Yes, the title does NOT make any sense – but then, it isn’t supposed to do that, actually! It is *only* supposed to stoke your curiosity – which it must have done, considering you have read so far. So, read on!

Here’s my theory:

“Sachin’s biggest asset is his passion. If Sachin would have played hockey instead of cricket, he’d still be a superstar – hands down!”

Here’s a scenario:

It was the year 1989 – 6 years after we’d lifted the Prudential World Cup at the Lord’s stadium. Kapil’s Devils were not getting any younger. The Indian cricket team was running on borrowed steam. Yes, we did win the Asia Cup in 1984 & the World Cahmpionship of Cricket in 1985, but we also lost 28 consecutive tests – in fact, we didn’t win any series outside the subcontinent for 19 years!

Yes, we had some amazing players, but they weren’t getting any younger, either! Kapil was looking to breach Hadlee’s record & hang up his boots, Gavaskar was aiming for the 10,000 mark – clearly, the second half of the 1980s didn’t have any ‘new’ iconic sport-stars, just the old ones getting recycled.

Enter Sachin Tendulkar – a shy kid who was barely 16 years old but clearly showed a lot of talent & promise. We all know what happens next. But, to put it in simple words: Sachin blew us all away! His talent, his flamboyance, his humility, heck, even his squeaky boyish voice was adorable!

Among other happenings, in the same era, the TV had already entered our living rooms & the people were getting glued to the idiot box (although, that name was still a few years away) slowly but surely – some out of curiosity, others out of novelty, and yet others out of sheer awe.

You know where I’m going with this? Yes? No? Well, actually I am not going anywhere. I’m gonna brake hard here & introduce an unknown, a what-if, into the equation.

“What if Sachin would have played hockey instead of cricket?”

Now go back to the theory I put forth at the beginning of this post. If Sachin had played hockey instead of cricket, he’d have played it with the same passion & aggression that he employs in his game of cricket, today. Simply put, he would have meant to hockey what he means to cricket today!

Look at it this way: When the country was experiencing a new form of worship (viz., the idiot box) & the idols were in HUGE demand, all the sport of hockey *actually* needed was an immensely talented, (yet humble player) who would serve as a true ambassador of the game.

In short, hockey needed a ‘Sachin’ for itself.

PS: It was recently claimed by the Twitter-verse recently that #SachinIsGod! The veracity of these claims is being investigated upon & no statements regarding the same – whether for or against – shall be made by this author. Any inconvenience caused is duly regretted.

11 deaths. 50+ injured. A city traumatised.

Yes, the blast was a cowardly act.
Yes, it only spilled innocent blood.
Yes, the perpetrators were inhuman.
Yes, they *could* have been interecepted.
Yes, there are a zillion ways things could have been different.

But they aren’t. So live with it.

Stop blaming the authorities. Stop blaming everyone else. Stop pointing that finger all over the place. If that finger did not have indelible ink last year, then you have no right to raise it – much less point it at anyone.

I have always wondered why our voluntary emergency response is always much better than the Emergency Response Teams. The answer, it recently struck me, is actually quite simple: the volunteers work out of passion, and not merely out of a sense of duty. The former ensures efficiency while the latter is the cause of mediocrity – both, at all levels.

Add to that the absence of an Emergency Reporting System – something akin to 9-1-1 in the U.S. or 9-9-9 in the U.K. – one single, short, number that can provide ALL sorts of Emergency Medical services AND be easily remembered by everyone. They did try the stunt with 1-0-0 a while back – but clearly, it has come to no use. Then again, other derivative numbers like 1-0-2 & 1-0-5 and 1-0-8 pretty much confused the hell out of everyone. By the time, anything was operational – everything was confusing & no one chose to utilize ANY of the number.

So how do we get this one single number working & operational?

Well, I have an idea:

Thanks to out-sourcing, India has a large number of call-centers, right? Say, a few of the larger ones (or many of the smaller ones) promise to dedicate 1% – 5% of their resources to the EMS call-centre (let’s assume for convenience, that it is) 1-0-8. Let’s say, hypothetically, the government decides to make their operational costs of allocating these resources tax-deductible – as an incentive for “social responsibility” or some such arrangement is arrived at, somehow.

We, the people, will have an Emergency Response Service with a dedicated number 1-0-8 & a (fairly) dedicated set of people on the other end of the line – not just some bored, apathetic, cynical, underpaid & over-worked cop, who’s sure that the caller is a crank even before s/he picks up the phone.

I want to actually work on this plan – on a city-wide scale first, then the state & then, hopefully take it country-wide. Any leads are welcome, any body willing to add their ideas is welcome, anybody willing to join forces with me is more than welcome. This time around, I want to DO something – something concrete, tangible; something that will *actually* help.

I don’t want to sit around uttering those two stupid words:

“What if…”

No, this isn’t me selling film tickets in black. This is me getting hitched.

Yes. You read it right – hitched.

United.
Wedded.
Espoused.
Matrimony.
Saying I Do.
Tying the knot.
Led to the Altar.

Yes.

Here’s the wedding invite:

Yes, her name’s Gauri. She’s my sweetheart from college days. She currently teaches Psychology to Grad students studying the SNDT curriculum. She’s commented on my posts often – as “Simple Thoughts,” “Maitrai” & herself…

Yes, a crazy RJ like me needs a ‘psycho’ professor like her. Ha ha.

No, our parents didn’t object. (Okay, they did object a little, but thankfully, they came around soon enough.)

We’re getting wedded on the 22nd of Jan (yes, that’s two days from now) in a simple court-signing style without any ceremony. We’re hosting a dinner to celebrate the momentous occasion.

This is where it’s happening:
Suryoday Hall, Sai-Section, Ambernath (E)

For the Techies:
Google Maps link: http://bit.ly/MyWaterloo
GPS co-ordinates:
Long: 73 deg 10.922 min E
Lat: 19 deg 12.3874 min N

If you are in the vicinity, do drop by. I’d love it if you could be there.

While surfing the net a few days back, I accidentally stumbled onto this piece of treasure called “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Aldous Huxley v/s George Orwell”

Having read a few works by the two authors, enough to be acquainted with their work, I decided to read further. I am glad I did, because I was thoroughly impressed by the comparison that Stuart MacMillen made in his comic.

Wikipedia has a good primer about Aldous Huxley & George Orwell; but if you’re feeling lazy, here’s the gist of it: George Orwell was the one who wrote the classics like “1984” & “Animal Farm” which gave birth to the classic quote, “Big Brother is watching you.” Aldous Huxley, on the other hand was the man behind “Brave New World” – a book I haven’t entirely finished reading.

I hadn’t given either of the books a second thought until I found this comic – it put them in an entirely new perspective for me!

The image I have uploaded is the final strip of Stuart’s comic – but not a spoiler in any sense. The entire image is too large to display here, and I wouldn’t want to take away any credit (& traffic, too!) from Stuart.

Check out the entire article, “Amusing Ourselves to Death” at Stuart’s website Recombinant Records.

In the land of Book,
Where people lived by the letter,
There was a Small Nook,
Which, well, could’ve been a lot better…

The people of Small Nook
(Weird looking people, those!)
They wrote in the Big Book
Sonnets & essays, poetry & prose.

One among them,
Was V. Tiny Tot.
He didn’t write much,
Just scribbled a lot.

In all the land of Book,
To write was to score!
You were a schnook
If you didn’t write anymore!

So they gathered around in a council
Decided to set the record straight,
Threatened V. Tiny Tot with a big, fat bill,
And dire consequences to his fate!

Pretty satisfied with that,
They all went back!
And they hoped it would get
V. Tiny Tot properly on track!

What they didn’t realize was this:
V. Tiny Tot’s aberration wasn’t ad-hoc,
That he didn’t write was no fault of his!
After all, he lived in Writers’ Block!
—

Another poem. For obvious reasons – heh heh!

(Image created using Wordle.net)

To give you that sponge-shoulder when you cry…
To assure you that you’ll score at the first try!
To lift you up when your spirits are low,
To speed you up when things go slow!
To make you feel like you are the king,
To stand by you when you haven’t done anything!
To teach you the finer points of life,
To make sure your ‘girl’ becomes your ‘wife!’
To clean up the mess when every one else has left,
To ensure you never feel bereft…
To take you on a night-tour to hunt for food
To say, “Take me drunk. I’m home, dude!”
To listen to you each time you yell,
To tell you, “It’s okay, no need to dwell…”
To plonk on your sofa & fiddle with the remote,
To help you learn your lessons by rote!
To walk up to the girl you had a crush on -
To tell her, “Make him yours, before he is gone!”
To use things you own & care not one bit
To tell you (however fat you are) “You are fit!”
To push you back & jump into the fight
To come back with a bleeding nose & say, “It’s alright!”
To remind you that the sun will still rise in the east…
To introduce you to others as the “good-looking beast.”
To say anything further, I leave it to you -
To tell me, what does your friend mean to you?

—–

I seem to be on a spree – but I’m not complaining. Maybe it’s better to NOT resolve & just do it. Whatever.

I’m enjoying it, so far…

(Image created using Wordle.net)

I’ve been tagged. Again.

A dear friend of mine tagged me with this meme a while back. For lack of interesting content & imagination to post a story, I’ll try & enthusiastically (?) answer the questions, hoping my answers will entertain you.

Here we go. Again.
——–
RULES:

• You can only answer yes or no.
• You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and asks.

Ready, Set, Go!

I break rules — Yes
Been arrested? — NO!
Kissed someone you didn’t like? — No
Slept in until 5 PM? — Yes
Ran a red light? — Yes
Been suspended from school? — NO
Experienced love at first sight? — YES
Totaled your car in an accident? — NO
Been fired from a job? — NO
Fired somebody? — NO
Sang karaoke? — NO!
Pointed a gun at someone? — No
Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t? — Yes.
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? — NO
Kissed in the rain? — No (?)
Had a close brush with death (your own)? — YES.
Seen someone die? — No.
Played spin-the-bottle? — No.
Smoked a cigar? — Yes.
Sat on a rooftop? — Yes.
Smuggled something into another country? — No.
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes? — No.
Broken a bone? — Yes
Skipped school? — No.
Eaten a bug? — No!
Sleepwalked? — No.
Walked a moonlit beach? — Yes…
Dumped someone? — Yes. No.
Lied to avoid a ticket? — Yes.
Ridden in a helicopter? — No.
Shaved your head? No.
Made your girlfriend cry? — Yes
Eaten snake? — No.
Marched/Protested? — No.
Had Mexican jumping beans for pets? — No.
Puked on amusement ride? — No.
Seriously & intentionally boycotted something? — No.
Been in a band? — No.
Been on TV? — Yes.
Shot a gun? — No.
Skinny-dipped? — No.
Gave someone stitches? — No.
Ridden a surfboard? — no.
Drank straight from a liquor bottle? — Yes.
Had surgery? — Erm, yes.
Streaked? — No.
Taken by ambulance to hospital? — No.
Passed out when not drinking? — No.
Peed on a bush? — YES!
Donated Blood? — No.
Grabbed electric fence? — No.
Eaten alligator meat? — No.
Killed an animal when not hunting? — No
Peed your pants in public? — No.
Snuck into a movie without paying? — No.
Written graffiti? — No.
Still love someone you shouldn’t? — No.
Been involved in/witnessed a natural disaster? — No.
Met a celebrity? — Yes.
Been in handcuffs? — No.
Believe in love? — Y.E.S.
——–
I’m also supposed to tag 15 friends. But I won’t. Reasons?

I’m too lazy.
I’m scared I’ll be killed for passing on such silly time-pass.
I don’t know 15 people.
There aren’t 15 people who’ll read this post.

The last one is true. Honest.

The Land of Noo
Was a land where all wishes came true.
Now don’t you wish,
You had lived there, too?

But hold your horses!
Don’t jump too far,
What you don’t know,
Might leave a deep scar!

It’s a pity that
Now no one lives there…
Everyone who did,
Wished the rest would disappear!

—

Just some random time-pass! Happy New Year!…

Yeah, I know – so I’ll skip directly to the good news.

42 Quirks will now be a magazine-style blog.

After the declaration, come the details.

42 Quirks has been my home on the web for a long time now. The blog has seen a lot of changes since it began – most of them mirroring my life… However, in these last few months, I realized something very unique: I would not feel like writing a post unless I had a story to tell.

That kinda limits my options.

But then, 42 Quirks wasn’t meant to be a story-blog per se, was it?

I decided to do a li’l make-over, move stuff here n there, add some stuff, take out some stuff – you know…

And after a while I settled for this look: the Isotherm theme for Wordpress.

This look is not yet final – I am still in search of that ‘perfect’ look; something I know, but can’t translate into reality (or is it virtuality?) thanks to my appallingly meager knowledge of coding…

The spirit of the blog has been finalized.

42 Quirks will now serve the purpose it was built for: eccentric ramblings about my random sojourns of the life, the universe & the inter-webs. So there’s a high likelihood that you’ll find a few tech topics sharing post-space with film-reviews, jostling for attention-space with short-stories & excerpts from books I’m reading currently…

I hope you’ll stick around for the ride – like you’ve always done in the past.

(Thanks to hummingcrow@Flickr for the original pic! Remixed using BeFunky.)

Finally, posting the (grand?) finale!!

I suggest, you read 24 & Dead – Part 1 & 24 & Dead – Part II before you continue…

—-

The fuckin meteorite had broken my toes, caused the girl and my cellphone to split, and worse, it had also fried my phone’s innards. I stopped to think – how did that happen? Magnetism? I looked at my watch. It was broken, but working. Radioactivity? Maybe… If that was it, it could be frying my innards, too.

And at that moment I knew I was going to die. I was only twenty-four and I was about to die. Pity.

I thought of fighting death till my last breath and all that poetic, euphemistic jazz. Then I realized that even if I were to make it out of here alive, I would still have to fight my extreme [blood]-phobia, somehow get to a payphone, call Emergency services, and hold on to ‘dear life’ until they managed to locate me – because I did not have a clue as to where I was. And even if they did find me they’d have to do so within the next few hours – because I estimated I’d be dead anyway by sunrise.

And then again, even if this miracle somehow DOES happen, there’s still the suspected radioactivity to consider. Already I could feel my DNA mutating, my genes shifting, my chromosomes doing whatever-it-is-that-they-do, my balls hurting… (Okay, so the last one wasn’t due to the radioactivity, so what?) Plus, I had nothing in my stomach – no food, no pills, nothing.

I’d once attended a camp at a cop-school when I was a kid. There was this guy with a deep baritone, and thick moustache who used to give motivtional speeches. I could clearly picture him saying, “If you are stuck in a situation, don’t panic. Do a quick S-W-O-T analysis. The solution will come to you.”

So I did a S-W-O-T analysis. This is what came out:

Strengths – Not enough to move the meteo-fuckin-rite.
Weakness – Too much and growing.
Threats – Death.
Opportunity – None, as far as I/eye could see.

No solution. Only panic setting in. Not good.

I tried other tacks as well – as many as I could remember. Scout camp, Survival camp, First day of college, Ragging, Office, Girlfriends. None worked. The last one did give me some momentary distraction, but then my balls began to hurt even more, so I decided not to get distracted – momentarily or otherwise. One thing all these ‘tacks’ definitely did was, add to the panic. Definitely NOT good.

In this entire process, what I hadn’t realized was it was almost sunrise. And my estimates had been right. Another few minutes and the first rays of the sun would pierce the horizon and I’d die a slow, painful, burning death.

In the last few minutes of my life, I thought about how ironic it all had turned out to be. Just a few months back, I was twenty-four, extremely successful, the hot-shot guy with the hot-shot car, rising up the ranks like nobody’s business. And then like any other fairy-tale, I met this hot chick, fell in love with her and we decided to get married.

So far, so good.

Now with 20/20 hindsight, I could see that the signs were there all the time. I just never noticed them. For example, she used to say, she liked me the way I was – twenty-four, young and hot-blooded. I thought she’s was being understanding & sweet. We’d meet only at night, but I attributed to her being a nymphomaniac. I even remembered having secretly thanked my stars back then!

So, when she said those fateful words, I should have realized right there and then that it would all end in disaster especially for me. I had the peculiarly extreme hematophobia, remember??

But, I did what I did, and I have no regrets about it. Especially now, that I am about to die.

They say that the best way to kill us is to drive a wooden stake through our heart, or shoot us with silver, or stuff garlic – into us or around you. I was always careful to avoid any and all of the above.

What the heck, at least I’ll die doing something my ‘new-found’ brethren would never do – watch the sun rise.
—–