are stupid and dogs arn't despicable creatures, they are the visage of heaven.
friday was my brother's birthday. mum decided at midnight, (india time), that we should call him and " all of you yell, loudly, happy birthday!", so thats what we did, it was 5 A.M, where he was and the poor guy could only muster, " couldn't you all have waited", i must say that i thoroughly did my bit. friday i realized that i needed to finalize my seminar topic. on a whim i decided it to be "ergonomics". its not going to be fun.
saturday, i come home to no cable. but it could have been worse. a friend's friend died under a moving train in the same week. it certainly could have been worse.

What a wonderful world.......

......without Air Deccan. personally, methinks, it should be renamed Snare Deccan. If ever there is a death trap in the air, this is it.
when i was informed that i had to fly to hyderabad on Air Deccan, i wasn't too freaked about it, because i'm not too affectionate about AD. everytime i've noticed, the flights are always delayed and how can anybody forget the inaugural flight, when the plane had to make an emergency landing because of engine trouble?. but (as few people know),my byline being " will try anything ....once". i was ready for the experience. atleast i thought i did.
so, unsurprisingly, my flight was delayed by three hours. to pass that time. i went to the airport bookshop and started reading dan brown's "angels & demons". the fun part of reading books for fulooze (free), is that the folks at the book shop are angry but are always too polite to snatch it away from your hand, and heck, i'd never want to own a legit book of dan brown, the man idolizes Sidney Sheldon for heaven's sakes!!!!!. i had finished 78 pages when i got the call for security check. i finally made it to the plane, strapped my seat belts firmly, and insouciantly looked out of the window to see 3 mechanics fiddling with the engine. not a pretty sight considering in a few minutes its going to be air borne. then mechanic 4 runs up with a multimeter and shakes his head in the negative. that was it folks. my flight was cancelled for that day.
since i HAD to go to hyderabad, i was back again the next day to catch the flight, when, surprise, surprise, it was delayed again. this time round i progressed to page 146, when the proprieter of the bookshop gave me the nastiest look ever. i finally found myself on the plane, and it took off, mercifully, when suddenly , insect repellant started emerging from the ventilator system. why? because the the plane was swarming with mosquitoes!!!. people say that the journey is more important than the destination, but with AD, its the other way round.
i learnt how important competition is to the consumer. AD treats its passengers with disdain because it has no competition. its the only ailine offering low fares and ergo it thinks it can behave like a flying cattle van. competition is the only way the consumer can punish the errant airline. i'd never thought i'd say this, but hugs to those chubby mamas of Indian Airlines who dish out soggy sanwiches, atleast they care!.