Spew notes

Book Review: Open by Andre Agassi

2011-12-09T10:38:00.001+05:30

“I look up. I'm lying on the floor beside the bed. I remember now. I moved from the bed to the floor in the middle of the night. I do that most nights. Better for my back. Too many hours on a soft mattress causes agony. I count to three, then start the long, difficult process of standing. With a cough, a groan, I roll onto my side, then curl into the fetal position, then flip over onto my stomach. Now I wait, and wait, for the blood to start pumping.”

These opening lines from “Open” – grip you and send you into the world of a champion sportsman and a tortured human being. The sweat-ridden years of ball bashing and a childhood measured in sets of six games. You realize the price a human being pays for being gifted – the agonizing pressure of being squeezed tightly into a shape and destiny molded by your talent. And you feel the serrated fear of giving up even this one gift.

(“But if tennis is life, then what follows tennis must be the unknowable void. The thought makes me cold.”)

Open is at its least, a deeply moving story, and at its best, a transformational one, especially for anyone who’s tasted sport and its angst-filled romance. You get a ringside view of professional sport and uber-human beings, who have given up entire lifetimes to play a game at its highest level for a few short years, without any assurance of payback – you see dreams becoming mortal and entire sagas written in a few thousand square feet of real pain and victories all too fleeting. It deconstructs and demolishes the paradigm of effortlessness of champions; you see the painful imbalance of their natures in their compulsion to win, and the price they pay for this imbalance.

The content is deep but the language of this story is surprisingly and happily literary with a modern, staccato style that’s a sign of our times and our attention spans. Some phrases blow you away with their simplicity and some have you nodding in agreement, using words that could have been yours.

While Open does dive deep into the soul of the tale, its also a tale well-told covering lots of ground about Agassi’s life events, his childhood and professional life, his relationships and loves, his much talked about experiences with drugs – it comes across as a mostly honest tale, but maybe that’s a just a happy contrast to the little we had known and the lot that we had assumed.

Open is not a sad story or a happy one, its just real. Just like life, it leaves you at the end a little happy, a little sad but mostly with the fullness of an experience, a little wiser and little more human, with a degree of insight into life’s realities.

I hope you will read this book. For Andre Agassi and his story -he is a remarkable man with a perspective that’s even more remarkable for its objectivity, for Tennis - you will never watch a match the same way ever again, but most of all, I hope you will read it for the same reasons you ever read a great tale – for the way it moves you, teaches you and carries you along for a journey you may not have completely signed up for.

Movie Review: The Dirty Picture

2011-12-05T10:57:00.001+05:30

Watched the dirty picture over the weekend. (Insert Dilli joke here “Maa, main gandi picchar dekhne jar aha hoon.” “Theek hain beta. Ghar jaldi aana”)

Yeah, so it was THE Dirty Picture.

Well, here is the gist of it, the Vidya Balan essayed- Reshma , a sassy village girl runs away to Chennai to make it big, quickly discovering among its streets the repressed sexuality that’s a signature of the Indian male – the thigh-groping old man sitting next to her in theatre or the elderly neighbor. who plugs away at his wife manfully every night and propositions her in the morning. Her genius lies in her curiosity and her eventual embracing of it, paving her way into the hearts and fantasies of larger than life movie-stars and full of life movie fans as the voluptuous “Silk”. Her curves are her grammar and her dance the syntax of a new voluptuous, sexual lingua franca. She drops all pretence of middle classed orthodoxy as she plays the part in real life

“Kya aapko patha hain maine 500 ladkiyon ke saath “tuning” ki hain? “Haan sir, lekin ek ladki saath kabhi 500 baar tuning nahin ki hogi”

The acting is of a high standard and very quickly, you identify with the character stronger than the actor. The high point of the movie is the dialogue – classically spicy South Indian – with crisp double entendres ringing of sassiness and the humor rather than any twisty vulgarity. “Jab Sharaafat ke kapde utharthe hain, tab sharifon ko hi sabse zyaada mazaa aata hain". The imagery in the movie - a Jeetendra era evoking song sequence or the deeply-bloused, bra-peeking south indian female uniform - is artfully created and adds so much tone to this 80's based story.

I wish the script had spent some time on the making of Silk’s psyche - the core of her sassiness and curiosity - but the later half does do justice to her mind - the making and eventual unraveling of it.

Strangely enough, I thought the movie could work better for women than for men, the titles and the promo shots are provocative enough - but it could tap into the Silk in every woman. In the movie, her impact on men and women is her biggest source of herself and she uses that as a weapon of offense and defense powerfully. All in all, an intelligent experience punctuated with crackling humour – It ages a bit in parts from being out there too long- it isn’t one you can’t do without, but definitely better off with it.

...restless...

2011-10-18T13:02:00.001+05:30

Its been a satisfying few years. Work's been alright, friendships are in full bloom, various life altering decisions formed, made and changed, nieces and nephews born, joys felt, all in all life in its grandest version of Maya. Am happy, content and healthy.

Yet, I feel the call.

I am not sure what the call is - I know its nothing morally uplifting like changing the world or anything. But I don't know what it is. Sometimes I think its the feeling of being in a pack of wolves, sharing a sense of elevated spine-straightening, fangs baring belonging and power as we hunt. I don't know if I've ever felt it to miss it. But I seem to know the feeling..can almost sense it on the hairs on the back of my neck.

Maybe its not as feral as all that. Maybe its just the feeling of being in a group - united by our sense of sameness yet differentiated by our quirks and our faces, seen as one by the world outside as we cracked our inside jokes with the shared comfort of liberties granted and taken. Its like living life with heightened senses, seeing and feeling things as a person and as a group.

Maybe its not that either. Maybe its a sense of discovery, a feeling of risk that I miss. Maybe I feel trapped by all the mass of equations and calculations that I've become. Missing the thudding heartbeat as I make choices not knowing with certainty that its the right choice. The headlights of my life working too well, perhaps, illuminating the road ahead with a clarity all too well maybe?

what's this call I hear?

Sexiness and Entrepreneurship

2011-04-11T11:28:00.000+05:30

A long conversation with an old friend faced with an interesting choice: Having been an employee (a very successful one) and an entrepreneur (an incredibly successful one), what should I do now? In a generation which is seeing such a number of “right here, right now” entrepreneurs, I think this is an important question.

Too many B-school cafes and office water coolers around India resound with the prequel to the above question – how do I become an entrepreneur? Precisely these conversations end up elevating “entrepreneurship” to a higher level. Almost like it is the choice for any uber-individual.

While I would hesitate to judge that, I do know this – thinking of this in absolute terms would be wrong. I think it is important to consider what slice of employee life one has seen, and what slice of entrepreneur life one is going to see.

I know a number of employees who lead fulfilled satisfying lives, doing meaningful work with interesting people and are happy doing it. I know an equally vocal set which don’t. What are you going to compare – a great employee experience with a not-so-great entrepreneur one? Or is the other way around? There are levels of satisfaction and energy with both these choices, and it would be incredibly useful to look at this with a cold clear eye.

Apart from comparing the right apple to the right orange, I think there’s another part of the question: Are you choosing “what to do” or are you choosing “who you are”?

Think about that for a second.

What is the question you should be asking?

Everyone wants to be their own, internal, larger-than-life, sexier-than-sexy Shahrukh Khan. That’s the nature of the beast. But here’s the rub -- If you are not Shahrukh Khan in your mind already, it is unlikely that employee or entrepreneur choices will make you one. Don’t make entrepreneurship an identity choice. Make it just a choice of what you do.

My conversation with my friend ended with I think a mutual feeling of liberation. Of the freedom to make a genuine choice between two alternatives.

I think he himself is unique in the fact that in his mind what he does and who he does it with is far more important than how he does it - as an employee or not. I admire that about him.

What is it that really matters to you?

Entrepreneurship is not sexy. And every entrepreneur will tell you this.

The Wooden Ratio ....

2010-12-04T15:36:00.002+05:30

So..back to my favourite topic of nuclear disarmament and political instability in the middle east. Yeah right.

Kondi expostulated this beautifully precise theory of what it takes for a guy to score in this day and age of frenetic electronicry, short attention spans and the dawn of the e-reader.

17 women and 2 Large shots of Vodka.

I am not kidding. That's what it is.

Here is how it pans out. (Kondi, once again - respect.)

Invite seventeen women to a misty evening party in a house in downtown. Clean behind your ears, dress well and be polite.

Now, as you circulate in the room with your scotch on the rocks, you'll probably find that leaving alarming filters of beauty and intelligence aside, ceterus paribus so to speak, 50% of the seventeen women are married. Hmm.

You move on.

8.5 women left as a possible set (told you - this is precise).

You circulate among these 8.5 women and find that another 50% of them are 'Engaged' - leaving…(I hear whirring calculators here) ...4.25 potentially scoreable women.

Still good odds, you think, while stirring some more ice into your scotch.

Hold on though.

You go on to find another (and I pause here to extend sympathy for the plight of the eligible Indian male. But rings true, doesn't it?) 50% of these lovely women are (or think they are) dating "The One", leaving (best leave the calculations to us from here on) 2.125 fantastic women to score off.

That's right. 2.125.

Still good odds…50%? Heck, you think, I can live with that, you think. Until you realise that one of these 2.125 women is a hardcore feminist and a confirmed man-hater, dragging, wait for it, another woman with her into this phallic morass (In case you didn't know, no woman can never love or hate by herself. She drags her soul sister along to hold the handbags) leaving 2.125 -1 (the feminist) -1.000 (her gullible friend) = 0.125 women to score with.

Damn! , you think, you were looking to score but hardly in decimal points.

But there is hope. And here is where the story of the Indian male gets redeemed, and in one elegant sweep, adds the dash of realism which takes this theory from mere bar banter to a hypothesis worthy of academic contemplation.

10% of the original set of 8.5 married women aren't happy in their marriages, and are looking to score "out of bounds", so to speak, bringing back, rather grandly, 0.850 women back into the forlorn equation bringing to an almost-there sum total of 0.975 women.

Er, you think. I knew the gender ratio in India is screwed but didn't really expect that to translate so literally. But wait.

Remember those two large shots of vodka? Here's where they come in. Serve those low on lime and high on ice and a potentially unscoreable 0.975 woman becomes a rip roaring cauldron of vodka-fuelled, sexually available woman with a probability factor of 1.000.

There you have it - a finite, precise Wooden ratio of 17:1.

Recap: 17- 8.5 (married)-4.25 (engaged)-2.125 (dating) - 1 (feminist)-1 (assistant free rider) + 0.85 (married but unhappy) + 2 large shots of vodka.

Drunken Corollary: If you know seventeen women and haven't scored, you are the eighteenth one.

Life after ISB

2010-11-20T11:16:00.002+05:30

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Or so they say.

Not true for life after ISB.

My priorities in ISB? Getting a job, a hot chick and the next meal at Sarovar.

Five years, two jobs and one marriage on… My priorities today?

My wife's next idea of a meal, traffic and of course…. what to do with the loads of dosh sloshing around in my bank account.

Seriously speaking though, I must say life's been very good post ISB, and from what I see around me, true of most people in the batch.

On the job front, you learn very quickly that the things that make you stand out in college have only a weak correlation to how you do at work.

You see that it takes a couple of years to figure out the delta between your dream job and your dream.Most do find an amicable balance between the two or if not, have the resources to reach that balance.

You learn that it's not the company you work for, it's the people you work with that makes a difference to how you feel about life.

You find money on its own has a short half-life, and you find yourself making choices where money isn't among your top priorities.

You also find out that fancy designations don't really mean fancy work – lots of money doesn't mean lots of work and that the big roles are in the small places.

People puzzle you with weird choices but you know it's a different game for everyone and the happiest people are the ones that know this.

Finally, there's a whole lot more to life than ISB and its aftereffects – you move on from being a hotshot MBA to being many different things – a wife, a father, a son (better late than never), a student - all of them equally important.

Good luck to all of you. Breathe easy. It's all good – whether you ace the next term or not.

The Great Indian Novel

2010-11-11T15:39:00.001+05:30

I don’t know about you but I don’t like Shashi Tharoor. Blame it on shady alliances for IPL teams or the very non intellectual head of hair that he wears – I’ve pretty much placed him in a category of authors who aren’t ..well..authors.

Then I read the Great Indian Novel.

It’s a quiet, unassuming book with no grand declarations of timelessness on its blurb-zone, neither does it start with a bang going into whirlwind chapters or breathless action.

It starts with a conversation between a quirky old man and an assuming young man. Its only as you read on that the characters unfold merging multiple times into people you have heard of and people you think you have heard of. You worry a bit about whether you are placing the characters right, and you move uneasily on, peeling back pages ever so often, but you end up moving on.

And then you get caught up in the events that pages unfold for you, and you realize that you have got the characters right and that its all beginning to make sense. Often you are caught unawares by the clever turn of phrase and often by the rhyme. The pages make you smile and make you frown but it never fails to touch you.

The book is about India, the creation of it, the fragility of the events that led to it. It surprises you to see the very human and very mundane conversations and emotions that could have led to its creation, and how it could all have ended up very differently. The fight for independence, you realize, was about greatness and sacrifice but also about petty matters like ego and pride, willfulness and sloth.

Shashi Tharoor ( I am tempted to knight him on the fly, never mind the hair) is a giant intellect who has brought an immense amount of knowledge about world history and affairs to bear very lightly on a subject that touches most Indians in the most parochial of ways.

He uses the Mahabharatha’s familiar contours to take us into the lives of eminent personae of the independence struggle, and brilliantly uses the it’s remarkably tolerant view of human strengths and frailty to bring us close to these leaders, to make them more human without judging them.

In Tharoor’s book, the characters of the Hindu epic stand for people - Bhishma becomes Gangaji Datta (Gandhiji), Dhritarashtra is Nehru while sometimes he uses the characters to stand for institutions and values – democracy, then Indian Army and so on. It’s great fun to decode the characters so I won’t spoil it all for you here – the wikipedia has a list if you are still tempted, but I would suggest you read the book. Its in the various characters you will try on each character that the book holds its truest joy.

In the end, the book will leave you a little closer to the idea of India – and also to the leaders who helped create her, you will feel more intimately connected but also more than a little sad for the streak of mortality that you will see. Enjoy this book slowly – am sure you will find a number of flaws – but you will come away richer, none the less.

A DSLR or a digital camera In India?

2010-11-01T13:35:00.002+05:30

Spewnotes will take a slight detour from its avowed goal of purposeless rambling and meandering tales to delve into a supposedly useful topic (instigated by the blog's collective readership of one and half souls). My apologies if the post below is solemn and takes itself too seriously - a heinous crime in my view.
Should I buy a digital camera or a DSLR?
Well, assuming good pictures is the goal, one has to start of saying that buying a good camera is no guarantee of a great picture. (as author has found out with recurring regualrity - Editor). So, choose a camera with care. For a DSLR, I think a Canon is a fair choice. Simple to use and takes good pictures. Also, very popular in India and the US.
Deals: Best to get from the US or Singapore -cheapest there. You will get a basic DSLR for about 20-25K.
Canon 1000D is probably what we could call a basic DSLR (also known as Rebel XS in the US) - 550-650 US$. In India, retail prices have dropped quite a bit but should still be about 20% higher than the US. If you are adventurous, you can go to Palika bazaar and get the DSLR for an in-between price(I know a guy here I buy from ). Chandni Chowk is the place in Delhi where you get the camera cheapest, but its a wholesale market and may not be great for service. Its a "buy-it, forget-us" price.
For a nation-wide view, cameras generally get imported into Chennai from South East Asia and hence, the grey market prices are lowest there, followed by Bangalore. Of course, this is about DSLRs.

But honestly, I think the rush for DSLR's is a little misplaced and not necessarily for everyone. I'll put it like this:
Low-end digitial cameras >>> Low end DSLR >>>High end digital camera >>> High end DSLR

This is a simplistic view and to be taken as such.
Point I am making so laboriously is that a DSLR is not a necessarily a better camera - its just more accurate in terms of positioning and detail.

For someone not into fine detail photography, a high end digital camera is probably a lot better and a lot cheaper than a DSLR, simply because it has got outstanding flexibility in terms of zoom in and out, Liveview etc. Do check out Nikon or Canon digital cameras and image quality - they cost about INR 20K in India. (Price info applies here as well).
DSLRs, for every new zoom range, you need an extra lens costing INR 5-10 K upwards. The Nikon ones now come with a projector capability - you can project pics directly onto a wall from the camera! For INR30 K you will get an outstanding digital camera or basic DSLR.

The great thing about DSLRs of course is that you can dive deep into the world of photography, learn a lot about it and experiment with different quality lenses (an expensive hobby - my spend on lenses since I started shooting about six months ago is upwards of 20k INR now :))
All in all, buying a camera is a labor of love - else you could find yourself with yet another cool gadget (read all cellphones other than the iphone, thigh massagers, feet scratchers, etc) that you don't use all that much.

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/should-you-buy-a-dslr-or-point-and-shoot-digital-camera

Dilli Game

2010-10-30T20:33:00.000+05:30

Dilli's never been home to me - surprising me in ways that I ought not to be surprised in, throwing up the unexpected with frequent regularity and on much rarer occasions, does me the bizarre.

Its 11.30 p.m. on a warm Saturday evening in Dilli, and the trance beats at Mojo weave their way into my body. The cold club air washes over me, the energy is crackling out of my fingertips - I am feeling good, and am about to let someone know it.

I see her at the bar, nursing a scotch on the rocks. Dressed in a long black dress, the smooth shiny fabric clinging on to every curve like an old girlfriend - she looks cool, calm and confident as she tosses her long hair back in one sinewy motion as she brings diamond studded fingers to her mouth, to drag deeply on a Camel.

I catch her eye - and her gaze lingers for a heartbeat before washing over the rest of the gyrating crowd. I know its my night. The beats accelerate as I seat on the empty bar stool next to her, nod over at her emptying scotch glass and say "buy you another of those?".

She leans over, sending a wave of Bvlgari up my senses, clears a curtain of black shiny tresses from her shoulder, tucks it neatly behind her ear in one sweet motion and says "Henh-ji?"

The beats stopped.

RIP

2010-10-28T10:13:00.002+05:30

Sitting on my armchair, looking over the balcony of a crowded apartment complex in a Mumbai on a Thursday evening, I found myself wondering (among other things, of course) about how times have changed. Well, yes its the economy, stupid and yes, sure the green cover has depleted and of course urban congestion needs to be addressed right away, but I held our collective social horses on these weighty issues and settled down to think about how boys and girls have changed in our lovely country. More specifically, the relationship between boys and girls in India, or to drill a hole in it, about the sheer lack of sexual tension between boys and girls in India.

Now before you get all agitated and start throwing statistics and hyperlinks (damn! how I hate it when someone sends me a link like its supposed to be the answer to everything - imagine a sage looking all inscrutable and handing you a leaf with hieroglyphics in response to a complex question about directions to the loo - god! I even got a link on SMS yesterday) about fall in average age of people "getting some" for the first time and percentage of teenage abortions ad neveryoumindum, am not talking about actual sexual incidence here -I mean, that was bound to increase with global warming (another story) but am talking more about the utter sexual tension in a teenage environment. Remember, for instance, going into brain freeze when a that sweet girl from E&E rubbed shoulders with you in rush to get to the lab, or if she leaned close to ask you which class was going on and leaving behind a teasing peek that straightaway clogged your brain. Well, anyways, I think that's all over now.

Platonic relationships are on the rise, poisoning young minds, subverting them into weird relationships which men and women were never supposed to engage in. We have buddies, pals, unisex clothing (the nerve!) and even room-mates, for heaven's sake.

And, as far as I can see, the real cause for this is the Bra.

No, really, I mean this. Think about it - especially you bro-folk growing up on "how I met your mother" ( I feel a little like Ted here), there used to be a time where the bra used to be less an item of clothing and more a weapon of mass seduction. I recall the days (and i have to say, those were the days!) where the bra used to a flimsy piece of clothing held together by no more than a couple of pins and a fraying thread. While dismaying engineering this might be, it made for fabulous viewing pleasure - though, offering the wearer little protection, and doing charmingly little to hold things together.

Girls walking on campus would try to add support by folding their arms in front of them at every given opportunity but it did get a bit limiting and while I have no way of knowing this for sure, I think they stopped caring (especially after the first semester). Leaving us boyfolk with untold joy in viewing unrestrained staircase jiggles, brain-whooshing wobbles and of course the soft, pliant hug - the 'give' was unmistakably inviting, leaving the lingering hug as more a sign of sexual invitation than the disgusting symbol of bro-dom that it went on to become. Even as you got to base, all you had to do was wave your fingers in the air behind said pliant chick, and the bra would drop off from her body out of sheer fatigue, leaving you looking a like a hero.

All this changed irrevocably, with the grand entry of the bloody Tee-Shirt bra.

I think its known by a few other names as well, but I think (and I choke up with emotion when I do) this invention is solely to blame of the rise of bro-chick buddydom. The bra underwent a transformation from a peeky nothing to a heavy-duty, multi-component, full fledged garment padded up with what feels like (quite literally) layers of Kevlar -the same material used to block bullets and other metal-laden shrapnel, leaving women traveling in what looks like elevators around their lissome bodies, utterly impervious to cold weather (sigh!) and the titillating (how I love the English language) Dave Barry breeze. A hug that's now more GI Joe than Pam Anderson, with a sameness and uniformity to the most titillating of body-motion combinations, which we so scientifically call cleavage, that makes the eyes glaze over.

Parents world over sleep a lot easier, knowing how well protected their teenage daughters are, boys find a lot more time to listen to their I-pods, playing pool on Iphones blissfully unaware of the various chemical reactions could have occurred during what they probably thought was an uneventful day at school.

And I think the biggest damage has been done to women and girls, who now spend billions of dollars on (or steal from their aunts) beautifying gels, creams and doctors, sweat zillions of buckets at gyms to get the perfect body to get male attention when, as Dave Barry put it (in another day and age), just a stiff breeze would do.

RIP, The Great Indian Bra.

More dilli...

2010-02-08T13:32:00.001+05:30

And this can happen only here.....and you will not believe me, but this actually happened...

Smart young purchase officer of BLC (Big Large corporation) saunters into the cabin of his boss - a balding, pot bellied general manager (PBGM)
"Sir, here are the - " he stops and stares at PBGM - "sir, pardon me, but dont you think your hair looks like Shahrukh Khan's today?"
PBGM blushes embarassedly and self consciously pats down a decidedly scrooge duck-like tuft at the back of his head..."really?" ....more patting..." ahh..hemm..well...i ..er...DID get my hair cut yesterday..."

"I swear sir....! my heart almost stopped thinking I am giving my leave application to Shahrukh khan" ....he shuffles a piece of paper unobtrusively onto PBGM's table...
"well..my wife has been making this special egg yolk based henna, y'know...." PBGM scrawls enthusiastically

"Sir, its WORKING...you look YOUNG"...pockets the paper...." I will come after my leave for this recipe sir!"

Told you...this is dilli ...!

and more chaiiii...

2010-01-05T23:54:00.002+05:30

Its a wintry morning, Singhsaab and I have decided to go wild and walk down to Kamal tea stall instead of the pantry for our 11 o clock cuppa. I am in deep in thought about global warming, megan foxxxy and whathaveyou while Singhsaab has just taken a break from building another complex BI query.

We are walking along companionably when singhsaab nods his head vigorously in response to nothing in particular and announces "Medical doesn't cover OPD charges, y'know". "Eh?" I go. "Swines" he carries on smoothly "its all a scam...!" I am now utterly tongue-tied at this scholarly holding of the forth. "you tell me, how many times will you get a brain tumour?" he looks at me and before I turn my fuddled brain to the actual mathematics of the knotty problem, he thunders on "and how many times will you get a viral fever?" I close my eyes and shake my head in amazement at one more of singhsaab's unbelievably profound conversations. I open my eyes to find him calmly looking at me.

"Chai?"

Chai!

2010-01-05T23:50:00.005+05:30

Dilli has a vigor and zest all its own, most of which even the sweeping surge of modernity is hard pressed to contain.

Picture this: its about 11 a.m on a thursday morning and my first day in the offices of a busy large corporation (BLC). Hundreds of worker bees hunched over flickering screens and busy excel sheets, the hum of profitable conversations counting millions of rupees of buying and selling, I trundle over to the office table size pantry room where weary old kattoo is hunched beside the coffee machine. I am about to politely interrupt his reverie when something large and busy bustles past me into the pantry room rubbing his hands in utterly undeserved glee and booms "Kattoo , yaar - ek BADHIYA si chai pila de..!"

Kattoo bursts into action as if called by Dalai Lama to invade China and turning purposefully towards the coffee machine, with as much zest as his twenty year old body and 7.2 mm of turning radius will allow, pushes the big red button which says TEA on it, watches intently as weak tepid tea dribbles into a cup and produces it with a flourish. One sip by big bustling man and he erupts "waah kattoo! mazaa aa gaya!!" and trundles away happily.

Its inane - a meaninglessly celebrated and overinvested moment of the day and yeah, its incredibly Dilli!

the truckdriver and the cellphone..

2009-04-14T22:32:00.003+05:30

“Hanji Sirji”…
Omkar screeched amidst the grating noise of the gearbox "Damn!” he thought “cheapskate Nattoo!” he thought of his pan chewing, Laajo-wooing, potbellied owner of the rattletrap that used to pass for a truck about twenty years ago….the rattletrap which Omkar now drove …. “that whoring Nattoo spends thousands on lottery tickets but hands me a hundred and twenty rupees for the truck’s maintenance “rakh le yaar” he would go as if Omkar could buy the Tata factory with the spare change…

But he had to be polite. Ever since he quit his secure job as a clerk in the garment factory citing ideological differences with his work supervisor, becoming a driver for Jai Mata Di transport brought him more prestige in his native Lakhana than a clerk’s job which paid him twice as much (at least officially). Omkar mused for a bit while he screeched up another gear up Khanki ghat and concluded that the people of Lakhana had an unnatural respect for size. The villagers were fascinated by Gangoo who was rumored to be the tallest boy in the entire district. Speaking of size he thought his neighbour Gomti had the largest, milkiest ….”CLANG!!!” his musings about the lush Gomti were interrupted as he heard the unmistakable noise of a policeman’s lathi clanging on his trucks’ bonnet. He slammed his brakes…slammed in manner of speaking since the truck didn’t do anything even remotely as urgent instead dissipating speed like a vessel of boiling milk simmering down . He managed to calm down the juddering and decidedly nervous steering wheel and clambered down. His heart started hammering strangely and he mused again and realized this probably had to do with the bloody arrack in the back of the truck.

His stomach decided to shrink away from his hammering heart and sink down to his knees, which were setting a calm beat of their own. He remembered the SP had decided to clamp down on arrack ever since Khaderbhai had had decided to stand for elections.

The policeman rushed over with his lathi raised and face set in the kind of mean scowl that policemen are trained to use in the middle of a potentially fatal raid. He stopped and looked over at Omkar and glanced with a curious respect at Omkar’s left hand. Omkar himself sportingly decided to share in the cop’s curiosity and did some glancing himself. He realized the cellphone was still in his hand, and now that he thought of it, he remembered the burning sensation in his left ear from the tongue lashing Natwar had given him. “Malik hain ya driver?” the cop murmured in an almost seductive baritone. “he-enn?” Omkar murmured nervously, not quite matching the cop’s chocolate-rich tone.

“Aap Malik hain ya driver?” the cop repeated. The ‘aap” triggered off a whole chain of chemical reactions in his body, which calmed the knees and sent his tummy back to its original position. His body seemed to enlarge and steel crept into his tone “Tere se mathlab?” He almost convulsed as he heard what he had just said. But the cop reacted, in almost a mirror image of his earlier physical change and he seemed to shrink as he said “Aa—aapki gaadi…” Omkar decided to seize the moment much as his mother always said he was born to do and replied “haan hain tho? Akkal nahin hain tereko…ghaat pe gaadi roktha hain? Patha nahin hum kiske kaam se jaa rahe hain?” Omkar himself had no idea who he was referring to but decided that calling on a invisible higher power was called for. “phone lagaaoon kya?” he waved the cellphone menacingly.

The cop paled, as much as the madhya pradeshi sun allowed him to, “sirji …one look at you knew you were not a driver..! I was just trying to alert you about the dacoits in Khanki..!”

He clambered regally back into the truck and rested his head on the still-trembling wheel. After a minute, he got up, sent up a silent prayer for Natwar and his next seven generations. If it weren’t for Natwar’s suspicious nature, he would have never had the cellphone…he jumped as the phone rang “kaahaan pahuncha hain? Maa ke shaadi pe jaa raha kya?” as the familiar honeydewed tones of Natwar screeched.

Life was back to normal.

entrepreneurship in india....

2008-04-18T14:40:00.001+05:30

Big board meeting of big company in big bustling metropolis....

BigBossManfromBigcompany (BBMFBC): "We need to look for entrepreneurs in this country…to kickstart our business model..that will earn us untold billions...."

Many hundred miles and a dozen grazing cows away.....

an Ageing woman entrepreneur (AWE) in the hinterlands of S. India hears of big company's intentions and new business, and calls up BBMFBC.

AWE to BBMFBC: "Dear sir, I am an AWE - wanting to invest in your big compani's big bizness. We even have son with MBA working in esteemed but lowly position in your big compani."
BBMFBC: " yes yes…we are looking for budding entrepreneurs like you madam…..well …the investment is like in XXXX zillions of rupess…revenues of YYYY Gazillions of rupees and RoI of a mindboggling 14.28% - almost a FULL percent above what you would get by parking your money safely in the bank."
AWE: "Thank you thank you sir....please do let us know what else we need to do"
BBMFBC: "oh its simple.....please set up a private limited company with XX millions rupees as paidup capital, and email us details with sales tax registration etc. If you have no email, you can even fax! we will duly consider."

AWE to MBA-son: " son - BBMFBC from your compani has given us permission to invest in your big compani big bizness. We are planning to sell off all our cows for this investment and - "

MBAS: "Amma no..don't believe in these big companies - "

AWE: " son - you are educated but not wise. We are taking risk we know but for your future only!"

MBAS: "please don't sell off our cows - they are all you are leaving me in a diddly-squat inheritance!"

AWE: " don't worry son - we can double number of cows if we invest in this business now. Tomorrow, you can be a cow-king!"

MBAS: " Lord shivaaa - "

AWE starts marching to the market every day for best price to sell her cows, and meet investment criteria of BBMFBC.

After a few weeks......

AWE to BBMFBC:"Sir, our shiny cows gauri and kaveri are fetching good rates in the market, we are almost ready with investment- and wanting to invest - -"

BBMFBC: " oh madam, after deep consideration, we have decided that due to family relations with your son working our big company, we are unable to entertain your request for entrepreneurship in our big business.

Many regards".

GAS

2007-10-22T13:00:00.000+05:30

We live in a phenomenal age....... an age where Heidi Klum, Kimi Raikkonnen and the Internet exist…… and my thoughts about the other two, readable as they might be, its the internet I want to talk about.

I have to tell you…the internet may have made the world many things…dumber...scarier...…but I have to say one of the profoundest impacts of the internet is that it has made the world an immensely funnier place. My blog and AW’s link about the average size of the female breast notwithstanding (http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=844)…. I am talking about Google Ad sense, specifically.

Well…I read about GAS a few weeks ago…..and in a flash of blinding foresight, I saw many millions of people discovering my blog and making it a part of their interesting lives, and their morning Coffee and Pot routine…I thought it might make sense (using the term loosely) to invest in GAS… obviously with primary goal of using the many millions that would pore in, to alleviate world poverty, and down a few beers while I was at it.

Google, of course, works at the speed of light, and within the blink of an eye (a fairly galaxy sized eye though ….it took 11 days), they had the application up and running on this site.

Those of you who know this site, know that although we strive to conjure up family sized wholesome entertainment content here, requiring almost no parental guidance (except that to type out the URL), it can be a bit sleazy at times….

My last post was fairly run of the mill….and it of course had fashionable references to smoking….and in the midst of reading my countless fan mail….(I have to delete comments every 3 minutes to avoid overloading the site) …..I see this...

Made my day.

Deeds...and Damn Dads...

2007-10-09T17:20:00.001+05:30

One is used to dads being fairly benign influences during childhood…. the gentle rap on the knuckle for the occasional window smashed by the wild square cut…or errant facial hair.. and the odd knowing glance when one’s convincing mothers about lack of examinations being a recent educational trend that’s catching on fast….but like I said, mostly benign…or so I thought…until that fateful summer of ’97…

I started…on seeing two cigs on the bookcase, right next to the copy of the Godfather. And it wouldn’t have been cause to start, or even stir gently for that matter, except that I was seventeen, just beginning to enjoy the heady rush of early manhood, and inevitably, nicotine…and I was home from university for the summer break. And there they were…cigs on the bookcase… and no one home.

I pondered about it for a while… quickly filched the smokes and dragged 'em on the terrace. Deed done…mouth disinfected with Listerine..and some really foul chicken gravy (always the criminal mind) …I waited for my folks to come back home from work.

All went reasonably well when they did… they didn’t sniff out any carcinogenic behaviour.. enquired politely about falling grades, a touch more hostility about my increasing allowance needs…but like I said, it went well…

Next morning, a Saturday- I remember, after a fabulous egg and some sweet tea,...I was sprawled on the floor over the cricket pages.....Mom going over the Reader's Digest...“you smoke?” she said without looking up ….I started, with considerably more momentum than the previous morning…”ummm…of course not, mom.. what on earth gave you the idea?”…”Dad was saying last night….there were a couple of cigarettes on the bookca-“

“Oh that!” I carried on….with the air of one who’s seen the better part of the world’s pair of missing cigs being ascribed to innocent folk….”Oh that!....Hunch (a univ mate) was over yesterday afternoon….and he’s started to smoke these days, you know…and he smoked them…utterly disgusting I know…but what's one to do?”…"I see…for a moment there, I-" "Oh c’mon ma…me? smoke?” I uttered…with the perfect balance of righteous indignation..and nonchalance….”some more tea, ma?”

And that was that.

Until the next morning…..like a moment from a parallel universe...me poring over the newspaper and mom again in that matter of fact voice, as if she was carrying on from where she left off....”well.. you know…dad found it interesting….that hunch smoked TWO cigs….well.. you know…when two people are together….felt it was far more likely that he smoked one….and the other…you know…”

I collapsed into my crossword.

Masses..and class

2007-10-08T23:45:00.001+05:30

So okay, Simpson, this one’s yours..! I’ll try and write it as well as you tell it…and we’ll both peel off for a beer, and decide who’s one up.

Simpson keeps telling us that we are stubbornly middle classed in our beer-addled minds, and no amount of wealth will ever change it. "We-can-never-be-cool!" he pronounces,...and last Sunday, he comprehensively got me.

Here's how it goes for the Classes…wake up Sunday morning generously hung over….shower, shave by noon…call the blokes for a round of chasers…toddle over to the gizmo shop…for a new set of Blaupunkts for the wheels… kill a few beers while good ol’ Mahmud handles the cabling…toddle back…whip out the Amex…tip a few hundred bucks…and go over the club and hit the pool. All in a day’s work.

And here I was… after having shamelessly codged the ol' wheels off my old folks… I couldn’t have a drink on Saturday night cos’ I was so excited about getting a “system” for the wheels. And that wasn't the worst of it. Not by a long shot.

Woke up at six thirty the next day.... twiddled fingers and banana chips until Simpson woke up.. and proposed the following strategy “Haul me over to young Kumar’s under the bridge and let’s get the cheap speakers you’ve been telling me about. Will buy you beer after.” Simpson, of course, agrees to most things that have beer in it… (I think that’s how he got married in the first place…).

We landed up at Kumar’s at about ten thirty on what turned out to be a nice sunny morning….. waded vigorously into a debate about systems… Kumar generally carrying on about tweeters, woofers and whathaveyous, me shaking my head and simultaneously working out impact on my fragile finances, and Simp just shaking his head. We eventually landed on a JVC ("Japanese, sir!) system with no guarantee (“24% discount sir, and of course, there will be no trouble!”)

Simpson vigorously nodding his support, and off we were. Kumar took to his wiring job with a couple of pliers and great gusto, knocked over half the car, but it very satisfyingly looked like a set piece of seriously demanding engineering in about four minutes. Simp and I trundled over to take in by-two chaias and cigs….talking about kimi’s chances in the 2007 season, poked around in the shop looking at mag alloy wheels, and racing steering wheels, basically stuff I could afford when I hit sixty, was divorced and on the right side of the alimony cheques.

Job done, we played a couple of floyd numbers on it… and we were good. “Do you take a credit card?” “Yes sir yes sir.. Only 2% surcharge sir!” This (the surcharge which worked out to 349 bucks) of course blew my financial projections right out the window. Simpson of course generously agreed to ride with me to the nearest ATM and draw cash. Kumar nodded understandingly but sent young Thippu (who doesn't have a major role to play in the story) anyway to keep an eye on us.

We were at the ATM in about forty minutes of breakneck driving (and I mean that-I broke mine on the speedhump on airport road…..and Simp was on the side of the car which didn’t have a suspension). Sweating a little in our Nike tees but then it was noon, and the car’s AC …ummm….it didn’t have one.

I rushed into the ATM….and realized I didn’t have my card with me. Simpson, thoroughly understanding as ever, wiped the sweat off his dripping brow and smiled at me...through gritted teeth “Now what? Use your credit card?”

I, being the middle classed clod that I am, and horrified of paying a "surcharge", of course waved away such rational courses of action, and traveled at rapid pace over to Chet’s who was nursing a beer over the Sunday crossword. At the end of a conversation which had furious pleading on one end and raucous laughter on the other, Chet lent me his card, and we drove to another ATM, while I rambled on about how we’d get this sorted out in no time. Simpson looked me squarely in the eye, “Do you have the code?” “Of course” I rushed off once again.

Simp decided to cool off with some fruit juice, and I was back just as he had the straw in his parched lips. “Umm…I think I have forgotten the code….” Simpson dropping the juice “Call Che-" “…but I kept trying and I think the card is locked now”.

So there we were...on a hot Sunday afternoon......with a fairly simple task of getting some speakers fitted on the car, beer promised at the end of it.......but simply not the way of the wannabe. One surcharge, one lost debit card, one blocked card with seriously pissed-off card owner, an eventually homicidal Simpson and six sunny hours later ....we hit the bar..........."Bagini Bar- Closed for the Afternoon”

Simpson looks at me…" We just weren’t meant to be cool, were we?”

B.A.D.

2007-10-08T19:07:00.001+05:30

Oh hell..this isn't as spicy as, it suggests. In fact, quite the opposite.

I am going to be boring for a change, and "try to make a difference" by posting about the environment, and adding my readership of 2 (yep...has me in there) to this idea of all the bloggers in the world writing about one idea, in this this case -the environment. (http://blogactionday.org/). In case you hadn't figured out, that's what the post title stands for...!)

And this sets me off on a bit of a tangent- what can I actually do for the environment? And after careful thought and deep consideration, I have the answer for the world - Oral Sex without Foreplay.

Oh..I am sure the reasons are blindingly obvious -but I really must elaborate, for the less bright sections of my readership (And I have a vague feeling this includes me).

Why Sex- Well, its non-carcinogenic for one, and going by recent scientific studies, apart from scratching your armpits, (Equally engaging, but one tends to run out of armpits beyond a point) it is one activity that is engaging yet completely non-carcinogenic. It may be harmful in a lot of other ways, but it is definitely non-carcinogenic. It also has the delightful bonus of engaging two (or more if you are Swedish or Haryanvi) in one activity, hence keeping global energy wilfully occupied in lesser space.

Oral - Ah! you had me here. I was going to go for the real deal, but then realized this involved a lot of rubber production and subsequent energy consumption if one was to prevent the said environmentalists engaged in aforementioned activity from encountering various ailments or taxing the global maternity ward capacity.

Non-foreplay: This one's the key here. See-if the foreplay umbrella encompasses all activities from the whole candlelight dinner on the beach deal, moving on to chocolate ice cream for dessert(men of the world, have you been missing this one?), and then again onto various creams and oils, and you know how much global warming manufacturing three million KL of aromatic oils and fragrances involves, we have a no-brainer here.

So here we are then - this is what I believe the world can benefit from. If all goes well, 4.7 billion people around the world are going to turn up at work with aching jaws and funny breath but definitely to a perceptibly cleaner environment.

Green Peace!

Conversations....and Menopause

2007-09-08T07:48:00.000+05:30

One of the things that set apart human beings from various other beings on the planet is conversation. Animals more or less have simple sounds and gestures and (apparently) use it to convey simple messages in a "I want food" or "Need sex" kinda way while Humans have developed complex syntax of words, gestures and intonations that can convey deep and profound meaning to each other.

Or So I thought....

Of late, I have begun to realize that the whole conversation deal works fine for the human race...up to a point ..somewhere around menopause...beyond which they lapse into deep and profound communication with themselves....and when people meet...the basic idea is to look for a few gaps in the rival's tirade...so one can continue one's conversation with oneself... loudly and vocally....

Mrs. Killjoy, an old family friend and also matriarch of a fairly screwed up family, over to have a cup of tea with my own fabulous mother....sitting on a porch on a fairly pleasant day...

My Mum "Spew's girlfriend is a very nice girl, you know....very sweet...and her parents...even nicer... Spewdad and I are planning to go over to Dilley on the 17th...."

Nodding from Mrs. K "....17th..yes....Motley (her maniac daughter in law) is also planning to go over to her folks place on the 17th...its been so long, you know ...and ever since she had a baby...."

Cluck clucking from Mum...."Apparently, they have been living in Dilley ever since spewgirl has been a baby.....and they are both so well educated you know.....They are both professors in university....."

Mrs. K still in her stride ".....and hopefully she'll get some time to herself you know...she has been planning to go to university for her post graduation, you know....between one thing and another....she's not really had the time ever since the marriage...."

Mum doing adequately herself "....and the good part is they want the marriage to happen as early as possible.....Mr.Spew Sr. also hopes that we can arrive on a date as soon as possible and start making the necessary arrangements, you know"

and on....and on...and amazingly....even more ...on....and the best part is, they finish their cups of tea, and look fabulously content with the whole exchange....having divested deeply inane content onto each other, They hug and they part.

Tea, anyone?

How are preparations....and more such

2007-09-07T23:31:00.001+05:30

As a race, we are susceptible to change, and one of the changes is usually progress. This can be cut a million different ways but I think its safe to say that each generation improves vastly on the previous one, and is completely dumped on the wayside by the next. All this is fine, but there are some topics which bind these generations together with vines of mind numbing inanity, and one of them, to my utter grief, is weddings.

I am getting married in the next few days, and while I am quite looking forward to marriage in all its mundane fullness, it is the damn wedding which is getting my goat to roast over a slow flame.

"how are wedding preparations going?"

A fairly innocuous question, you might say, and innocuous I might agree, if I was haggling with my tailor a few hours before I am supposed to wear the damn thing and turn out in decorous glory to receive splendorously turned out guests, and badly wrapped gifts.

Not, and I repeat, NOT a full ONE HUNDRED days before the wedding. I just failed to see what on earth I supposed to be doing a full three months before the wedding. To me, my wedding prep was dusting off a suit and logging online to book some travel tickets.

and this question doesn't come a few dozen times. It comes in five times a day, day in and day out from every one...old tottering grandfolk, neighbors walking their dog, from the hot girl in tight tee you used to go jogging for, ex girlfriends from whom you were hoping for a "one for old times sake" rout in bed, bosses in the middle of appraisal meetings....it just doesn't stop.

And I still haven't picked up my suit from the tailors.

STBOTB #3...About spewnotes..circa 2007

2006-12-13T09:12:00.000+05:30

"Spewnotes, in no way, intends to educate, inform, propagandize or entertain and aims (using the term loosely and thereby implying much less work), at best, to be something approaching a rambling read."

- Spewnotes,
March 7, 2005

Its been almost three years and I still talk utter bollocks.....

the day Eli spewed..

2006-12-12T23:58:00.001+05:30

Cheers, Eli.

http://eliamma.blogspot.com/2006/12/so-spew-spewedand-how.html

The Namboodiri Principle

2006-11-19T11:40:00.002+05:30

This gem from the effervescent, brilliant Oog - his invention, his glory, my site until he comes up with his own. The Namboodiri principle, evolved in the form of this refined tale, hides a stunning truth - a truth which could, to begin with, help the cause of world peace in no small measure by getting a lot of people laid.

On a sunny humid evening in eastern Kerala, Namboodiri and his friend were walking around a village quite peacably, talking about matters that two young men would on a sunny humid evening in eastern Kerala, when they saw a mahout with a majestic-looking elephant. Looking at the magnificent beast with its lolling walk, Namboodiri felt a sudden desire to own the elephant.
After a brief conference with his friend (who doesn't really have a substantial role in this tale) who owned most of the vigorous head-shaking content in that private dialogue, Namboodiri went to the mahout -

"Good sir, Would you consider giving your glorious elephant to me?"

"No."

Namboodiri walked away content.

Truly....a glorious tale.

minds of married people..

2006-11-19T10:52:00.000+05:30

Saturday afternoon at Pecos. In the middle of a rather vigorous session of beer and various animals cooked in a variety of ways but mainly beer, S leaned forward and queried earnestly "Isn't it strange how married couples tend to hang out with married couples? Isn't it even stranger that even newly married couples are more at ease with married couples?"
Oog burped "yes ra! she's got it! ...for the past four minutes, I've been wondering how it is that I like my wife so much and why it is that i hate being married to her! and yes..this here is it! It is because married couples have to hang out with only married couples! why does it have to be like that?" (oog would have been happier meeting hola-hola dancers from taikwiki, preferably in the nude but that doesn't take away from the question, does it?)

About twenty minutes later, I knew why.

I'd love to say this was due to concentrated thought and gazillion calculations of multiple scenarios i ran in my head at the speed of gossip, but no. A rather smashed but severely tickled Nari started howling in my ear. Howling is what Nari normally does and that, in itself, was insufficient to draw the interest of my own rather pickled senses. No..it was that he howled 0.026 mm from my ear was what probably did it. But moving on, he proceeded to relate a telephonic conversation he'd just had with Soda (who at that moment in time was a picture of content respectability, walking as he was hand in hand with his wife of four years on a romantic evening in Bandstand).

"Maccha...Soda's gonna be a DAD!!" I choked - I'd met soda four days ago, and I'd be damned if a drunken and unmarried Nari managed to worm this intimate info out of himin a 3 minute conversation! "how do you know?" I barked at him having trouble seeing his face which was fading in and out. Probably cos I was waving my fist at it.

Apparently this is the conversation that happened between Nari and Soda.

"Sodaaaaaaa....&!@&@%.....@%$@%$@%$........&@%@$$...^&@!#@@....how are you, ra?

"Umm..hey..taking a walk n bandstand with my wife. Wha-"

"%$@##!!! we spent 7 years in college passing our 4 year course!! Good times, eh ?"

"umm..sure..yeah man.."

2.5 min conversation. Nari definitely with larger share of voice.

Nari: " Okay ra soda %$##, you take care, %$%$...and yeah! HAVE SAFE SEX TONIGHT!" (giggle giggle)

Soda: "um."

Nari: "OR MAYBE NOT! JUST HAVE SEX" (howling howling)

Soda hangs up.

Nari says"Maccha...Soda's gonna be a DAD".