It was 4o clock in the morning. trrrrinnnnggggggggg........ the alarm started buzzing. He turned slowly from right side to left side. The whole turning process was so slow that the alarm got bored and slept off. So, why did our hero have to get up so early in the morning? Does he have a habit of jogging in the early morning? No. He has to study? No. The reason is simple, it takes him 2 hours to walk from bedroom to bathroom and he has to get ready by 9 o clock. So planning backwards, he set an alarm for 4 0 clock.
He started walking for the bath room some 20 feet away at 4 o clock, and sharp 6 o clock he was in the bathroom. After the daily rituals, he headed for a shave. He took out the gillette razor and applied gillette cream and started shaving, it took him 1 hour to complete the shave, not that he had a long beard, his last shave was 3 days ago, but the reason is that after a single successful stroke from the razor there will be some 20 unsuccessful ones. I.e. if he runs the razor against his beard 21 times he will be successful only 1 time and 20 times the razor won’t cut the beard. But our hero is a very patient guy, he waited for 1 long hour to complete the 5 strokes required for the clean shave, bathed and headed for the breakfast.
After the breakfast, which was 4 loaves of bread and 5 liters of jam, he headed to his living room where laid the keys of his favorite possession, a new sports car! And beside the keys was the user manual. He very proudly laid his hands on the keys and started going through the user manual. The sports car seemed like an elite monster. He read the tech specifications. Looking at the 2 door, 12 cylinders, 6000 cc, 533bhp engine which clocks 4.5 seconds for 0-100kmph with a top speed of 310kmph, he could not help but get amazed. Just by looking at the specifications he started rotating the key chain in his hand at 2000rpm, he thought how exciting it would be to ride the car.
He dressed up and got into the bright red monster. Put in the key and with a small rotation the engine roared as if there was a thunder, it was like a music for him. He pressed the clutch and shifted the gear from neutral to first, released the clutch and pressed the gas, the car started moving, it was more than 6 seconds and he was in 3rd gear the car was still moving at 15 kmph. He pressed the gas to abysmal and changed the gears fanatically, but for no use, the max speed the monster could ever reach was 20 kmph. He thought that he should wait; after all patience has been his virtue. He waited for half an hour and 10 km was all he could travel and when he saw a bullock car over taking him followed by a cycle rickshaw and 2 bicycles, he thought he had enough. He pulled the car to the shoulder of the road, stopped it and pressed the button that releases the bonnet door.
He opened the bonnet and started examining, with frustration, as if he were a car mechanic. After a preliminary examination he found a small letter, he opened it with all the frustration and irritation in the world, this is rare because, our hero never gets frustrated. The letter read:
"Dear Mr. Dravid, this is how we feel when you bat."
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Senti?
Nikhil recently returned from onsite. There was a sudden silence that struck the balcony where he and his room mates were smoking the much sought after Cuban cigars that Nikhil brought from the onsite. The question has been asked, the question that each of the roommate has been trying to avoid from the very moment Nikhil set his foot in his motherland, the question, whose answer might withdraw the answerer's heart from circulation. Their eyes squinted in an attempt to glance each other as a gesture to plea to take the initiative to break the news.
Kiran was the chosen one, he was always the spokesperson for anything that has to be declared or discussed in the room.
He started, "Late DOG (Damodaran Om Ganesan).........."
“Late??” snapped Nikhil. The word echoed deep into his ears. “DOG the blogger is dead?”
“As dead as the mouse of your PC” said Kiran with moist eyes. “You might want to hear to his story, it is pretty sad but very interesting. Do you remember? He was starting his hobby as a blogger when you started for the onsite. He started off well, he used to write nice blogs and used to post them on our bulletin board to which people seldom replied. And so he started making a big collection of those blogs, it was quite impressive. ”
“So what went wrong?” Nikhil beamed with astonishment.
“Ah! When he posted 47 posts straight without a single reply from the BB, he decided to add three more specimens to the wonderful collection, and when he posted the 48th post, all hell broke loose when our beloved BB members started replying to his posts” Kiran’s words echoed in the silence of the balcony.
“But what’s wrong with that?” said Nikhil, his naturally confused looks turned even more confused.
“There is the catch. DOG was under the impression that he was writing humorous articles, but the replies he got are more of sympathetic kind than anything else and this pissed him off. He was more happy with ‘no reply’ status of his posts than the ‘misinterpreted’ and then things went worse when he gone ahead with his 49th post and when one of the BB follower offered to meet him and gave him a jadoo ki jhappi for being able to write such a sentimental post and this has depressed DOG to the worst extent possible and he, then took the drastic decision of writing a poem. He wrote the poem jumbo zameen par. Poor DOG, I was with him when he read the first three stanzas of poem, I stopped him at the fourth stanza, little thinking that it was sympathy rather than congratulations that he needed. When I saw him after posting the poem on BB, he was looking haggard and only then did I realize that he got a record 100 replies to that poem and all are of sympathy. He was hurt as hell. ”
“But….” Nikhil was still confused.
“I know what you want to ask.” Kiran said sadly.
“I encouraged him to send the poem to a news paper, the clocks of India, which publishes poems. He did”
“Then?” said Nikhil
“Then! Then, he got a long envelope bearing the crest of ‘The clocks of India’ on the top. He opened the envelope with an infinite hope that the poem would be rejected. And when he opened, he started laughing hysterically and collapsed and expired immediately. You might have guessed what was there in the poem, a sympathy letter from the editor.”
Kiran was the chosen one, he was always the spokesperson for anything that has to be declared or discussed in the room.
He started, "Late DOG (Damodaran Om Ganesan).........."
“Late??” snapped Nikhil. The word echoed deep into his ears. “DOG the blogger is dead?”
“As dead as the mouse of your PC” said Kiran with moist eyes. “You might want to hear to his story, it is pretty sad but very interesting. Do you remember? He was starting his hobby as a blogger when you started for the onsite. He started off well, he used to write nice blogs and used to post them on our bulletin board to which people seldom replied. And so he started making a big collection of those blogs, it was quite impressive. ”
“So what went wrong?” Nikhil beamed with astonishment.
“Ah! When he posted 47 posts straight without a single reply from the BB, he decided to add three more specimens to the wonderful collection, and when he posted the 48th post, all hell broke loose when our beloved BB members started replying to his posts” Kiran’s words echoed in the silence of the balcony.
“But what’s wrong with that?” said Nikhil, his naturally confused looks turned even more confused.
“There is the catch. DOG was under the impression that he was writing humorous articles, but the replies he got are more of sympathetic kind than anything else and this pissed him off. He was more happy with ‘no reply’ status of his posts than the ‘misinterpreted’ and then things went worse when he gone ahead with his 49th post and when one of the BB follower offered to meet him and gave him a jadoo ki jhappi for being able to write such a sentimental post and this has depressed DOG to the worst extent possible and he, then took the drastic decision of writing a poem. He wrote the poem jumbo zameen par. Poor DOG, I was with him when he read the first three stanzas of poem, I stopped him at the fourth stanza, little thinking that it was sympathy rather than congratulations that he needed. When I saw him after posting the poem on BB, he was looking haggard and only then did I realize that he got a record 100 replies to that poem and all are of sympathy. He was hurt as hell. ”
“But….” Nikhil was still confused.
“I know what you want to ask.” Kiran said sadly.
“I encouraged him to send the poem to a news paper, the clocks of India, which publishes poems. He did”
“Then?” said Nikhil
“Then! Then, he got a long envelope bearing the crest of ‘The clocks of India’ on the top. He opened the envelope with an infinite hope that the poem would be rejected. And when he opened, he started laughing hysterically and collapsed and expired immediately. You might have guessed what was there in the poem, a sympathy letter from the editor.”
Monday, March 17, 2008
Should I get married?
Its raining marriages, of late I am hearing about marriages of people whom I know better, I mean my friends at school, college and even colleagues. So getting married has become the in thing or did it? Whatsoever, too many marriages around me have confused me and before going any further, let me again bore you with my trade mark flash back!!!
Back in my intermediate (also known as PUC or +1/+2 in other parts of world) I used to wonder what a crazy affair marriage was (which I still do) and why people opt to get married. I was particularly amazed by a distant relative of mine, who happened to come back from US for a short break and created ripples by declaring an ultimatum with his parents that he shall be married immediately under any circumstances and the poor parents did manage to find a girl and get him married in the short span of one month.
What I could not comprehend from his urge to marry was the necessity. Why on earth a person who is in US who can live a luxurious life, is opting to ruining it by getting married? It took 9 years for me to realise the answer. That's because on the 10th day of fifth month of this year, yours truly would turn 25 and this I guess is having sobering effect on me. Almost all the children now call me "uncle" and I have now become less arrogant and more compassionate and as my friend wrote in his blog, Twenty of me and you have the Mughal Empire. Forty of me and you have the Christian Dark Ages - full with plagues and little ice ages and everything. Sixty of me, you have Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) fighting his wars. Eighty of me, and you have Jesus Christ - allegedly perishing for the sins of one and all. Hundred of me and you have the glorious kingdoms of ancient India and China. You have Buddha sitting under a tree in what is now Laloo-land. You have Asterix and Obelix plundering the Romans. You have Aristotle and Plato committing blunders. You have Pythagoras talking about hypotenuses. Two Hundred of me and you have the Egyptians and Chinese starting out and the Indians (some contend) on song.
Whatsoever, 25 years of life tamed me from an arrogant and aggressive young lad to thoughtful(?) and rational uncle! And how did this happen? And why am I thinking of marriage now? Why did the sense of ridicule and mockery towards that distant relative of mine has now changed to empathy and compassion? The answers to this question lies in my journey from a PUC student to an employee in an IT firm, from a protected child living with parents to a self sufficient adult living alone.
When I was 15, girls did not make sense to me(strange but true). Almost every female who tried to talk to me has been mocked upon. And I did enjoy the repulsive status I had then, but as time passed by I realised that all the cool guys are hanging out with girls and the guys in my group are envying them, only then did the flirt in me was born.
Girls enjoyed exclusivity, and when I tried to charm a particular girl in the group while mocking others, it is a great sense of accomplishment for her and more often than not I enjoyed success. But the basic bitter gaurd in me never died and my sense of humour and arrogance never went down well with the girls and after a few affairs, I evolved into regression and ended where I started. And the result, though my sexual orientation is straight, I am well off with guys and mostly my companions in the quintessential tasks of a SE(software engineer) like raiding the malls or pubs or multiplexes have been my room mates(males) or my colleagues (males again).
Now there is a sub prime crisis of sorts in my life, almost all the friends of mine whom I used to hang out with are married/engaged now and hence are not available during weekends with pretty quirky reasons (males are pretty bad at lying) to avoid our impeccable weekend schedule of raiding malls and pubs. More and more weekends are passed with in the four walls of my boring room. My age does not allow me to go behind a girl or at least it did not so happen that I found such girl that I can circumvent my own rules. So, in one of those inactivity filled weekends, I was generous enough to think about the distant relative of mine, and became even more generous and changed my feelings towards him, from scorn and ridicule to empathy and compassion.
However, things are not yet ripe for me to give an ultimatum to my parents to get me married. Though marriage comes with a few advantages like assured company to hear your brain rotting jokes and a fresh perspective to the weekends, I am not too sure with the risks involved. So, considering the fact that I had given upon the concept called girl friend, should I be getting married?
Back in my intermediate (also known as PUC or +1/+2 in other parts of world) I used to wonder what a crazy affair marriage was (which I still do) and why people opt to get married. I was particularly amazed by a distant relative of mine, who happened to come back from US for a short break and created ripples by declaring an ultimatum with his parents that he shall be married immediately under any circumstances and the poor parents did manage to find a girl and get him married in the short span of one month.
What I could not comprehend from his urge to marry was the necessity. Why on earth a person who is in US who can live a luxurious life, is opting to ruining it by getting married? It took 9 years for me to realise the answer. That's because on the 10th day of fifth month of this year, yours truly would turn 25 and this I guess is having sobering effect on me. Almost all the children now call me "uncle" and I have now become less arrogant and more compassionate and as my friend wrote in his blog, Twenty of me and you have the Mughal Empire. Forty of me and you have the Christian Dark Ages - full with plagues and little ice ages and everything. Sixty of me, you have Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) fighting his wars. Eighty of me, and you have Jesus Christ - allegedly perishing for the sins of one and all. Hundred of me and you have the glorious kingdoms of ancient India and China. You have Buddha sitting under a tree in what is now Laloo-land. You have Asterix and Obelix plundering the Romans. You have Aristotle and Plato committing blunders. You have Pythagoras talking about hypotenuses. Two Hundred of me and you have the Egyptians and Chinese starting out and the Indians (some contend) on song.
Whatsoever, 25 years of life tamed me from an arrogant and aggressive young lad to thoughtful(?) and rational uncle! And how did this happen? And why am I thinking of marriage now? Why did the sense of ridicule and mockery towards that distant relative of mine has now changed to empathy and compassion? The answers to this question lies in my journey from a PUC student to an employee in an IT firm, from a protected child living with parents to a self sufficient adult living alone.
When I was 15, girls did not make sense to me(strange but true). Almost every female who tried to talk to me has been mocked upon. And I did enjoy the repulsive status I had then, but as time passed by I realised that all the cool guys are hanging out with girls and the guys in my group are envying them, only then did the flirt in me was born.
Girls enjoyed exclusivity, and when I tried to charm a particular girl in the group while mocking others, it is a great sense of accomplishment for her and more often than not I enjoyed success. But the basic bitter gaurd in me never died and my sense of humour and arrogance never went down well with the girls and after a few affairs, I evolved into regression and ended where I started. And the result, though my sexual orientation is straight, I am well off with guys and mostly my companions in the quintessential tasks of a SE(software engineer) like raiding the malls or pubs or multiplexes have been my room mates(males) or my colleagues (males again).
Now there is a sub prime crisis of sorts in my life, almost all the friends of mine whom I used to hang out with are married/engaged now and hence are not available during weekends with pretty quirky reasons (males are pretty bad at lying) to avoid our impeccable weekend schedule of raiding malls and pubs. More and more weekends are passed with in the four walls of my boring room. My age does not allow me to go behind a girl or at least it did not so happen that I found such girl that I can circumvent my own rules. So, in one of those inactivity filled weekends, I was generous enough to think about the distant relative of mine, and became even more generous and changed my feelings towards him, from scorn and ridicule to empathy and compassion.
However, things are not yet ripe for me to give an ultimatum to my parents to get me married. Though marriage comes with a few advantages like assured company to hear your brain rotting jokes and a fresh perspective to the weekends, I am not too sure with the risks involved. So, considering the fact that I had given upon the concept called girl friend, should I be getting married?
The above picture shows the rate at which I was writing blogs, not that I have a certain target to meet, but just an observation on how my rate of writing has increased from zero in September 2007 to 8 in the month of December 2007. This, however, has seen a new high of 13 in January 2008 and fell down to 1 post in March. I do not follow stock markets, nor do I want to attribute this rate to them. But, as I see, it took 6 months time to post 19 blogs in 2007, where as I posted 22 in just 3 months! I migth have to wait till the end of the year to see if this increase in rate is consistent, else I will try and find out the reason behind the anamoly for the month of January.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The sleeping beauty.........
With skies so dark, with many a cloud,
and birds singing happily aloud;
the morning was perfectly romantic,
with each wave of breeze inspiring your soul
the artist in you would create a classic
and flowers looking at you with smiles so cool
even the most depressed soul says, wow! fantastic.
He chose to be in the park in this weather
he called her too, of course he needs a partner.
He waited on the bench in a corner,
as she grew prettier
with make-up, after each passing hour.
Finally, she arrived, the ducky
he looked at her and said, Ah! I am so lucky
her eyes made diamonds jealous with their sparkle
and her hair reminded the darkness of jungle
with each step teaching lessons to grace
she headed towards him for a tight embrace
he took her in his arms, and looked in her eyes
and when he did that, he knew he found his solace.
With weather so great and mood so sweet
they went around the park for a tête-à-tête
When they are done with the walk
and when there was nothing to talk
she was tired, she laid her head on his shoulder
I wanna sleep, will you sing me a lullaby? she wondered
He knew what to do, he sat down on the floor
and wanted to make her sleep until she snore.
He started to sing, with his voice so sweet
it was heaven for her and she felt so great.
As she was sleeping, he requested the clouds not to thunder
but just to pass away and make her wonder.
He asked the cuckoo to sing along with him
as he wanted to fulfil his darling's whim
He was then happy to find her asleep in his lap
only to find the angry eyes of a cop
The cop threw the lathi and blew the whistle
and they both started running to avoid the tussle.
and birds singing happily aloud;
the morning was perfectly romantic,
with each wave of breeze inspiring your soul
the artist in you would create a classic
and flowers looking at you with smiles so cool
even the most depressed soul says, wow! fantastic.
He chose to be in the park in this weather
he called her too, of course he needs a partner.
He waited on the bench in a corner,
as she grew prettier
with make-up, after each passing hour.
Finally, she arrived, the ducky
he looked at her and said, Ah! I am so lucky
her eyes made diamonds jealous with their sparkle
and her hair reminded the darkness of jungle
with each step teaching lessons to grace
she headed towards him for a tight embrace
he took her in his arms, and looked in her eyes
and when he did that, he knew he found his solace.
With weather so great and mood so sweet
they went around the park for a tête-à-tête
When they are done with the walk
and when there was nothing to talk
she was tired, she laid her head on his shoulder
I wanna sleep, will you sing me a lullaby? she wondered
He knew what to do, he sat down on the floor
and wanted to make her sleep until she snore.
He started to sing, with his voice so sweet
it was heaven for her and she felt so great.
As she was sleeping, he requested the clouds not to thunder
but just to pass away and make her wonder.
He asked the cuckoo to sing along with him
as he wanted to fulfil his darling's whim
He was then happy to find her asleep in his lap
only to find the angry eyes of a cop
The cop threw the lathi and blew the whistle
and they both started running to avoid the tussle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
