Excursions

Another introduction where I am involved, as in I listen, happened today. These introductions haunt me, always. Names are exchanged and so is the purpose for visit and some pleasantries. We talk, we laugh, we share. Then the meeting, or the visit, ends. Everything is well and good. That is until we meet the next time. The other person smiles, starts talking. And all I am thinking, of course with a smile on my face, is what the bloody hell is your name again!? As it turns out, the last time we met, it was the name part that I conveniently side-stepped while registering the introduction in memory.

And this occurs with me way too often. Initial interaction happens with the introduction, then I forget the name. At first I just don’t take the trouble to know the name thinking may be we just won’t meet that often after all.  But the interaction continues. It increases often; we meet more. We talk more. We become acquaintances. We are on the verge of becoming friends. And all I am still thinking of is how the hell should I get this person mouth his name again. Asking for name is absolutely not an option now because I am already in a friend or a known person zone. The bridge has been crossed. So all I do is wait for him or some one else speak the said person’s name.

And I do realize this is a very assholistic behavior on my part. So this time I decide this behavior of mine has to end. And I query the web. You know what, this is way too common a phenomenon. So common that there are zillions of “n ways to remember names” self-helf articles across the web. Ways suggested stretch from plain childish to utter foolish.

For example, break the name into parts and remember the parts. Yeah.. a fool-proof way. Only if I could remember to break the name first and remember the parts next. Or associate the name with something. So if you are Ramesh, I will remember you as mesh. What bull crap. How awkward would it be to think of the made association every time you meet, say Vikas or Hardik. Nope. Not gonna work. Or make the name dance in front of eyes. Or what not. Complete non-sense.

Only thing that made sense to me was to speak the name out aloud. More times, the better. Well that is one thing I can do. That is one thing I am going to do rather. So next time you meet me and introduce yourself, please bear with me if I go on chanting your name in every statement that follows. And so will I if I see you doing the same.

Inferno by Dan Brown Going in to the chapter 1 of Inferno, I didn’t have too high expectations. I was looking for a breezy page-turner with some anecdotes on sculptures, people, places intermingled with the story. However I was disappointed to see Dan Brown fail to deliver even that.

Anecdotes are way too many and completely irrelevant to the story. Many a times, the novel reads as Brown’s travelogue of places during his research, just there to increase the page count. I remember ignoring many paragraphs describing some sculpture or a building or a painting. Uninteresting. Plain boring. Do research Mr. Brown; just don’t force everything into a novel.

And there are so many discernible and ludicrous attempts at being relevant to the current tech-aware audience. All the references to iPads, iPhones, ebooks etc. fall flat, cringeworthy.

Finally to the story, what is expected is a mystery to be solved by Professor Langdon through the clues sprinkled in historic symbols. I feel the novel fails there too. Codes and clues are way too simple, straight-forward. Many don’t even lead something significant; they are just there to bring Langdon in picture. Inferno could well have been a sci-fi mystery novel instead of a Robert Langdon one. Disappointed.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Here’s a word cloud of my posts created in 2008 – I had been writing for around 2 years then. I find it funny that even then I wrote the most about “blog”. Meta commentary never goes out of fashion.

Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First two chapters down and I knew am in for an epic saga. The book had me right from the stories of the two protagonists being christened.

This was one of the finest examples of how the characters are built. Every single one, even the supporting ones, was well shaped. With that done in the backdrop of the historical events, they felt real. To see how each one of the events impacted the characters had a smile on my face. I was emotionally with them in their rise to success, rooting for one at times, while the other at others. Their stories might feel cliched, but I felt them. And then they met, right around the middle.

I felt the second half was a bit weak. The events became forced every time the characters had to meet. Kane and Abel, as individuals, had me intrigued. But Kane and Abel together? Not much. The rivalry felt contrived, childish. Agreed, I was interested to know what unfolded next. But it played out just the way I predicted. Interested, and then disappointed not to be proved wrong.

And I have to mention that the romantic parts were the weakest. Such lifeless, boring mentions of jumbled adult words. There for just no reason. Good they didn’t last long, I cringed every time.

Having said all, I did enjoy the novel, an entertaining read. It had me interested in Kane and Abel till the end. And that’s where it succeeded.

View all my reviews

Some years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift. The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted.

Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags.

So the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.

There is some great theory there. Man I love human tendency to fool oneself into not hating something.

Make us fools, but we hate waiting.

Inside Google’s secretive X laboratory, known for inventing self-driving cars and augmented reality glasses, a small group of researchers began working several years ago on a simulation of the human brain.

There Google scientists created one of the largest neural networks for machine learning by connecting 16,000 computer processors, which they turned loose on the Internet to learn on its own.

Credit where it is due, Google has to be lauded for encouraging the open research on topics so varied. There is so much potential with computing power and data at Google.

At cost of being cynical (a bit), I felt this would be so so useful (?) to Google with all the data that it has with it. And equally frightening to the users watching. Obviously Google is looking at that, no? And then I read this.

Google scientists said that the research project had now moved out of the Google X laboratory and was being pursued in the division that houses the company’s search business and related services. Potential applications include improvements to image search, speech recognition and machine language translation

And bingo!

On a side note, NYT had to ruin it by changing the headline to “How many computers to identify a cat? 16000”. Underplays the success that this is.

Evidence of Machine Learning scratched at Google X Laboratory

… I won’t be surprised if BJP tags this loss as the failure of UPA government. Someone, mostly Gadkari, might go so far to claim that there is a big conspiracy behind the loss. UPA planned and executed the loss just to divert “aam aadmi’s” attention away from the zillions of unearthing scams.

UPA on the other hand will appoint a committee to look into the loss and give out the steps to be followed, “Committee will come up with the report which will go to PAC that will come to parliament where it will be discussed over and, if any irregularities found, will be open for discussion on action to be taken, followed by the actual action to be taken, given it is decided that another committee need not be formed to investigate the report submitted by the first committee.”

Diggy Singh would suddenly wake up and blurt out “Right-wing Hindu organisation RSS has to be behind this. I have evidence and can prove if I am asked to.” No one will ask him to stop spreading his bloody verbal  dysentery and he will happily go back to sleep.

Manish Tiwari, if asked for comment or if isn’t either, will go on and on with his heavy words artillery and pose another hundred questions at the end of which the initial question will remain unanswered.

Well cricket fans will burn few effigies and wait for the next tour/series/gully challenge trophy where India will play again as favorites.

BCCI will plan another tour (2 tests, 3 ODIs, 2 T20s) against Zimbabwe accepting their offer to pay the money won through win against Bangladesh in return.

New breed cricketers will continue their wait for IPL and play the international matches as practice sessions for IPL.

And Manmohan Singh? “Lammmbiiii khaaamoooshhiiii”.

We, the people of India; the divided people of India.

We are divided by states. We are divided by religion. We are divided by language. We are divided by accent. We are divided by names. We are divided by color.

We are divided by views we hold. We are divided by acts we preach.

We are divided by who we follow. We are divided by who we don’t.

We are divided by what we own. We are divided by what we don’t.

We are divided even by one’s own identity.

So divided we are. We, the people of India. Yes, we are the nation of a billion divided identities.

Least we can do to make ourselves feel better is name this nation “United States of India”. “United” we would be then, at least by name.

Another day, when things did not go as planned. Things worked out well, almost, but did not go to plan. Nothing happened as I thought it should, but I did not complain because it did not affect me negatively. I consoled my mind “all is well”.

Though it did not end the way it should have. I knew something needs to change. And the change is brought. Vague, but truth. Isn’t that how the truth is most often?

Interesting read this about an experiment involving Joshua Bell. You feel for him when we says this:

With “Chaconne,” the opening is filled with a building sense of awe. That kept him busy for a while. Eventually, though, he began to steal a sidelong glance.

“It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah …”

The word doesn’t come easily.

“… ignoring me.”

What is even more puzzling though is this thought from Mark Leithauser.

"Let’s say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It’s a $5 million painting. And it’s one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: ‘Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.’"

So life-less we have become. Or were we always like this?

If a great musician plays great music but no one hears, was he really any good?

Change is important. Change is inevitable. But if not, it has to be forced. Change is one thing I plan to undergo every time there is nothing happening around.

Change the way I commute to office. Change the route I use. Change the time I travel. Change the schedule at office. Change the schedule at home. Change the services I use. Change the products I use. I.e. Change everything that’s changeable.

Change something. Change at least one thing. Because that cascades down one’s life to change everything. And this change is important. It freshens one up. It pushes one out of his comfort zone. Rather it just doesn’t allow him to enter a comfort zone; a zone of mechanical activeness.

It was second incident in last 2 weeks when I had to select a mobile number for myself. Now this activity may sound simple and non-important. But I always find it an extremely confusing experience.

Think about it. In front of you are the numbers “available” for you to select as your contact number. Now first thing you have to make sure is the number should be at least easy enough to remember yourself so you do not have to open your contact list every time someone asks for your number.

Now I always find one which is easy enough to remember myself. But it so happens that the way I say the number is always different from how the person who listens to it utters.

To elaborate, I speak the number this way 4 2345 85 15. (Spaces are the pauses I take.) So simple right. Now this is how the other person repeats it 423 458 515. I am like what the hell. It takes me few seconds to realise both of them are the same.

So the aim is to, if possible, select a number which is easy to remember/recognise, whatever way one utters it. And I very rarely find one.

That’s not all. Lets move back to the initial situation. As I said, in front of you are the numbers “available” for you to select. Available. For you. Only these numbers.

So basically these are the numbers which no one, who has selected his contact number earlier, found easy enough to remember. And I have to select one from them. I could, till date, never prevent this thought from entering my mind.

In the end, I always end up selecting some number which neither I, nor someone else could fathom at the same time.

PS: Just received a compliment of my number being awesomely simple. So mission accomplished the second time.

There is one concept in this confusing world which I absolutely hate. Something called “Timezone”. Who, in their right mind, will decide that from today onwards, we will attach a 3 or 4 letter combination at the end of time and make it a hell of an experience to understand what time it exactly is.

Think about it. How simple would the life have been if the time was same for everyone, 2am is 2am. Irrespective of whether you are in USA or Germany or Australia or India. But no, some smarty pants didn’t like it simple. And in came the senseless words like PST and EST and AEST and IST and what not.

They did not stop at that. They brought something else called “Daylight Saving Time”. I mean haven’t you made the concept ‘time’ itself enough confusing sucker that now you add another two heavy words before that?

Look at what it does in Australia. Daylight savings is put in place so that afternoons are brightest and mornings are lesser. They move the time further by an hour. So 5pm AEST is now 6pm AEST. I still can’t accept that there was no sensible guy present who crawled at them shouting dudes you are screwing the evenings.

Now it does not get dark till 8pm. Yeah bugger 8pm is the time when you can say it is evening. And as a nice middle class Indian kid I am taught to sleep at 10:00pm. So basically I sleep when the evening has just dawned. Screw you Mr. Daylight Saver.

Moreover I never understand why the eff was this philosophy put in place at the first place. Not like it is saving hell lot of light or something. Irrespective of this daylight saving, light will remain the same between dawn and dusk. Why add 1 hour rather than simply calling it a day when there is light, not when it is 5am.

Now to the outcome of all these twisted minds. Today when some dumbo mentions just some random time, say 2pm, you have to first query is it his time or yours? Lucky you if he is not a dumbo and says yours. But as I have called him a dumbo, he has to say it is his 2pm.

So you have to first think what country he is at. Then think what season/month it is at that place. Then think if it is sunny enough there for introducing daylight savings? Then if it is, find out how many hours you need to add to make sure you know when you need to call him exactly. Thank you, you SOAB.

Now don’t be too smart yourself and bring in technologies like google and world clocks and all. Thats not the point.

The point is wouldn’t the world be a little less messy and irritating a place to spend lifetime of yours at, had you not have to worry about as simple a question as “what time is it”?

PS: I believe there was a reason for bringing all these concepts through. But I also believe there has to be a simpler solution to this worldly problem. I have few thoughts but need to put them in place. Topic for another post soon.

Yesterday there was a buzz going along in my office. My colleague asked me if I would be interested in parting away $2 of mine to embrace a chance to win 15million. (Yeah you heard it right, that is the amount I was told. million as in 7 .. arrr 6 zeros.)

Now I am not those champu “1$ bole to (translation ‘equals’) 40 rupaya” kind of guy. But the confidence with which this $2 ke 15 million deal was sold to me made me enquire further. It turns out, my “hard earned” money was betted on a lottery ticket.

The concept is simple she said. Join a bunch of 10-15 guys and buy a lottery ticket together. One guy gets lucky, everyone gets benefited. Playing safe and sensible she called it.

Now I am no economist, but one thing I can tell you for sure is this “deal” is not going to work in long run. All it would take is one moderate win to break the group. Lucky guy will part, because he will think he could have won this money by himself. And group will shrink with each and every win.

Plus what amazes me is how much lucky a lucky guy would have to be to overcome lucklessness of 9-14 other unlucky suckers!

I always feel that an equilibrium can be attained to make sure that a person will never run bankrupt by any sensible spending; investment is the key. I aim to attain this equilibrium, which my current spending habits are making extremely difficult to.

I am sure these $2 spent today are as much an expenditure as they are an investment. Atleast as of today.

Cake was being cut. Everybody stood around the “oh-am-one-more-year-old” guy and all of them were like “cmon-cut-that-cake-now-you-moron”. I stood there hoping that the cursed words do not leave some jackass’ mouth. And they did, against my wish..

“Happy B’day to you… happy b’day to you..<blah blah.. blah blah..>”

Now 80% percent did hum along the first “Happy B’day to you”. The number, however, dropped exponentially after that. The last “Happy B’day to you” was wished just by a single dumbo. Big time embarrassment I tell you.

See I am not being cynical here. I am equally happy that this person neared his death by one more year. But the problem is no one sings that song with the feelings it was actually meant to have. Plus the guy for whom the song is being sung is equally embarrassed as those who sing that song. So question arises why sing it at all.

Moreover I always felt whoever sung that song for the first time had something anti-asian boiling in his mind. Why the hell will he compose the third line the way he did then?

Confused? Well you haven’t sung, on top of your voice, “Happy b’day dear Harmoninderpal or Au or Venkataramana” then. I have and let me tell you, it is very effort taking. Need an indication of how effort taking and difficult it is? Well try and make Nisha Kothari act.

So the point am trying to make is stop singing this song. The melody was picked up from some song sung by two kindergarten school teachers in some late 1800’s and it does not suit this age now. Go read details here. Stop being moronic and make all the people involved, cake cutters and cake eaters, embarrassed. Birthday celebrations would be lesser pathetic this way.

PS: This song singing always reminds of the way we used to hum the “maine pyar tumhise kiya hain..” song during antakshari sessions in front of the girls, which were the ‘things’ we used to interact with just during such sessions back then. Embarrassing, way embarrassing!

PPS: The key to the “since 1912” part in title is in that link I shared for this moronic song’s history. Go grab a bite.

Since I arrived in Sydney, this question has been discussed and fought and betted over so many times among we friends. I mean the moment a clearcut-non-firangi girl is spotted, the next question that pops out is “Is she Indian?”.

The reason is simple. Everyone wants to be on top of his face reading skills. ‘I see them and I identify them’ is what most would want to boast about. No specific take away expected, just a self-satisfaction. And anyone and everyone is ready to bet a coffee or a lunch or a dinner for proving his reign over the so-called skill.

Now gone are the days when it was assumed that if someone bets, he must be right. So no one agrees with other, rather he too bets along. Thus these bets always end up being unverified “my-word-to-his” bets.

But that no way reduces the fun in such bets. The theories each side has to defend his view are just innovative, patentable always. Every single aspect, the way she talks, walks, stands, puts on makeup or does hair, is used as basis. You see basics have to be strong every time.

However today was different. Another such case was spotted and a bet initiated. This time however both were determined to prove he is right. And decided they will go enquire and sort this out once and for all.

Now imagine a situation, when a couple of guys with a bearded attire, resembling a “just-woke-up-hungry-ready-to-pounce” looks, walk to a simple unknown girl and query “Are you Indian?”. Both have the “I-would-win” hope filled looks in their eyes.

What can a girl respond in such situation other than a straight “no”. I guess she would negate anything these guys say or ask including “Are you a girl?”. Well that didn’t solve the bet. In came the defence, “The way she said no straight away? She has to be Indian”.

So for me the bet remained unresolved though I commended their courage to carry this attire with such confidence in front of an unknown unidentified girl. The question still remained, “Is she Indian?”

PS: Girls from china, japan, taiwan, malaysia etc are out of discussion here. I don’t want to sound any way racist, but I will just say we all name them under one category and move along. They would be having there own internal discussion about their origins the moment they spot one.

PPS: Such discussions happen even in India when the skill move to a state level, i,e read a face and guess the state.

I haven’t had even a single sip of as non-alcoholic an alcoholic drink as beer. There I said it. I know many people, mostly drinkers, will pounce on me. I always felt I am not fulfilling the most important thing HE sent me on earth for. I did not care till now. I knew they must be calling me dumb for this non-habit of non-addiction. I called them dumb for calling me dumb. But now they can prove me that I actually am dumb.

Look at the following chart.

(src discovermagazine)

You see how those who drink are supposed to be smarter than those who don’t. Now I just don’t understand why everyone started rumoring around that drinking is not smart and made me this non-drinker. I hate you, you rule/best practice makers. You screwed my life. You always have.

PS: I still have no intention to drink. I am better called dumb than actually being one.

PPS: The link has far better statistics around drinking behavior, though most of them worthless as statistics always are.

The beasts called elevators end up pissing me off every single time. I had rambled about these dumb asses earlier here. Go grab a bite.

If you have read that post, you will know that the ramblings mentioned earlier were particularly about those ill-chipped lifts of that underdeveloped guest house. But now I am convinced these shameless creatures are programmed to torture their inmates.

I mean think about it. What are the decisions these lifeless steel rooms have to make.. (Inspiration)

• Where do the people want to go?



• Where they are and where each floor is?



• What strategy they need to make so that they are cursed the least?

First decision is pretty simple. We make that decision for you, you bugger. You see those glowing numbers on the number pads we keep on pressing one after other? Yeah that is where we want to go. As quick as possible.

Second decision has a whole lot of mechanics behind it. I mean there are some shafts and then there are some holes on some vertical tapes and then there is some counting involved. I would surely like to go in details, but I don’t want to. So I won’t. Visit that inspiration link you see above.

However the part that puzzles me the most is the strategy because that’s when these supposed-to-be angels stop being ones and enter the devil’s land. Now these buggers have to strategise where to go, when to go and how to go. And I absolutely feel that they are not wired to do so. I mean how else can you explain the simplest of the things these dudes screw up.

How many times have you waited for an elevator to scroll right from 50 meters below basement up to the 14th floor when his other buddy is resting right at the 15th floor? Do they have some gentlemen’s agreement where one simply says “Can’t you see sucker I have just finished carrying 6 fat asses up and down thrice between just 2 floors. I am tired now and you can for sure handle these dumbos”.

How many times have you jailed yourself in a jam packed elevator as it drools itself down the shaft stopping and opening at each floor. If you are outside, those seemingly endless few seconds you spend when you apply all your permutation skills to see if you can possibly fit in any of the available gaps inside before giving up are just killing.

There are many other plights of these long travels between floors. But you see the point is the where, when and how part has to be strategised properly.

I will pen down the requirements for you. An elevator, for minimum, has to

• follow quickest path to you and quickest path to where you desire to go.



• open only if it can intake any of the fat asses, close and start the journey as soon as everyone hops on.



• understand when some mischievous fatty calls it, but does not want to hop on.



• not kill my mobile signal.



• close the doors faster so people get less chance to stop the elevator and say the meaningless “S” word again.

These are just a few suggestions that can make this floor travel not a sucking experience after all.

PS: On an unrelated note, why the hell does every single elevator has to have mirrors? Who wrote this unwritten law first? It just gives me one more chance for not letting the elevator know where I want to go and follow a journey to a floor undesired with this lifeless but life sucking beast.

Prologue: I have been working on quite a lot of posts recently but could not finish them and bring them to any bloggable format. So finally decided I should repost some old post. Here goes one such post.

Yesterday i had quite a random dream. Random indeed it was. For the most part of it i was pretty happy about what i was experiencing. And suddenly i went blank. I would say the dream went blank. Making me befuddled. Completely perplexed. Full of queries, queries for myself to answer. But before i get into the dream itself, let me blabber my views on dreams in general.

Dreams are angels. Yes, they have the power to make you experience the bests and worsts of your life at the same time. Indeed we experience the dreams, not just see them. How else can you explain your turning, jumping, twisting, crawling, grawling in the sleep. We are experiencing the event, the dream. I myself have woken up thanking god for turning whatever i experienced into a dream. And then there are those times when i just put myself to sleep again, just to experience what remained incomplete, unexperienced.

Further, the dreams are mutable portkeys. I feel i change lives in dreams. Butterfly effect you can say. But there one can decide if he wants to change his life. Here i don’t. It all depends on my other self, the dreaming threaded me. If he wants me there, i go. Otherwise i just lay here, wake up and continue.

Details. Two threads, if dreaming together, show how the life each is experiencing. We exchange both the positives and negatives. Yes, if you notice, each dream comprises of both goods and bads. We experience some scenes of that life, both happened and yet to happen. Yucks and Wows. If both agree to switch, we switch.

Now you see this concept explains a lot of usualities. Take Deja Vu. Yes indeed it is that ‘yet-to-happen’ scene of the life. We experienced it in the dream before we made the shift. Those jerky wake ups. May be the other self just slapped me for spending such sucking life. Or may be i did it to him for his sucking life. Roaming with unknowns. Yes, you don’t afterall expect two me’s having the same set of friends. Those long nights can be the result of just a mismatch between timings of two threads. Same goes for the short nights.

I will stop. Remove your thinking caps and plunge into the dreamland with the view. You might find quite a few interesting answers.

Anyways back to my dream i dreamed yesterday. I dreamed i was a singer, i was singing well. (Ok, i never said the other me has to be “me”ish. He can indeed me quite contradictory to who i am right?) Audience were happy. I saw my struggle. I saw my first assignment. I was watching myself happy. I watched all the happy me’s. Nothing bad. No yucks. And suddenly it was blank. I don’t remember something like this happening earlier. The dreams changed. The places changed. I woke up suddenly. But it never happened that the dream turned blank, with me facing eternity full of whiteness.

Puzzled, I lay there, closed eyed and open minded, waiting for something to happen. But all in vain. Blank. Whiteness everywhere. Finally i woke up and tottered my way along … With mind full of questions. Unanswered question.

Tomorrow I am going to travel through the time to the future me. It’s been long that I was planning for one such tour. However just for the need of the future currency, I had to postpone my travel to tomorrow.

In a moment, my friend will return from his visit. I have asked him to smuggle some future currency back to the past. To maintain the time conundrum, I will believe that, as of today, I do not know if he does bring it in. (However the fact remains that I have made the travel tomorrow. So this should clarify the doubts over whether he did. He did. Successfully. Believe me!)

Anyway there was some small calculation mistake while carrying the digit forward, which I normally do, that made me end up a day behind where I was supposed to end at, i.e. tomorrow. Now I do not want to disturb the normalities in here, the past world that is. So I will prefer hiding in this panic room and simply pen down my experiences of this drive.

The first and foremost observation, technology has spoiled the human race in there man. People only speak in command prompt queries. A sentence is no longer than 3 words, the longest (and oldest) being “I am sorry”. (And even there, people hardly mean it!)

Every single software is run by Google and hardware designed by Apple. There is an antique building called “Microsoft Live Centre”. I heard it has hanged in the messy green screen of death that displays a Matrixsque live feed of random numbers. Some say it has gone offline from the day it’s services were tagged “Live”. (By the way, don’t tell anyone. but there were still rumours about the apple tablet and google phone.)

However fun was when I met my future me. The way he was behaving I still feel, as Zaphod Beeblebrox would say, “if I ever met myself again, I will hit myself so hard I won’t know what’s hit me.”

By the way I wanted to tweet this there and then itself. But that future me just laughed at me when I said it takes 140 characters for us to share what we are doing. He mentioned even the novels are 20-30 characters long in there. The crypto-tex-pander fitted in each person’s eyes just completes the novel. Idiots I tell you.

Sat for lunch and there there was another surprise. Those idiots there hardly eat any food. They just gobble down the pills for all the necessary vitamins, minerals and whatever necessary for the body. Floored I was to see they even have the pills for the junk food. These future mens are idiots. Extreme idiots.

Oops!! Need to hide. Someone is crawling towards this dark damp corner. Will blab out the remaining idiocracies of the future. Trust me. There are many. Did I tell you what they have a UCC, a Universe Conservation Committee, a group fighting the Universal Enpansion? Well they do. Blab you later. Ciao!

Image Credit: Picturepost (Interesting writeup. Do read!)

Just finished watching “The Negotiator”. A tense drama between two negotiators that was . Well at least for three-fourth of the movie. After which I think the director fell prey for the behaviour which I am seeing a lot recently. However I have no intention here to post a review about the movie.

Actually these days I have lost belief that reviews actually hold any credibility. Not just do I find them monetarily inspired, but they are also dependent on many external factors. This makes it practically impossible for two viewers to watch a movie with same frame of mind and same expectations.

Well not to forget the reviews themselves rig their own viewpoint on the moviegoers. So a Taran Adarsh might make each Yash Raj Film an extreme must watch while Masand makes the same one the extreme bore of all time. Two thumps down he would scream. However what the movie ends up being is not any of those.

Not just is this case true for the actual critics whose bread and butter is film reviewing. Even friends that unwelcomely review a movie for me, make it difficult for me to watch any. One likes any movie he watches, another says “ah Bollywood sucks”.

So hardly is it possible for me to decide which movie to watch based on anyone’s comments. Ironically the most of the movies that I have loved recently are the ones where I had no clue about their plot or performances. So no reviews for me I say.

Anyway back to the pit that most of the directors fall in. I call it the “lets-make-it-goody-goody" pit. See when you have made a strong impression on audience by throwing at them what they least expected, you don’t take an unwanted faltu turn saying “Hehe buddy, there I fooled you.”

One most cliche scene I would like to mention. In a movie with 2 heroes, one kills other at the most unthinkable stage. Only is it revealed momentarily after that both were together in this and no one’s killed. That was part of the bigger plan. Villain is caught and yippie, everything is goody-goody.

Well, screw you Mr. Goody G. Goody. You could have made the movie hell lot better by killing that god damn hero, and making this gaddar friend fly away with villain and all the money. Why is there a mental block to show “achhe ki jeet aur bure ki haar" (good wins bad leans)? Well not that this is how the real world behaves, is it?

Anyway even extreme wonderful movies like The Departed could not dodge this pit. Only thing I can say is it takes guts to end movie with not so “goody-goody” a situation. I remember one movie which managed to do that. The Mist. I still fell saddened when I remember the ending there. Hats off to you Mr. Frank Darabont the director. You had managed to give a most unthinkable horror an horror movie can give its audience. Extreme unthinkable.

Image Credit: darpantheatregroup

He gets up in the morning and sees sun rising at him through the small slit, left open at the window by curtains. It is that soothing early morning which he has always savored. He crawls out of his bed and takes a warm shower. He gets all tidied up with a desire to embrace the pleasing spring morning. He puts his foot outside and starts his walk towards the office.

Hardly does he walk hundred meters, dark clouds start gathering the sky. He looks at the sun and loses him among the clouds.  The spring morning is ruined by the darkness of the clouds hovering above. They roar and kill the sweet chirping noise of the birds and burst into a heavy uncalled and untimely rain suddenly.

Now the situation above is not just a one off incident.  It is not the roaring clouds or the rain that bothers me. It is the untimely fashion one faces them. Any living person can personify the “he” described above.

Have many times will I lure days in and out just for a moist rainy morning only to end up to be greeted by scorching heat?

How many times will I leave the house to spend a pleasant summer weekend at the beach with family or friends only to end up sipping sodas in a closed car peeking at the pouring rain?

Why should I always carry the sunscreen lotion and the umbrella with me irrespective of which season it is?

As an Indian, I was blessed with distinguished 3 seasons. But these days everything has changed. Winters aren’t chilly. Summers have intermittent burst of clouds. Rainy seasons have hardly 30 days of rain. I won’t be exaggerating if I say that summers have more rains now than actual rainy seasons.

I don’t know if this is actually a result of Global Warming phenomenon. I don’t know if this is really a effect of greenhouse gases. There are facts and figures which say they are. Then there are those who say this is just a cyclic effect. This does happen in centuries where climate behavior repeats itself.

For me what matters is what I see and I can guarantee something is for sure not normal. I am tired of watching farmers committing suicides because the climate does not behave as it should. I am tired of watching crops getting ruined by the lack or or sudden pouring of rains. I am tired of watching people die because of all the floods and droughts, storms and tsunami. I am really tired.

The effects of, if it exists, global warming are pretty saddening.  I had decided I won’t take the risk of ruining what has been a pretty wonderful place to live. I will do whatever I can for that and have already started that by thinking about it.

After all I don’t want to end up telling my grandchildren, “Once there were seasons and climate changed with them”. And I surely don’t want any one to end like this.

PS: This is my attempt to put my views on climate change and participate with thousand others in Blog Action Day.

You know that time when you just back out of a thing which might have saved you some bucks? It happens to me a lot, but this particular week gave me a double blow.

First incident was when i did not back out when i should, though debatable, have. I trolled along the darling harbor idling my time out just because i did not have any other place to go. Out of no dire need, i felt this itch to go to the public telephone booth and, well, do nothing.

I picked up the handset and there began my efforts to place a call. I don’t know why but this bud was heavily reluctant to let me do so. I gave up, placed the dial back and put my hand to get the coin back. In the open mouthed telephone lied another $2 coin with my $1 coin.

Fuzzy that my mind always is, there began a mahabharat between my ethical and non-ethical brain cells. Should i or should not pick this $2 up which does not belong to me? I don’t remember for how long i stayed near the booth but last thing i remember i had extra $2 in my pocket. Debatable if i should have picked the coin, but i did.

Fast forwarding 2 hours later. My idling location shifted to a mall where after about an hour i decided i have crossed my idling quota for the week.

I came out with my iPod plugged in and whistled along the road towards train station and somehow felt everything was pretty bright around me. I knew i had a train in another 15 mins which i should not miss as there was no other train for another 90minutes. My eyes burnt and my subconscious mind was aching for something. And there it dawn on me why everything was indeed bright.

Next thing i remember i was running towards the mall to find my goggles worth way more than $2 i had picked up earlier. Whole time during my run to the mall i was thinking was that $2 really worth all this pain of losing costly goggles and missing train.

Final blow, however, was about to come. I reached the mall, found a sensible looking pretty lady and asked if they have found any goggles. She looked more optimistic than what I was. She ambled inside putting me on hold. After some time, she came out and said something which ignited my fuzzy brain cells again.

She said they have found one goggles, but they were ladies and if I think mine were, well, ladies goggles, she will get them from the security. Now I did not want to make complete fool of myself in front to pretty looking and sounding girl by saying I wear ladies goggles. But i did not want to not make any try too.

I thought for sometime what to do and then putting my manly pride ahead, I remember I mumbled something and came out. Whole time afterwards, i was soothing myself by thinking this.

A visit to a supermarket is not something uncommon for me. Rather it is one thing which i like doing the most. Crawling between those numerous branches full of variety of products, i just lose myself glancing at each one’s properties… beep .. engineer’s blooper .. i should have said “each one’s labels”.

However, the visits are always satisfying and refreshing for me. And this is the first reason i find myself roaming in these lanes quite often.

Another reason for these frequent ferries is my lack of interest in creating the grocery lists. I have tried jotting them few times, but i so get lost within the products catalog that the chit doozes in my pockets.

At times i spend hours just ambling around the nooks and corners of a supermarket. A sensible mind might think what would one do for so long in a place so crowded, so noisy, so meaningless and so mean. But thats what i like about this place. I get my space in here with no one remotely worried about what i want. And that’s when i start getting choosy about each and everything i would buy out of this space.

First thing i need to do is put a limit on time i would spend in there. Once that is sorted out, it is all about marking my spots to ski along. Vegetables and fruits fall out of my interest and a hustling visit settles down the formality.

What follows is a child-like admiration for the variety of products manufactured, packaged, transported, marketed and sold at such colorful a place. A cheerful mouthfreshner sits in front of the saddened and ashamed toilet cleaner. Colorful chocolates sit next to the colorless eggs. And there i know its time to get lost. Get choosy.

And choosy i get. Tens of minutes are spent in front of each product looking for what fits better for my needs. I know sometimes i have spent too much time and worried i get thinking the cameras might caught me goofing around at the same position and i might be busted as potential terrorist. But what the hell  .. risk is worth it.

And then there are those times when i don’t get choosy thinking i know what i want and i have got what i want. And this is what i buy.

And this is what the description read (which i happen to read when i rinsed my mouth with this dude)

For healthier mouth, remind kids to brush their teeth and use Listerine Smart Rinse twice a day.

Listerine Smart Rinse for Kids 6+

These days i am going through some wonderful experiences. Major chunk for this: I have the routine in Bangalore broken. I was fed up with the same life style. Same road. Same bus. Same timings. Same place. Same updates. Same people. And even same dogs!

Life at Australia has given me that chance to break the shackles with usuality. The life has changed and so have people, places around me. I am not a pleasure freak. The only thing I ask for is the change. For that matter I do not even mind spending my days at a village as long as I get a break from usual casualties of life.

Casualties they are. Each moment each day life throws loads and loads of experiences at you. Some are feather soft. Providing you with the feel-good comfort in its zone. And then there are those emotion laden heavy experiences trying to crush you under it’s weight. Casualties to your mind is what they can leave behind. And casualties is what they leave behind.

So the break was indeed welcome. It has indeed been welcome. For the better part of this change is the feeling of differentness. But this same “differentness" is what pops up in between; a small compartment in mind still calls out for those same buses. Those same roads. Those same people. And those same dogs. In between some times a thought does crawl in the mind; a thought calling out for those “usualities”. Calling out loud for the sameness in the life.