After a long time...

Its been a long time since I have come on this page. Obviously employment and having a life are not doing well together. Also, loss of the only two people who actually read my blog ( as far as i know) is decreasing inclination. But i shall persevere, if only to preserve my thoughts for the generations to come.

Have been planning a trip ANYWHERE for some time now but unfortunately have some hopelessly lazy friends. We started from planning Pondicherry, fell to Goa, reached the heights of Bangkok+ Pattaya and now am contemplating sadly the benefits of going to Singapore alone to meet my cousin (who is also not confirming what is her plan and anyhow i am not sure how much fun Singapore will be.) Perhaps i am meant to be untravellable. This is possibly the biggest plus point i am finding re the thought of being in a relationship- after all any decent bf/husband/better half can hardly say no if there is any intent to actually survive this relationship :) come on people move your butts...see how low i have fallen!!!!

Coming to the matter of blogs, there is this amazing movie out there, Julie & Julia, which is basically abt this woman Julie who decides to cook and blog her way through Julia Child's iconic book on french cooking, trying each and every recipe. This idea is interesting in its merits and while in the short term i would settle for watching the movie, in the long term i am thinking of trying it out. Unfortunately the key audience (and receptor...is that an actual word) of Julie's efforts was her boyfriend, which brings us back to square one. Certainly, surviving single hood in India takes a whole new meaning.

So now i shall pretend to go back to sleep (did someone notice the time?). I am having a hard time in office right now which is costing my some lack of sleep. And as my head shows no wish to believe that this excess time+energy should be targetted by way of the gym, expect more from me here!!!!

The Singleton's Corpus

Ok so keeping in mind my mother's present hyperactivity re marriage, I have been trying to work out precisely what are the pros and cons of an arranged marriage. And weirdly enough, the predominant emotion that motivates people towards this institution is because everyone else is doing it. I am actually more worried abt being 30/35 and realising that everyone else i know has built this cosy little cocoon arnd their lives, which i can only touch at the surface. Imagine a whole lifetime of calling peo to meet you or do something together, to be told that they cannot because..blah blah blah blah..

So remembering the Power of Ideas (as intoned by my ET every morn) we have a plan- the Singleton Corpus. Think of it like a mutual fund for eternal bachelors - like residential societies for parsis (also a dying breed, alas). Everyone committed to the idea of remaining single will contribute a certain amount to the fund as an opening investment and guarantee for future good behaviour. The returns will be based on the number of years spent following the corpus' single precept- thou shall not marry. So if someone ditches in the five years, his payout is only going to be 5% and so on. And the grand prize to those who celebrate the golden anniversary of being single- the Bumper prize of full payback. Corollary to this- the penalties of all those who ran to be distributed among the survivors to celebrate their own Dev.D.

So who's in with me on this??? :D

PS: with thanks to Seth for the title.

Things to Hate

Ok moved by watching movies with eggnog in it, I have decided to make a list of all the things that should be put on the list of Do-Not-Eat:

1. Eggnog: raw egg??????????????
2. Torai : goeey, greeny, icky, slimy..whats there to say?
3. Karela: ok i know this is heresy but seriously it is bitter.
4. Parwal: sweet or stuffed, it tastes disgusting and those irritating seeds...
5. Malai
6. Paani Dahi: either call it milk or curd, there is no middle here.
7. Old Sweets (contribution by Neeraj P)
8. Onions on Pizza
9. Omlettes with bhindi :D
10. Sushi (Thanks Chetan)

Anything else??? Bring out the grossness!!!!!!!

Anger

These days i am always angry. I admit to having a very short fuse (for which i can happily blame genetics) but i do have some control over it. Atleast i think i do. But somehow the corporate culture of CYA does not gel very well with my latent (not so latent though) instincts.

Why do people have so much focus on CYA? I mean i can understand screwing up, i have screwed up zillions of times and feel most definitely do it zillion of times more. But it has never led me to lie or otherwise try to cover up my activities. If u screw up well u screw up, its not something u can change. So why do peo proceed to create more chaos by just spewing utter nonsense which is just going to get them caught later on n make them look like bigger fools. It is a response i can understand from children, who easily fear authority for they have little to retaliate injustice with but in adults it is simply a sign of ostrich hood. So plzzzzzzzzz get over it and instead of wasting everyone's time with crap, get on with doing something!!

ok i now i feel slightly better. Please ignore this blog.

For the disbelievers...

Alright, al ye who cannot believe i can bake, I am uploading photographic evidence..so so more wisecracks peo..particularly bau, maidu n co..or i will invent an ajwain cake just for u :D

ps: I also made "Katherine Hepburn brownies" with the last of my firang baking choc..but unfortunately that got over too fast :D

Foggy life...

I nowadays keep getting the weird feeling that am somehow stuck in one of those hilarious foggy forests, made popular by the Ramsay brothers. How can u not know what u want in life? By the same principle, how can u be certain of what u want? Perhaps it is true that those whom the gods wish to punish, they give their hearts' desire..for the closer i am to achieving my goal, the further i feel i have moved from what i want. My life has become a caricature of indecision and soon i shall spew it all out in another cheerfully depressing book, with the shelf life sufficient enough, i hope, to keep me in morasses of confusion for life :)

RDB and Pay commission..

Rang de Basanti is movie that can make you hate yourself. We seem to be a nation of people suffering from attention deficit disorder. 30 seconds of gandhism, patriotism and many other isms and bugger to the world again. How many peo even know that retired defence officers sat on a bhook hartal in hot May, demanding decent pay. I have had too many peo saying, "oh they have such a cushy life, govt gives ghar, naukar, ration..what do they have to worry abt". Tell me, how many of us would work for such a company where u can be posted out anytime, anywhere, u have no choice in terms of work profile, u cannot quit also without ur superior's permission, and u get an in-hand of 6000 a month. My dad served 32 years with the air force and retired with a monthly salary of 30000 rupees. This after a double first in his graduation and post graduation. My brother is in the air force today and he will earn (after the pay commission adjustments) 12000 bucks a month, after 4 yrs of service. This will include all his 72 continuous hours of manning radars in a place like Uttarlay, 10 kms from Barmer, a true hole in the wall where the idea of a trendy restaurant is Udupi and spiderman 2 released a month back. This for a salary less than a call centre employee gets today. How many of us would even try for a company like this?????????? I am all in support of the corporate world, but we ought to have better to do than belittle what we could not even dream of. I do not expect anyone even will read this, but if u do, please try to atleast pay attention to such things in the news and support these peo, or one day u might realise that everyone else also feels to hell with the defence and we become the latest banana republic.

Eureka...??????????

i had an idea sometime back. Actually this is an idea Bau and I had way back when we were tuccha bacchas in 9th, to open a book cafe. At that time, I was still obsessed with books (a lot more than now trust me..i mean i actually got the 'best in library science' award in school, simply for the amount of time i spent there!) and Bau liked baking (thats her maternal complex, she cant help it :D). unfortunately by the time we grew old enough to appreciate the workings of our prodigal minds, the barista buggers had taken it up.

But recently I have been thinking, that if i must remain umemployed for life (and its seriously beg to look like that!) and the if the only escape from that is to be the matrimonial bliss of feeding my pati parmeshwar (and if he is a true chaubey baalak, he will appreciate nothing else!) I might as well make a business out of it. A nice little book cafe, seating perhaps no more than 30-50. Books will be available for rent(or an hourly basis, with discounts for no. of orders) and purchase. Serve healthy, home cooking..sandwiches, cakes, pies and stuff (look up Cranks' menus). Open in some pseudo intellectual posh locality like siri fort (shahpur jat?) or perhaps even north campus (or embassy avenue?). SO people, come and give me advice..how does it sound??all constructive suggestions welcome (this leaves u out am afraid, Sistu).

Fauji and growing up..

Last night, i somehow ended up watching episodes of Fauji, a serial telecast in 1990 on DD. Serials then were very simple, ending in 13 episodes and certainly no reincarnations or remodelling of characters. It turned it to be quite engrossing even now, perhaps because no one turned up 20 yrs later with plastic surgery :) Shahrukh khan, in his first serial i believe, got top billing and even then u can see the charm he has (and whatever else u say abt the guy, he has got charm!). Some good acting, some seriously hilarious (in the last episode there is a scene of old woman randomly announcing a jawan's return from war with kathak movements and then vanishing into thin air..too funny!) and all adhering very properly to army life, except for one of the characters' tendency to say "I say chaps" (which normal army offs definitely do not!!!). I am surprised no one has yet come up with another serial on army life yet. I mean, they all keep crying abt the dearth of interesting scripts and new dimensions. The last one i rem in Mission Commando or something which was a documentary on Indian 'Commando' training, very well done and with the permission and full support of the army. But i suppose i should be thankful for small mercies that no love triangles, vamps and evil accidents on unlikely amavasyas are taking place in a cantt in the near future.

When u sit down and read abt all these soldiers who have died young, its striking how easily we believe that life is set for us or over as we know it. I suppose its partly the Indian mindset which sees a change in ur life setting as a lack of decision making prowess instead of a growing of vision for a person. After all if we can forgive all sins of childhood and youth, why can we not forget a basic mistake of being unsure abt what we want. Its hardly true that all of us are struck by enlightenment the day before we submit our graduation applications. For that matter, I do not believe most of us achieve nirvana in this matter for a long long time. So for once, lets raise a cheer to taking risks, being stupid and closing our ears to whats expected..al infierno con todos nosotros!Festejando a la estupidez!!!

That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

-who else but Calvin :)

A new farce...

OK i dont know how many people managed to catch the televised proceedings of the parliament on the no-confidence day (due to their busy and productive life, unlike my present state of vegetation) but if you couldn't you should definitely try to catch some brilliant moments. I would categorically state Rahul Gandhi's speech as The Moment..someone should really tell that guy that he has kind of passed high school and whatever thoughts he (and we) might share about the intellectual prowess of our dear representatives, schoolboy-debate speeches can only be funny. Mama did not find the audience reaction funny and sonny boy ran away. Someone plz get his sister out.
Another brilliant moment was the opening of the three crore bag in the house, without the three BJP MLAs merrily waving wads of 1000s as proof of the essential corruptibility of UPA(though we support them, I dont think BJP should really try for the morally superior role yet). The rest of the debate was mostly made up of people dying to talk beyond their allotted minutes (one guy going far enough to request the speaker to "give two more minutes sir, just two more..how can i end the speech without thanking you honorable speaker sir"!!!!). All in all I suppose a usual days work for the guys. But i would give a leg to present at the next opening session :)

Comments plz........

I know(or optimistically hope) that someone somewhere is reading my blog...but please, to make me believe please Please PLEASE leave comments once in a while atleast. I have fallen into the pit of boredom sufficiently to not mind if they are arbit insults too :) waiting for the first blow....

In Memoriam...

This is a blog in the memory of all massacres that have been forgotten. Every single country today and the US the most, leads in blathering about their role in defending freedom and saving the world. But each of them has blots on their rhetoric. Napoleon(?) was right when he said that history is written by the victors. In all the incidents mentioned below, all occurring in the last century, we see how people find it so easy to disregard some one's right of life and easier to forget.

The Katyn Massacre 1940
Poland thought that it had covered its bases pretty well. It had made pacts with UK and others to protect its sovereignty from the Germans. It had a separate agreement with the Soviets to honour its territorial borders. Unfortunately, all these agreements meant squat when the Soviets-with a separate secret treaty with Germany to help- decided they deserved Poland. In what must have been one of the fastest take over in recent history, Poland was soon over run. The polish army's surrendered officers-made up of conscripted intellectuals and soldiers were taken POW. Here, Soviets decided to solve two problems at one go-destroy any present-and future resistance to Communist rule and weaken Poland sufficiently in the long run to protect their eastern borders. Result- 15000+ Polish officers-doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists were taken to the "commonly used" burial grounds and shot dead within 8 hours and promptly buried into mass graves treated with lime to dissolve the bones faster. By then, the Germans had taken over the role of Enemy no. 1 and the fall guy was ready too. Till 1945, Soviets kept pretending, with the knowledge and support of UK and US, that the POWs of 1940 had vanished into thin air from their custody, to somehow land a year later into Nazi hands. It was only in 1995, when de classified proved Stalin's personal role in sanctioning this act, that Russia accepted blame for its actions. However even today the present Russian government has refused to classify this massacre as 'genocide', instead defining the murder of almost 18000 Poles as "murder" and therefore beyond prosecution under the statute of limitations.

My Lai Massacre 1968

He fired at [the baby] with a .45. He missed. We all laughed. He got up three or four feet closer and missed again. We laughed. Then he got up right on top and plugged him.

We have a nice one here from our darling savior of the civilised world-the US. Prior to the Iraqi invasion, the Vietnam war definitely ranked high as one of US greatest blunders. It also was the scene of one of the most horrifying atrocities committed-and pardoned-by the armies of a nation. Tired of being on the wrong end of Viet Cong attacks, the Charlie company of the 1st battalion decided to bomb out the enemy, supposedly hiding in the hamlet of My Lai. In a four wave attack, US soldiers sexually abused, tortured, maimed, mutilated and comprehensively massacred approx 500 civilian men, women and children. Anything that moved, was taken as target practice and shot down. Ultimately the bloodbath was stopped through the efforts of three soldiers who saw the massacre from their helicopter. One of the soldiers involved committed suicide on the anniversary of the massacre, haunted by his actions on that day. Only one of the soldiers involved in the incident was found guilty, the rest being let off as being "under orders"- the very defense used by Nazis at the Nuremberg trials. Need more be said?

Qissa Khwani bazaar massacre 1930
Unlike the Jalianwala Bagh, this is a forgotten incident in Indian History, when British soldiers in Peshawar fired continuously for 6 hours on a non-violent meeting of Khudai Khidmatgar following Pushtus, leaving a death toll of 400 approx. The firing continued even after the the Pushtu leaders requested permission to disperse with their wounded and their dead. The Royal Garwhal Rifle-known for its bravery was arrested and punished to the last man for refusing to take part in this atrocity. Even after the incident, the British tried to bribe the judge of the commission investigating the massacre with a KBC. Today, this misaal of non-violence by the Pushtus has been buried with time.

Fear In Delhi

Every time some new crime against women (I am beg to hate that phrase) occurs, all the (jobless) news channels (think INDIA TV-who definitely need to do something about their programming, AAJTAK-another channel gone down the drain) start doing the whole commentary on how indian women feel unsafe in certain cities, at certain times, in certain areas and with certain people. The only thing left to be done seems to be starting a list of all people who women should run screaming from(try any guy in UP/Bihar/Delhi and u have begun your list well). But what no one tries to understand is what is the fear we have to face.

Imagine u have a lakh rupees in cash [imagine the currency of your choice here :)] in your pocket and now imagine that its 0200 hrs and u are walking through the scariest areas of your town- try chandni chowk or paharganj in delhi or dharavi in mumbai. Every single sound has a meaning now. That is what it is what it feels like for most women in India today. The constant checking and rechecking of to make sure there are other women around you, that too many men are not looking at you, that you are not being looked at by too many men, that you are not smiling in general, that head in either bent to face the ground or looking vaguely into the horizon. There is no one trying to make eye contact with you, no one behind you, no one in front of you, no one following your car for the last half an hour, no person you have seen twice in two diff places in the same day. Sounds like a pretty weird scenario from some B grade WWII movie? This is the fear women face daily. This is what it means to be a woman in India today.

Now this is called timepass..

there is a book in my head
trying to come out

the phrases are twirling
the words are wrestling
the scenes are set
and they are dying to be wrought

there is a book in my head
trying to come out

skipping, jumping
running screaming
shoving pushing
bouncing squealing

there is a book in my head
trying to come out..

ok so i know this is no e e cummings (i mean i can actually already hear sid n pookie laughing) but seriously what do u expect at 3 in the morn??????

Way of life..

I have been granted a second chance at freedom and it’s made me realize what I had been missing. Life has a way of making you fall in line, somewhat as if you are walking on an interminable marathon, and soon you reach that level where you are just walking, one foot at a time, without any interest about where your going anymore. You take turns on the road you don’t even realize were there and somehow you reach a cross roads and then it strikes you. You are in a strange land where nothing likes familiar and you have no more knowledge or energy left to find your way back. I am happy that here I have been stopped and made to take a look.

But am yet to understand what to do with this freedom I have been granted. The prophets had it easy, for their paths were laid out for them and who will question the will of God? But mere mortals must prod on, finding the way by guesswork and luck. I do not see my path yet and I fear that on these crossroads, all roads lead nowhere I want to go.

Mumbai: wish it would stay lost

Once upon a time, a young Tona believed that bby people followed traffic rules...

I am begginning to believe that this is one of those fantasies parents never want to disillusion their kids abt..like bhanumati ka pitara and the eternal gazillion women who have died mysteriously and haunt every separate kilometre of India, the fantasy that traffic in mumbai is traffic and not a horde of stampeding cars, autos, buses and what not. It seems bby-ites have singly handedly decided to shoulder the burden of proving to the world that we cannot follow even basic travel rules. Cars will park were free left turns exist, at the traffic signal people are desperate to pass time by creating honk symphonies, and if possible pedestrians wil cross the road only on seeing a vehicle coming from the other side, i presume so they can feel "the wild side".
I never really caught on to the concept of road rage, but when u see that mammoth of an SUV with one single loser sitting there on ur free turn, u r tempted to get down, put ur hands around his neck and shake him till his head falls off on its own. My dreams now feature primarily bus drivers am planning to gun down, though not before giving a lecture on the ills of driving like maniacs. It is sometimes to me a surprise that so many peo continue to exist in this city, for surely this should have decimated the population by now.

As you must have made out by now, I am developing a burgeoning hatred for Mumbai, with every extra second am stuck here. Sometimes it seems its a city of terrorists. But then, i think India is slowly turning into a country of terrorists, with everyone holding someone hostage over supposed slight or harm to them, their relegion, community, language, work...its as if the true uselessness of our lives can only be defined by making others feel even more useless. U cannot have a thought anymore which doesnt seem to hurt someone's sentiments. What an extraordinarily sensitive set of people we r!!!I sure as hell hope the MNS wil not find this soon, or i will be in court day after, for harming their sentiments!But it is the saddest thing today that we have allowed ourselves to become hostage to everyone's opinion. I just hope this will not continue till one day we become a nation unable to think at all, only follow.

I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.

Paul McCartney

Not very original random thoughts..

i have wondered how does one know one is in love?by what certainty do u know that this feeling is one to last, that the happiness u get from someone's company will not be transmuted to irritation or worse indifference with time?? does everyone feel sad when it goes wrong? how do u recognise it for love that it is n not some other feeling? what if all the heartburn, the sorrow u fell will only make u laugh at how stupid u were then, softly giggling away when u think abt them alone in the night? or will u feel slightly hurt n lost everytime u think of what was not? does everyone feel slightly embarrassed abt this feeling? do u second judge urself when u think abt someone n the way he makes u feel? do u feel ashamed for ur ill thoughts for everyone moment he is not with u? do u see everything he says n does with a different eye, constantly reading a new meaning n spending hours working out what it means? do u laugh too when u hear songs which seem aimed at this weird emotion u r feeling? do u also feel like crying at times, just going n sitting somewhere quiet to cry because it seems it will never work out n u cannot imagine what will u do, though u know that u will survive this too, only it seems that everything will be slow n painful after this, for nothing will ever attain the perfection this promised, that is lost now..that all that will be ur future will sad n insipid, spent in remembrance of this loss..i wonder too..when will it be over??

Notice to all concerned

Dear whoever is remotely interested:

the nature of this blog stands changed. This should not be taken to mean that I'll begin paying any attention to what others' think about the blog, it only means that it is going to expand its horizons now. I intend to use this as a travelogue of my weekend trips around europe and (hopefully) beyond. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this.

Main Characters:

Tanaya
Ahim
Swapan
Alkesh

Secondary Characters:

Rajat (may shift to primary if shows enthusiasm)
All u losers out there who r NOT doing this!!!! :P

Au revoir!!

musings:as a title SO cliche

The one thing I have always wanted to do in my life is write. And I don’t mean just writing writing but writing well. Unfortunately I have not been very successful at it. Every time I see something interesting I want to write about it. But I somehow never sit down then and there and by the time I do, all the words, the phraseology I have thought and practiced in my mind earlier has flown out, leaving rather trite sounding phrases. This is possibly the first time in my entire life I have actually forced myself to sit down and write right then what I thought out. I did keep a diary once but ended up using it mostly for self piteous tales of suffering and sorrow that I was facing, which is why the experiment shut down in about two months. The thing about writing is what you write sounds brilliant to you but could well be the most clichéd crap ever written and how to make out the difference? I sometimes think that maybe I do have it in me to be a good writer, and frankly, if I could write really good MBs too I wouldn’t be that embarrassed (a bit though). But that feeling really doesn’t last. I wish there was some way you could be sure that what you were doing was good and right and had a point, and very hollywoodly, made a difference.
When I watch some really nice movie or read a really nice book or see something interesting, I feel something that I want to put down somewhere for permanence and show it around, am not sure why. I have this huge urge to talk to everyone about what I thought then, what came into my mind. But that feeling never lasts that long. 10 minutes, half an hour down the lane, I have lost that feeling. And am scared that it is because some part of me that can feel has in some way been hurt that I can no longer feel anything unless am actually going through it right then. And what am most afraid of is that it is because of what I have done to myself or what choices I have made that this part of me had died and now there is no going back. And so I keep forcing myself to be intense about things, to pretend that I feel more than I actually do or should, incase I can use that to go back to a time when I hadn’t lost that part and maybe someday I could feel again and be able to make people understand what I feel and write well.
I earlier use to think it was lack of experience, that once I learnt more, saw more I could do better at everything. But I think one of the real reasons that I still can’t write well is that I am not writing for myself yet. Half my reason is to be read and praised by others. I don’t just want to write well, I want people to think I write well and appreciate it and frankly, I want the jing bang of fame and fortune which some extraordinarily dumb people are getting nowadays for churning out utter rot. My imagination soars high above the ground when I think of what I will do with the money and the fame and how gracious I would be, the oh so simple person at heart. Unfortunately it fails me when I want to write what will supposedly (hopefully?) lead me to this fate. Which is perhaps one more hint that I should stay away from writing till then.

past witching hour

I have always wondered why ur darkest thoughts come to u in the middle of the night. It can be the happiest day or the saddest, but come 0300hrs and suddenly all the demons u have been hiding from come out and taunt u with their presence. The what-ifs, what-nots, all felt and unfelt insults come out to lash u again, to remember what they felt like. All u can do is think of all u could have done better, faster...thats the time to hate the most. There is nothing in this world that can hurt as much as memory of things that u could have achieved but lost due to ur own stupidity. And not all the justifications in the world, to urself or others, can make u forget. Why is it like that- what is it abt this time that will not let u forget?