No manjhe naahi

Time: 11:30 pm

Location: Comm. Street signal (seems to be a jinxfully eventful place for me)

I'm on my bike w/family. Cops doing their drunken-driving-check routine. I was clean, so didn't have much to worry about. One cop stops us, comes near. Of course he doesn't have the breathalyzer. Gets kissing distance to my face, and asks

'Alcohol?'

My bravado of having nothing to fear turns to adventuresome. Mustering up all of the 3 and a half Kannada words I have learnt, I decide to give it a shot. And utter one of them.

'Beda.'

Cop sniffs; grins a bit, shakes his head, and walks away.

I immediately realize what I just said. And ride away without telling the wife what (really) happened.

-----------

Kannada speaking readers have got it. For the rest, here's what it is.

In Hindi, the word for "No" and "Don't want" is effectively the same - "Nahi"

XYZ liya? Nahi.

XYZ chahiye? Nahi.

Same with Gujarati. "Na" does it both.

Kannada, however is more like Marathi

'No' is 'Illa' and 'Don't want' is 'Beda'

Just like 'Naahi' and 'Nako' in Marathi.

Now, when I (try to) speak a few words of Kannada, I always try to overlap what I know with a language I really know. The decrypting language I used to use was Hindi. Since that night, I changed it to Marathi.

The Curse of µ

I used to be a keen believer of the permanent age theory; having nicely settled into the late 20s for long. Turns out, it was a myth. Ceaseless erosion has caused the brain to lose a few wrinkles (only to reappear under the eyes). The attrition has had less to do with declining intelligence, rather lesser fuck-giving.

Gone are the days when I can incessantly argue on a point I rightly or wrongly believe in. The transition from ‘I believe, so should you’ to ‘I don’t give a damn’ happened pretty swift. The willingness and ability to continuously pursue a redundant objective has past its fountainhead, and is now on its weighty journey back down the parabola.

A few passions comatose’d on the way too. There was a time when I could rattle out band members, song names, the album from which the song was, its track number and what not. Today, ask me not a single song from any Top 100 charts.

Reading, exploring, the pleasure of learning something new – everything has given way to a meek surrender to the Maslow’s triangle. Instead of the Discovery Channels and NatGeos, I now gorge on dinner slouching on the couch and devouring Big Boss. Bring out the bloody pop corn.

It probably isn’t bad as it sounds. Maybe I’m mistaking focus for abrasion. But the deviancy was much more fun. Probably. Maybe regular updating of the blog isn’t as significant to life as buying diapers for the baby; or not as life-altering as forgetting to pay the power bill.

The thing with cerebral wear-and-tear is that I can't comprehend the difference, or even acknowledge its futility. Damn you friction.

A thorn by any other name would still be a prick.

If a junior copywriter had come to me, wet ears and all, with that name for a new social media website, i would have thrown the book on his face. Fortunately, that didn't happen with the branding copyguy IRL, and thence we have facebook.

Branding, or more specifically, naming of the brand is probably the most overrated, and subsequently the hardest aspect of all things advertising.

Clients come with products/services unworthy of the ppt files they have been conceived on. And then shoot point blank bullet points that are supposed to be attitributes of the brand. "It should sound innovative, trustworthy, unique." And of course, the ubiqitous "should evoke an emotional" crap.

Well, I've got two unbranded words for them. Shove it. First up, make a product that deserves these attributes, and it will sell itself. The function of advertising was never to make a substandard product successful.

But no. They will reiterate their stupidity with a million iterations. Do research. Dip stick. When what they should really be doing is stuff all the bullet points up a rectal abyss.

Facebook? Really? It sold on what it did, not what it was called. Twitter? Doesn't even sound attributical. More like an irritating chirp. But what it brought to the world was good enough for it to become the brand it is today. Blogger. Wordpress. Firefox. The online world is replete with dumbed down or downright absurd brand names. And all doing pretty well for themselves.

Take the most recognised names in real world. Coca Cola and Pepsi derive theirs from their ingredients (shitty ones at that). IBM is International Business Machines. GE is General Electric. Go figure how many ppt slides went into coming up with those ones. Microsoft has spewed dick jokes for decades now. MacDonalds, Ford are pronouns - names of their individual founders. KFC, Nokia get their names from the places they come from.

With the exception of Apple and Nike, none of the world's top brands seem to be over-thought exercises. And these two are successful today, again, because of what they have done with their products, not because some agency bestowed its brilliance on them. If Jobs had called the iPod the All White Music Player, it would still have been the phenomenon it proved to be.

Just name the goddamn thing something that isn't a cuss word or a slang for genital parts, and get on with it.

And don't even get me started on baselines. It's time clients get this straight. Baselines are pretentious, obnoxious word-strings created only to cater to their own pompous egos. 'Make.believe' is stupid. 'Yours is here' is I don't even begin to fathom what. 'Impossible is nothing' is Yoda-speak. But then, I won't think twice before buying a Sony television. Or a Dell Laptop. Or Adidas shoes - if only to kick some brand manager in his valued propositions.

A walk-on part in a cage.

Years ago, you made a choice. Against the current; against the grain; staring right into the sun. Putting on your rebel shades. Flaunting your mutinous tattoo. Walking straight down the Floydian path.

Long down the untrodden road, at a point of no return, the fallacy dawned. Turns out, what you thought was your world was but a Truman show. A cage controlled by puppet masters with no strings attached. There was never a lead role. There was never a war.

Got any talent? No? Then STFU.

It’s become fashionable to deride reality shows. And, going by what little I see of them on screen, I’d say mostly deservingly so. Until, amidst the entire melee, I chance upon the actual performances.

Seriously. Take out the obnoxious judges, the scripted fights, the melodramatic tears, and the annoying hosts – and you’ll get to see the kind of singers or dancers that could give most of the big players a run. Mostly coming from small towns, these participants are just relishing their proverbial 15 days of fame. Let them. They are making a fair bunch of bucks along the way too, I would guess. I have seen kids old enough for diapers, reaching pitches you could only dream of in your scorpion-infested dreams.

These are folks who can catch a quarter note on the synth, or do a backflip wearing an outrageous costume. And on stage, too. Any of us, who are neither talented to reach the scales, or know anything about music/art to be even armchair critics, should really be stuffing our mouths shut, ideally with feet.

All talent we managed to get was to write codes, or copy, or legal letters or whatever. Some of us can even roll our tongues sideways. Really? Here’s your trophy.

Even the non-talent based shows have participants who, I am again guessing, are earning more than what most of us get in the year. Getting that much to play dumb in front of the nation? Not a bad deal of a job. Let’s face it, it’s what we all do for a living. Just not on air, and for much less money.

So the next time you are sneering at that ugly Swayamwar contestant, or that sobbing Idol contest, take this into account. They have relevant/non-relevant talent. They are being paid big. And they are on television. While all you/your family is doing is feeding the channel’s TRP. It’s a win-win situation for all. EXCEPT YOU.

Tiger, mate.

1411 is an odd number. In a hypothetically ideal event of a 50-50 gender proportion, some of the either male or female tigers will have to be...non-monogamous.

But I guess fidelity is the least of their problems. The real one lies in them being not 'gamos' at all. Now, I'm not an expert on this topic, but I have read/heard somewhere that these cats are difficult to breed. I am assuming this translates into them being not very bunny-like in their libido. Otherwise, imagine, tigers breeding like fish, or pigs (if you want a mammary example). But no. They seem to be the silent loner types who would walk into a single's bar and walk out alone after a few Tigers.

On a serious note, I'd be obviously expected to say that we, as humankind, should stop poaching. Of course. We have been saying this for decades now. Isn't helping much. So an out-of-the-box idea for the tigers would be to start hitting the sack with their own kinds and spawn till the dawn breaks.

That ad tells us to 'speak up' and 'blog' about tigers. I am assuming a lot of you are already spreading stripey messages to the human species. So I thought mine should be directed towards panthera tigris. Fuck much dudes, or you're gonna follow the dinos to fossiland.

Speaking of extinction, I think evolution (or God, if you're that kind) botched up big time. I mean look at the animals that have gone. Starting from cool pterodactyls to awesome saber tooths to mammoths. These were all such kick ass beings. EPIC. Imagine having these around today. But no, they didn't survive evolution. And guess who did? Mosquitoes and pigs and earthworms. That's who. Couldn't it just have been the other way round? I mean, the whole population of the world is killing mosquitoes and flies by the trillions everyday. But I don't see a "Just 5455 mosquitoes left" campaign anywhere. Heck, evolution/God even chose cockroaches to be nuclear-attack-immune. Yeah right. Like they will single-handedly rebuild the earth after an apocalyptic event.

Coming back to tigers, the layman in me often asks - how difficult it would be to artificially inseminate a tigress? I mean, we have put robots on red planets. And Attenborough (Speilberg) almost brought back dinos from...guess who... mosquito fossils. So why don't a bunch of Nobel winning biologists do something about getting two tigers together. Make one of them watch porn, and get his stuff in a test tube? Too much sci-fi? I don't think so.

Yes of course. Bottom line still remains that we need to hold back our spears. Especially when it comes to awesome cats such as these. I mean, look at them. Try getting that badass attitude from a pig. No, we really can't afford to lose these kinds. I am sure you can get aphrodisiacs from, say a donkey's penis, or medicinal value out of rat bones. Leech pelts will look good on ramps too. Just leave the goddamn Tiger alone. For a while at least; till they get back to being like their golfing namesake.

Image source: www.wallbase.net

Reality v/s Realism. Or why the Oscars are going to disappoint.

This post is about movies; fairly recent ones. Spoilers will be thrown around. All of the four and half people who read my blog are hence forewarned.

If a pre-historic John Wayne had a one-night-stand with B-movie’d Steven Seagal, you’d get one of the hottest contenders at this year’s Academy. Yeah, that’s right. Jeremy Renner, he of cigarette chewing bravado and cowboy swagger. You have been hailed as one of the performances of the year in The Hurt Locker. And I have an issue with the movie, not so much about the lead actor.

It’s a good-ish movie, yes. The first Iraq war movie of any substance. Seemingly realistic. Well shot. A couple of cool blasts. But that’s about it. There’s no character arc, no one you care for. I don’t want Transformers-like explosions or cleavages every nano second, no. But Locker becomes pretentious after a point. Renner’s James just walks into a bomb disposal scene, takes off his bomb suit, lits a cigarette and wades his way through wires to finally figure out the stereotypical blue v/s red one. You almost expect the brown onlookers to clap. He does this about half a dozen times in the movie. Along the way also helping a bunch of British mercenaries kill the bad guys with long-range rifles. (That’s another ridiculous set piece – who would stay in the same position in a gun fight where a minute earlier, someone has been killed by enemy bullets).

If this was just an under-hyped war movie with a decent one look, I’d be okay watching it. But the buzz it’s getting is far too much. It’s just not that great a movie. And please, don’t even get started about how it’s a woman director (that too Cameron’s ex wife) who has redefined feminism in camouflage. That is incidental. And also, don’t get started about the whole “so realistic” thing. There have been far better realistic war movies that don’t have cowboy heroes. And have much better stories to tell. And are more effective. Saving Private Ryan obviously comes to mind. Black Hawk Down too. No heroes.

Making a whole movie to justify your opening quote about war being addictive is a bit of an overkill Ms. Bigelow/Boal. It defeats me why this movie has so unanimously scored with critics everywhere.

My favourite realistic movie this year is about aliens. (I was dying to put “realistic” and “aliens” in the same sentence.) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you District 9. Or how Neil Blomkamp has blown brains with his debut feature. It’s more realistic than Locker. More effectively allegorical than Avatar. And has the coolest special effects; shot in documentary style. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie. That’s how sci-fi movies should be made. It has a story and a character you warm up to. No, really, no spoilers here. Just watch this gem from South Africa. Sharlto Copley is the most unlikeliest of heroes. And he’s not even a proper actor.

I also have a grouse with Up. It is a heartwarming story, obviously beautifully animated and rendered. But the story takes an unnecessary turn in the third act. And it's all stupid from there on. Talking dogs, a hero turned villain for no apparent reason, and a tree-hugging message. Wall-E without any dialogue, had more heart. Too bad none of the other contenders come even close to Up in the best animation category. (Though I'll be rooting for the fantastic Fantastic Mr. Fox).

Having vented out enough, here’s my predictive list of who should and who will win this year at Oscars.

The only “no-contests” this time are Cristoph Waltz ("Bingo") for best Supporting Actor and UP for best animated movie.

Movie
Should: District 9 (Very wishful thinking. We all know who'll win this)

Will: Avatar (Populist, yes, but Cameron has made a game-changer, for sure. So this is deserving)


Director
Should: Quentin Tarantino (Oh, yes)
Will: Katherine Bigelow (shudder)

Original Screenplay
Should: QT (Who else loved Landa's rat analogy?)
Will: QT

Adapted Screenplay
Should: Jason Reitman (listen to the baggage speech)
Will: Jason Reitman

Actor Male
Should: George Clooney (Even though he "almost" plays himself again, but this time it works)
Will: Jeff Bridges (sentimental favourite. This year's Rourkee)

Actor Female

Only watched Streep in Julie & Julia, and she rocked in that one.

Visual Effects

Do they even need nominations for this one. Just Fedex it to Cameron's office.

Original Score

Should: Sherlock Holmes

Will: Up

Not a very good idea

There’s a fundamental flaw with electric/electronic appliances being seen as eco-friendly. Batteries need power. And that energy doesn’t come cheap. Or easy. For every charge, there’s a fossil fuel being combusted somewhere. Nuclear energy isn’t yet feasible. Neither are windmills. Hydro has a problem, plus our rivers aren’t exactly swell. That leaves us with gas turbines that gobble up natural resources, emit exhausts, and basically be not on friendly terms with the environment. It’s a necessary evil, yes. It certainly isn’t the rosy, green, tree-lined, winding-road landscape that the electric car promises to ensure. No. Those batteries need even more charging. And they emit fumes too, invisible ones, but toxic nonetheless. So, for the desired consumer, it’s just a self-gratifying perception that what you can’t see, doesn’t pollute. Some thermodynamics engineer in a sweaty power plant is paying for those sins, not you.

Coming back to battery-operated mobiles saving the planet, now we have this.

Though it doesn't beat Walk & Talk in farfetchedness, it comes pretty close. The campaign started off pretty well, with surreal cheekiness (casteism) and believable CSR (literacy). But then the law of diminishing intelligence set in. And we got Walk & Talk, the 26/11, and so on. To the current one. Use mobiles. Save trees. This is clearly beyond plain overpromise-underdeliver.

Now, I'm a big fan of Balki's work. I like the fact that he snubs at snooty award-friendly creative, instead pushing for old-fashioned effectiveness. For me, his work for ICICI Prudential is still the archetype for insight-driven creative. In one word, brilliant. It's a school of thought that ought to be encouraged more vehemently than succumbing to cute/smart executions that mask the lack of story or research. (You know what I’m talking about, mr. moustached guy).

But here, with the ‘save-trees’ story, you’re just underwhelming your own strategy. All situations depicted can easily and efficiently replace the bloody phone for a laptop (except maybe the boarding pass thing). And these are all high-end phones. And for gastro’s sake, which darshini serves both Utthapam and Chicken Puff? Unless Thom’s buys over Adiga’s.

Bottom line. It’s ok to push your brand message. And ok-er to have a strategy with centipede-worthy legs. But the logic has to fall in place somewhere. If it’s not, then maybe it’s time to say good bye to both the positioning as well as AB Jr. The Sirjee has run his course; hire the big-headed cretins now, but give ‘em some screenplay this time.

Anal Logic

At a briefing session

Client: I need a ‘good looking’ ad.

Account Exec: Erm... I’ll need a more detailed brief than that.

Client: GOOD LOOKING. How hard is that to understand? You know what my product is. Now make an ad that... looks good.

AE: No. Doesn’t help...

Client (Flipping open an Archive mag on his desk): See, look here, I’ll show you what a good ad looks like...

AE (murmuring to himself): Oh dear!

Client: This book’s full of ‘em.

AE: But, looking for a good ad in Archive is like looking for a wife in Playboy.

Long silence.

Client (after pondering over the thought for a few minutes): That’s not an accurate analogy.

AE: Why not?

Client: Because...because... my ad is not the same as my wife...and...

AE: ...and you’d never let us screw up your ad?

Longer silence.

Getting life on line

Created by Randall Munroe at xkcd

Da Vincible Code

Klueless again. And lovin’ it. The 5th edition of the most awesomely cool, mind-numbingly addictive, and kick-assingly challenging quiz is back. Think clues hidden in page sources, in urls, in gif file names. Infinitely geek-worthy, and then some.

It’s built by the folks at IIM-I, as part of their annual fest. Used to be called IRIS for 4 seasons, now they’ve changed it to ‘āhvān’. For me, Klueless is the one thing that reinforces the perception that these business schools have the coolest and smartest minds in the country.

I have been hooked on to this online game since its 1st season, long before internet addiction automatically meant FB status, Tweets, or Reddit browsing. Each level transcends awesomeness exponentially, about 30 of ’em. There are no time constraints. Or any other restrictions. You are free to use google, wiki, or anything you dare to touch or click. And you will still tear you hair apart for days together trying to figure each level out. You need to decipher cryptic source codes, crack a level which has a clue that refers back to a past solved level. Hit back buttons, refresh buttons, hit yourself… you gotta do it all. Like I said, awesomely geeky. And tons of fun, especially the elated feeling you get once you go past a level. You almost raise your hands triumphantly as to say “Eat this Mr. Langdon.” Yeah, it’s that sort of game.

(Side note: Managed to get on their Hall of Fame in the 1st season, back in ’05 (#481). Though cracking each edition hence, haven’t been able to be in the early bird list).

Can’t hardly wait to dig holes again (no you needn’t be an html geek to crack it, just a cipher-junkie). The 5th issue is coming this November 5th; am already rubbing sweaty palms in anticipation. Bring it on.

Klueless 5 link

Earlier editions:

Klueless 1

Klueless 2

Klueless 3

Klueless 4

The K5 facebook page

Update: You can decipher how big a fan I'm of this by the number of times I used the words "cool" and "awesome" in this post. I feel like a kid elephant in a chinese candy shop.

Credits

The car park
Whoa. There’s that Beamer. Used to dream of it. Not anymore. Life’s been good without it.
I can hear the chimes. It’s six already?
Hey! Nice asphalt!


The second floor
This is it.


The third floor
Is that it? Always thought there’d be more to it. Just go with the flow, I guess.


The sixth floor
Friends are great. Friends kick you in the butt when you’re wrong. Or, even, sometimes when you’re not. But that don’t matter. They’re friends, at the end of the day. I still love him.


The ninth floor
I think I know why he did it. I probably deserved it.


The tenth floor
Must’ve been about that night when…But, he got it all wrong. It was just... too… petty. Petty! Ironic.


The twelfth floor
Where are the flashes?


The thirteenth floor
Can’t believe he did it. What was he thinking? I’ll find a way to get back to him. Question is, how?


The sixteenth floor
Gaah, I’m so mad. There’s so much left to do, and now this!


The eighteenth floor
There he is. I can see him standing at the ledge on the top, looking down at me. Is that a look of guilt on his face? It better be. Hah.


The terrace

The rendezvous begins as planned. He charges at me.

“How dare you,” he asks.

“Why not,” I reply.

“You never understood, did you? All you did was run behind riches…

…It’s called running behind your dreams, dude.” I interrupt.

He isn’t budging. “Do you have any idea how pointless this all is?

I don’t like fiddling with safety catches. But that’s what I’m doing now. I shout back first.

“That’s the reason you told on me? Because you couldn’t get the point of it all?”

“Yes. Yes. But you won’t know it. Not till you are nearing the end, anyway.”

“End?” The catch's unlocked now.

"Yeah. You start off disgruntled. But then, you go with the flow, and as it happens, you grow… happier.” Is that an almost-smile I see?

“When WHAT happens?” I have my finger across the business end now.

“The beginning. Of the…

I haven’t noticed he’s moved closed to me. And I, close to the ledge.

“…end.” He finishes with a push.

I can only grab at the thin air. And his watch. It says one minute to six.

----------

My first attempt at fiction. I resisted the temptation for long, but yield happened. So here goes:

Oscar. Sierra Hotel India Tango.

Last week, I was told to go straight to a client’s office in the morning instead of coming to my own office. Was only too happy to avoid another late-register signing. As it happens, the client’s office is a bit off-track from my office. Which basically means the road is common till a point, and then diverges.

So the next morning, I get up. Scavenge through the wardrobe for my least-casual attire. Kick start my bike. Ride for about 15 minutes. And reach the office. My office. All the while, knowing that I’m supposed to go the CLIENT’S office.

Damn.

What happened, I asked myself. You were on friggin’ autopilot, that’s what. If it is a weekday, and if it is 10’o clock in the morning, the god-darned system is programmed to take me there. That’s why, whenever I am riding to the office (mine), I never have to think about where to turn, which pothole to look for, and which ‘awful-driver’ bend to be alert at. Everything happens on autopilot. Which is very different from being sub-lost in your thoughts, and hence being a dangerous driver. No, you are fully aware of the traffic situation on the outside. It’s just the route that’s being, urm, piloted for you.

And the road is not the only place you are thus.

When you come to think of it, it starts right from the beginning. Every morning, you get up from bed with the same bones making the same crackling sounds. The toothbrush goes across precisely in the same order: Maxillary premolar first, mandibular lateral incisor next, then on to the next row. Bathing follows similar pattern, body parts are soaped in the same order, and of course, wiped too in the same precise sequence. (*insert preteen carnal giggle here*). Heck, even the way you eat, shearing the roti piece in the same size, from the same corner, sitting with your lunch box opened in the same layout, everyday. The way you shave. The way you plonk your bag at the desk before turning the comp on. The way you (if you) smoke.

Yeah, you catch the drift. We have the same grind every day, so it’s only natural to be this way. It is the non-unconsciously subconscious way we go about doing it, is what stupefies. And manifests into a joke when there’s a deviation. Like going to the client’s office in the morning.

So, when we say we need a break from the routine, what we really mean is we need to go manual for a while. Which means more work, but more control too. That is what makes a geared vehicle a pleasure to drive. And a manual camera that much more appealing. A get away from the mundane. A departure from the habitual. But that’s only during a break. I wish life was manual.

The Seinfeld Post

I shalt not make light about the Flu.

I shalt resist panning a superstar’s airport adventures.

I shalt not ridicule a certain Swayamwar.

I shalt hold back from being opinionated on 377.

I shalt avert plug-ins.

I shalt avoid template changes.

I shalt fiercely defy the temptation to rant, ramble, or muse.

I shalt keep away from short-storied fiction (as of now) or quasi-poetry.

When I hast nothing to blog about, I won’t.

Drop 22

A-ha! I knew it. Here.

I’m selling off my gym membership at a discount. And finally getting the cloth-drying line replaced with my skipping rope.

The linked article is quite verbose. The gist is that exercising won’t make you lose weight. Keep you in shape, do good to your heart, etc. is all fine. But if it is kilos you are looking to lose, look elsewhere – like, in your plate, dude. It is something we always knew, of course. But the myth-buster is also a prime example of, what I fondly refer to as, the Spectacle Paradox. (more of why that, later).

Think about it. You exercise apparently to lose weight. Exercise makes you hungry. So you eat more. And all that jazz about turning useless fat into valuable muscle, falls tummy-flat, because the calorie count that you burn during a workout is always going to be a fraction of what you’ll ultimately consume. By eating. Back-to-square-meal-one.

I wear glasses. The power is, umm, significant. So much so, that without them the world for me is like a cheap brochure – pixelated due to free low-res images downloaded from google. So, every morning, when I wake up, the first thing I look for are my glasses. (So that the toothbrush reaches the right cavity.) But then, in a routine-case of not having any fixed resting place for them, I have to scamper around for the search. And the only thing that comes to my mind during the trivial pursuit is: “I am looking for something. For which I should be wearing glasses. But I am looking for my glasses. Gaaah!”

And, following my unmatched aesthetic taste, I have chosen a thin-chassis, almost transparent frame. Which does a nice chameleon act against any background. Now add the pixelated-universe salt to this situation. Not pretty. Nutshell, looking for glasses without glasses, is what came to be called the SP.

Other example.

There’s metro work going on in the city. To build the darned thing, they obviously have to cut trees. Which makes every greenpeacemaker quiver in his organic pants. They drive their SUVs to the site, and do a Gandhi in the garden. “No cut tree. They good for air. Else we die.” Fair enough. But without the metro, “No good public transport. More people drive more car. That not good for air. Either.” There’s no balance possible here. No matter what route they plan, there will be collateral damage.

Seriously, Joseph Heller should have called it Drop 22. No catches here to win any matches.

The world around us is spawning with these Drops.

The company you work for isn’t getting good people. Why? Because it doesn’t have good clients. So get good clients. They won’t come. Why? Because you don’t have good people. Perfect.

You can only afford to buy that superbike, seemingly necessary to impress chicks, after you have passed the age of having either the inclination or the looks to impress anyone. Yeah, the wind in your grey hair doesn’t have the same sound.

When I write copy, to get out anything near decent out of my knuckles, I need calm solitude. Combined impossibly with a certain kind of panic that involves venom-spewing account management breathing down my neck; and a cross-leg crushing urge to go to the loo. Only then does it work. Or does it? I will be able to judge my quality, only after the stage of my judgement being of any importance, passes. Catch that if you can.

A piece of euphemistic cake

Imagine. You are given a cake right at the beginning. It’s made of many parts. You are told you can have as much as you want. The portions will never diminish, no matter how much you eat. But you will also never know when any of the portion will run out. It will happen, that’s for sure, but you won’t know when or where. So, basically, you either will have a whole piece all the time, or have none of it, all of a sudden.

The cake is free. And you never asked for it in the first place. It was just presented on a palate to you. And you gratefully accepted the offer. And started digging in.

But right on cue, all of a sudden, a part disappears. And you can’t no longer eat that one.

Then you grieve.

Why? You were given a seemingly fair deal. But now you cry over unfinished desserts. Just because you got attached to it, you forgot the arrangement. Not fair.

So, again, why does death affect us humans so much? Not so much our own, but others' around you. Loved ones. Friends. Family. They are the pieces of our lives that we were savouring unabashedly. And what? Hoping they will everlast? That was never the deal. And you knew about it right from the word go.

It isn’t grief unless it’s unexpected.

The moment we begin sleeping with this thought, we will be a happier species. In the knowledge that before the cake was ever served, or even the plate was moulded, we were but little wisps of undifferentiated nothingness.

Unfortunately, we are not wired that way. We make our cakes mobius-strips of human emotions and relationships. So that every crumb becomes a mandatory piece of contentment. Hence making its depravation irreconcilable.

Being such complex moist robots that we are, that sleep is never going to happen. So we will continue anguishing over snatched portions, right up until our own plate is taken away from us. Without comprehending the fact that we can eat our cake, but can never have it.

Guilty Pleasures

1. Eating the creamy half of the biscuit (and putting the other half back)
2. Old George Michael songs
3. Govinda-Kadar Khan slapstick
4. Prodigious burping
5. Not tipping at expensive restaurants
6. Eloping from the parking lot before the attendant comes to collect money
7. Very, very late braking while riding
8. Peeling off dried adhesive
9. Trying out expensive perfumes in a mall, and not buying any
10. Dirt cheap T-shirts pulled out from under a pile
11. Ear buds (in the ear)
12. Sneaking a smoke after a heavy family-gathering meal
13. The 'malai' formed on top of tea if left out for too long
14. Hidden scenes that appear after the end credits of a movie
15. B-horror movies with hot chicks who can't act to save their tops
16. Loving a song just for its bass-line
17. Creating fake heated arguments, where the opposition is taking me way too seriously than he/she should
18. Bad advertisements (And not just the "so-bad-that-they-are-good" kind)
19. Looking for familiar faces on Page 3
20. The short-lived bliss following a big sneeze during a bout of blocked nose

Am I the only one?

Grid Locked

It should have been a cake walk. Sticking those "magic stars" up on the ceiling, that go all radiant in the dark. The michelangeloisation of our room's ceiling was for my year-and-half old daughter, I must add. So I had to basically stick 500 small ones, 300 semi-small ones, and a few more hundred of the big, semi-big ones. All scattered randomly across the sky/ceiling.

Ah. Now we get to the tough part. I was academically trained to be an engineer - a mechanical one at that. So seven years of isometric diagrams, vernier tortures, and more such perpendicular/parallel lines preset with T-squares and Drafters - all kicked in together. And thus fell apart the whole random part of the exercise.

Every next star I stuck was at an inglorious equidistance from the last two ones - involuntarily at congruent angles and in concurrent planes. Irrespective of how hard I tried to be chaotic with the layout - which would have nicely made it naturally "sky" like and all, the bloody thing ended up looking like a fluroscent graph paper with pentagrammed vertices. The one large moon plus one satellite plus one rocket - all provided relief from the infinite symmetry - with a nice little pattern of their own.

Things didn't help that apart from the academic brainwashing, I also have had the privilege of seating next to a few grid-obsessed art directors in my work life. Is it that I've been surrounded by so much methodical symmetry that there's no scope for madness? Scary thought.

But of course, the Golden ratio now made sense. Like Fibonacci, I'm sure God too is an engineer (with a keen eye for art direction). He just made an exception for the sky, that's all. Or did he? I need a telescope. And a vernier calliper.

Post Script: I spent 3 hours on precariously balanced tables to finish my symmetrical masterpiece. And now my daughter is scared of the shiny things in her room. She refuses to let us switch off the lights. I think He's a sardonic engineer.

Coffee is for closers only

I know a few people who could do with this pep talk.

The rest of the movie's equally amazing, Glengarry Glen Ross. It plays out like a play (of course it would, it is based on one). There's hardly any 'action'. Just a few great actors slapping well written dialoges and monologes over each other. (F words and "leads" rule the word count). Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin - the cast's a director's wet dream really. Must watch.

The life of your ride.

Bikes. Ubiquitous symbols of testosterone-spiked Y-chromosomes. Mean male machines. Dripping coolth and screaming attention.

Exactly a decade ago, those were the precise machinations of my mind as I stepped into a showroom and picked one up for myself. Like any correctly-wired male, I too am a bike fanatic. I dig them. Immensely. They are clearly more than ‘Point A to Point B’ transporters.

But I never came around to loving it more than my life. (Notice the ‘it’ and not a ‘she’ which is to further infuriate bike “lovers”). Mine was a case of natural selection. It just felt right to grow old with.

It had the right amount of firepower, enough acceleration, and optimum stealth to be invisible in spirit, but certainly not in sound. Its valve-less double-stroke heart never allowed it to be that way. So, along we went on our parallel roads that intersected every day.

I was relatively young then. So was it.
Life was stereotypically fearless. So was its throttle.
I freewheeled into a rock band. So did it, on campus roads.
As middle age approached, my body slowed down. So did its top speed.
Thirties rattled my bones a bit. Its chassis started wobbling.
Today, reflexes aren’t what they used to be. Its electrical system has also given way.
I still can’t have more than three large ones in a single sitting. It is still averaging what it did ten years ago.
Bad cholesterol has clogged up the pipes. Its exhaust is making strange noises.

Like I said, it has grown old with me. And I’m happy it did that.

Otherwise, what’s the point in spending your life in keeping your partner in good shape, when you yourself are victimized by time? I chose not to take the path of being a non-performing Hugh Hefner stuck with a supermodel everyone else letches at.

I didn’t give it any special privileges. No stickers. No rear-view mirrors. No dust-cloths tugged in between the handle bar. I remember watching, with unhidden amusement, newly-wed bikers turn into vacuum cleaners at the first sight of a speck. The only time I put cloth to my bike is to wipe off pigeon or rain droppings. And usually that cloth is my handkerchief. (Because the handle-bar is undersupplied, remember?)

So, yes, the bike has as many scratches as I have greys, and as many dents as I have wrinkles. It hasn’t honked in the last 4 years, neither flashed its indicators. Both because of the faulty electrical system. And I wear glasses.

It still remains, like me, very young in spirit (or that's what I'd like to think). And, unarguably, the most reliable piece of engineering I have ever laid my hands or legs on. It still ignites at the first kick. Like it did seven years ago, right after a 720 degree rotation that followed a head on collision with an auto. (Yes, those were our freewheeling days). But it still started after we both got up. That accident left a permanent dent on its tank and a bruise mark on my left thumb.

Nowadays, I sometimes let my eyes linger over it more than needed. Trying to catch a fleeting signal it might give me. Like how will it end its journey. Or, at least, how will it go from here on. See if I can pick some cues there.

And also to see if the exhaust really, really needs a cleanup.