Mihi quoque

Son of a mountain goat. I didn't think it was possible to pull an abdominal muscle. It is, sweet mother of Jesus's great aunt, it is. Blame the retard who decided to test if his leftover former endurance extended to his abs as well. Three (+ 3) sets of 30 reps on day one of abs was a bad idea.

Last Thursday was a bit of a strange day. I had turned Ralph off for the majority of the day as we were in the middle of a rather rushed couple of shoots; the semester's about done, and now everyone realizes that they have about seven pending assignments to get done. We took a quick break around 5:30 to get some food, soon after which I got a text from a former colleague telling me there was a rumor that Benazir Bhutto had been shot. Very, very soon after, it was all over the news, and from snatches of conversation all over Saket, Bhutto's name was audible. A few other people called seeking either confirmation, or to share the news, though in no ones' tone could I detect too much surprise or shock, and it seemed everyone had the same thoughts on the matter as I did; It was a matter of when, not if. The world has lost a brilliant leader, a strong woman, and a symbol of hope. I have nothing but respect and admiration for Bhutto, a woman who accomplished so much, and overcame immense adversity. While Pakistan's history hasn't exactly assigned a crystal clear plaque to Bhutto's reputation, it can't deny that she had the power to change her country, and had wielded that power in the past, and would have wielded it well in the future.

Christmas was a different experience as compared to the routine of finding myself cuddling someone gorgeous I had been following for the last couple of years, and it involved a Greek dinner the night before with an ex who resembled Shannyn Sossamon, a bit of a weakness of mine, and a big festive lunch at the house of my mother's jilted friend(her son-of-a-bitch husband left her for some Italian chick, leaving her to care for a three year old alone) where I met a Stephens professor who studied there with my Dad in the 60s, and had a lot of memories, and a lot of respect for him. Rather ironically, this fellow was the father of a kid who graduated the year after I did at my old (eleventh) school, and was the jilted husband of my French teacher at the school before it (tenth). He was running a part-time media course and was rather interested to know how we went about ours, and I just happened to have a mini-dv POS seated on Aurelia's back seat, and a tape I had taken a dump on(technical term, not what you think) the night before. Also, during a discussion with my sister about her inability to make sense of logic (the subject), he revealed that he had had trouble teaching a fellow I know well as the fat hairy music guy who called me 'Boy Band' for some reason and perpetually needed his workstation AND chair, no matter what I was working on, the same subject. Looking back to the times that guy made me get up and give him his chair in the middle of a busy day prior to an endless night shift, I'm not surprised at this fellow's lack of logic. We won't name this fellow, but this hint ought to help; he has an almost girl's name. And he's hairy and fat. And he does music stories. And I can't stand him, but I keep running into him at bars, and always shake his hand warmly, remembering a former colleague.

This new years, I deserve my ideal new years eve, one I've been attempting for the last six. It involves me, a water bottle, a locked door, and my six-and-a-half foot by six-and-a-half foot bed, with my room's landline disconnected, and Ralph off, having already sent new years messages out. Somehow, every year, those plans get screwed over. This year, when I told my roomies about it, they came to the conclusion that I was depressed, and have informed me that they're all going to be back in town by the 31st morning with a big carton of Guiness with my name on it, and enough of their piss-poor kingfisher to last them as well. Some of them were roared at the other day for not picking up the slack, and not having any basil on hand for a sandstorm, and are apprehensive about violating my new years eve plans, so there's the slight chance I'll get away with it this year after all.

You know how they say that the way you spend your new years is going to be the way the rest of your year goes? I want a peaceful year where I accomplish a lot. I'm going to try to kick it off by accomplishing a whole lot of sleep 31st night.

My sincerest well wishes to all you faithful readers, perusers and lurkers, and even you, strange anonymous stalker-guy-who-knows-way-too-much-about-me. Have a great year ahead.

Racquet (almost) breaks modem. Causes Racket.

I found a badminton racquet, and decided to practice my smash. I momentarily forgot that racquet + my smash + modem = bad. It has something to do with the kinetic energy of a tall man through a light badminton racquet onto a stationary blinking modem.

Today's top story, an orgy was reported in the southern district of New Delhi. Images follow.



I don't know about you guys, but I'm really tempted to tuck into that voluptuous little tart on the left.

Although fairly new to the blogspace, and tending not to be particularly inclined (or maybe the chance hadn't arisen) to meet all you loving readers and perusers of my little slice of google's god's given cyberspace deigned blogger, we decided to meet the lovely Scoutypoo on her recent visit down to Delhi.
First of all, the girl isn't fond of sleep. She called me to see her at four in the afternoon the first day, pulling me out of an exhaustion-induced coma. I met her, wet hair and all, at a possible future location of my murderous belly dance scene for my latest planned fiction film along with her friend, a quiet, sadistic coffee-butcher(this one added milk AND sugar to the helpless java), and most endearing sister, who spared no time at all getting acquainted. Gun to my head, completely honest, the little sister-thing had me at 'bye freak'. Scoutypoo also texted me about Shahrukh uncle after I'd entered my sleep countdown. I did get back at her though, oh yes I did, I replied to it when I woke up at six the next morning before workout. :D
At this point I must mention that I love Scoutypoo to death for the sheer fact that she correctly types out and punctuates all her texts, so my inbox didn't get another bunch of useless messages 'dat luk lyk dis', the kind 'ppl' know not to send me, lest I refuse to reply. I only accept 'dose' messages in times of extreme emergency, and my boys know well that at those times, a simple 'fn kar' will suffice. I say my boys know that because excluding my dear sister (I think I'm number 4 on her speed dial), none of the other lovely ladies in my life type like punju boys.
Scoutypoo also loves to point out how very muskle-y I am, and sits very meekly and appreciatively(as regards my driving) by my side when Aurelia's getting us around town. She also smoked and drank nigh incessantly while in my company, and is exceptionally good at picking up on when I'm being sarcastic, to the point that I never have to tell her when I'm doing as much. No love, that wasn't sarcasm at all.
Our Scoutypoo's a pleasantly plump, TINY little punju lady, although she takes certain umbrage to being called so(the plump part). As far as I'm concerned, Curvy would just have to be the world's sexiest body type. In fact, all models need more curves, and so do you, dear. That's right, I mean you. Not you dude, that paunch isn't flattering, I mean the girl next to you. Bingo. Scoutypoo's also rather quick about dressing appropriately. Just shy of new year's, and the girl's walking about in a very large shirt which she cleverly turned into a dress, along with stockings she tells me her aunt's dog tore while hugging her leg. I still maintain the dog was humping her. Being as brave as she was, I didn't feel the need to hand her my trenchcoat (yes, I got my trenchcoat out of where it was hiding), for fear it would drag behind her about a foot and a half, giving Priya a spring cleaning. I also didn't pull my extra coat out of Aurelia's back seat, for similar reasons. I just wanted breakfast.
Which brings me to my final point. Scoutypoo has an abysmal appetite. Who ever heard of not finishing four pancakes? Why post-gym I had a banana, two oranges and an apple, my usual post-workout snack, which we'll deem 'former breakfast'. At college I had two cups of coffee and an aloo paratha, midbreakfasten, then at the bloody pretentious place we landed upon for what Scoutypoo called a late breakfast, which between you guys and me, we'll refer to as 'latter breakfast', I had this little concoction called 'Eggstravaganza', that involved two massive slices of (non sweet, thank you Jesus, our waiter, pronounced like Jose, mind you) french toast, topped with two poached eggs (Jesus was mighty reluctant to poach the poor eggs, he said something along the lines of poaching being illegal), two slices of bacon (cooked just right) and some (I'll assume two, since everything else was in pairs) chopped and something-ed potatoes, lots of poor potatoes put through some deranged bake/fry torture by a masochistic chef in the open kitchen behind me. I even had Scoutypoo's fourth pancake with very diluted maple syrup that refused to sink into the damn non-porous pancake, followed by coffee.
Ah now the coffee. Scoutypoo was barged in on while relieving her tiny bladder for the thirty-fourth time. This by a married man with a kid. I had a front row seat to that spectacle. He walked past the door, giving it a tiny nudge, finding it loose, pushed harder, to which an outraged, albeit not really visible Scoutypoo slammed the door crushing his hand in his face.
To conclude, I'll mention that the silly girl forgot to demand I cook something for her. Silly, silly girl.

The Big Pick

There comes a time in one's life when they're faced with a big decision. A decision that, for starters, would change a lot, and that would affect the outcome of future events. A decision that could change who you see looking back when you look into a mirror, and in effect, cause the taking of further decisions which would in turn lead you further into that direction.
Every now and then, that being very rarely over the passing years, we're all faced with such a decision, and we spend time thinking about it, mulling over the possibilities, weighing the consequences, dreading the results. The only answer is to look the decision square in the face, take a step in the right direction, and deal with the consequences as they come, no matter what varying degree of inconsolable.
When that time comes one day at the crack of a chilly dawn, the time to make a big, bad choice, a choice that could possibly change one's life altogether, all that is needed is the strength to pick.

Mushroom and Cheese Sandwich Spread, or Nutella?

My own blondi-ness

This was inspired by Keshi's latest post. I'm going to assume that you all know the Delhi area, and know what I'm talking about here. Also, beware the technical opinions thrown in, don't drift off too much when I get into my take on car modifying as I do return to the story on hand.

I'm quite crazy about driving, and driving fast at that, albeit maturely (all women in my life beg to differ). Upstanding Religious One started up this club for fellow car enthusiasts, with me a fairly administrative and public relations leaning co-founder, entitled 'Street Devils'. The members consist of 18-25 year olds, all of who've pimped out their cars with at least a giant exhaust and racing stripes, along with a few other engine and car body modifications. For the record, if you're looking to do something to your car, a two tone paint job looks absolutely horrid if you decide to add racing stripes to it. Don't do it. Really. The only color that goes well with black racing stripes is yellow on a sedan or hatchback, and red if you're driving a coupé. Also, gigantic exhausts are utterly punju if not coupled with a k&n (or equivalent) air filter, platinum spark plugs and exhaust tubing starting at the manifold to reduce the emissions and other crap the exhaust spews out. This also improves the mileage to about 16ish in Delhi traffic, up to a speculated 20 on highways.
My own beautiful Zen Aurelia being the only completely raw car, which still manages to keep up with the rest, is known by the other members, who sometimes misinterpret my decision to park her away from the others as aloofness, despite the fact that I always get out and join them, rather than the fact that I'm merely avoiding a worst case scenario of someone showing up and attempting to come coming to an abrupt stop in the midst of the rest, subsequently losing control and ramming one of the other cars. We usually meet up at a well known part of the city either at the crack of dawn or late night, and then drive down to the place we want to get to (often an empty strip of smooth road that can be used for drag racing, or 180s, by the more ambitious) in a long convoy of thirty or so cars with their hazards on and their engines screaming, a scene right out of the fast and the furious, or at the very least, the desi remake.

Last Sunday, we assembled outside the Moti Bag petrol pump around 6AM. We had acquired a gang of large surds in Civics and Santros, and while a large group of them attempted to get an Esteem with a weak battery and engine thingies too power-hungry for said battery going again(a vtec or something, I don't know anything about engines except how to disconnect and reconnect the acceleration), I grabbed a hold of one of the few fellows I knew by name, and decided to explore the immediate vicinity for food. Now being on a main road just shy of NH8, and a large Gurudwara nearby, there was no food to be found, except for the few Fererro Rocher I keep in my dash. Soon enough, we were off, to a cacophony of roaring engines and screechy tyres.
Now the rules state that everyone moves in a straight line, and I used to keep right at the back as I wasn't sure just how well my car would keep up with the rest, but our new members failed to pick up on this. As soon as we were off, they started overtaking each other, and the convoy became a jumble of cars, heading into highway traffic, albeit 6:45AM highway traffic. Not in a mood to get left behind or god forbid, lost, I bolted into the middle of the pack, and kept right behind a red Getz. At a red light, the Getz made it across, but this truck decided to cut the rest of us off. As soon as it turned green, I let two Esteems move on past as I wasn't entirely sure of the route to our final destination. Staying right behind those two, and with the remainder of the pack behind me, I spotted the red Getz a little ahead, and hit the gas to catch up with it, with the same two Esteems on my tail. For a few flyovers, the Esteems and some of the other cars were alternating my spot at the head of the pack, until at the end of a last flyover, the Getz took a left turn at the base of what I recognized as the 'Ship Building', in a wholly other region of NCR.
Taking a look in my rear-view, found the Getz I was initially following right behind me, along with the two Esteems, with a dozen other cars behind them, all distinguishable by blinking hazards and obnoxious carbon fiber skirting. Stopping on the side of the road, I inquired as to how we wound up in Gurgaon, when I was following the two Esteems. To my chagrin, the rest of the pack informed me that they had been following me, and had assumed I knew where I was going as I'm usually at the back of the pack. The newbies collectively turned tail and vanished without a word, leaving the rest of freezing our butts off, with the brilliance that is yours truly in naught but a white cotton shirt with three buttons open, and jeans.
A few phone calls later, a true 'Street Devils' convoy of eight cars set off, with the Beautiful Silver 2002 Zen that is known as Aurelia at the lead. The aforementioned Esteem with a weak battery broke off mid-way with a horrid green Matiz that was slowing down the pack in tow, wishing for the rest of us to fare well by cellphone, and four of the remainder took what they assumed was a shortcut. Reports claim they found themselves in Mayapuri, wherever the hell that is. One sole Esteem, blue and silver with horrid mismatched navy racing stripes remained behind me, true to my leadership, as I wound my way through a largely abandoned Dwarka, until I successfully reached the club's point of continuation, Sector 12. Upon arrival, we were to discover that the rest of the club had dispersed minutes before, as a bit of a tiff broke out when one of the Sardars attempted to wash the cars of some of the Street Devil vets as a sign of assumed goodwill, while the owners of said cars were doing the bhangra with our new members in the middle of a circle of cars in a bonding ceremony. It is assumed that one of the vets didn't take too kindly to said Sardar's kindness.
The esteemed Esteem owner that had remained under my leadership and I parked on the side of the road, and began our own bonding ceremony, one that involved a ceremonial driving of each others' cars, and much over appreciation of the handling and acceleration. We then sat in Aurelia's cockpit, chilling to the acoustic hits of Dave Matthews and Alanis and imbibing great quantities of banta we had managed to acquire off a fellow in a stall on one of our rounds in a foreign car. When we finally got the phone call marking the end of the meet, the two of us weaved through Dwarka-Dhaula Kuan-Ring Road-Saket traffic, very nearly avoiding accidents with the same cars in the process. Now that's bonding I say.
Finally, we made it to the 24-7 in PVR, where we, with the remainder of the Street Devils gang, attacked their hot dogs and freshly baked croissants with gusto. I also finally got my music system's rear speakers' bass and treble properly configured.

Now here's the fun part. Here's where you get to join in. I know there's more of you who just like me love a good, fast, smooth drive. Send me a mail at renovatio@streetdevils.co.in, and I'll let you in on the fun. I know Street Devils is a horrid name, but it is (slightly) better than the last club he founded. I'm in the club more out of support for my buddy than any true need to drag race. At the very least, you'll be able to get very lost with me, and we can bond over banta and Alanis Morisette.

Goal! (Dhun Dhuna Dhun)

Dear fucking lord. I don't know what possessed me to agree to go for the bloody film, in fact I was forced into it. The tickets were bought and I was informed I was going to be watching. The fact that the sister's boyfriend who on every visit to my house prompts intense flashes of rage, requiring much self control to not injure him, was at my house for dinner did contribute to my desire to not be home. My first movie in a considerably long time, and to sum up my feelings for the complete bullcrap I sat through for over three hours, I came up with a bit of a jingle.

It's the scripting it's the acting and the camerawork is bloody poo
The editing leaves you wondering what the fuck just happened dude
The story's so clee-shay, and the footballers, oh they can't play
and oh my god John Abraham just hug your dad it's not that gay.

Granted my skill with jingles isn't extraordinary, but you get the gist. Let's break it down to some of the key elements. Doctor Bipasha Basu's primary job is to stand around in every shot holding something arbitrary, alternating with extreme close ups of her face looking distressed, or in some cases, constipated. The one time she gets to play doctor, she spends flirting with our man John, and ends his nose reconstruction with hand cream and a piece of surgical tape. Granted that's gotta be one of the best acting jobs anyone's ever had, to just stand around and do nothing, and get paid a whole bunch.
Arshad Warsi, an excellent comedian's mostly dead serious in this movie, and treats his wife like a puppy when he finds her perched on the edge of their tub crying. It turns our that she's pregnant, and has the uncanny ability of making the kid in there alternate between being eight months into development, and four months, all in a span of a week of learning that she's actually pregnant.
There's this brilliant South Indian or Bangladeshi, I can't tell which, fellow, with an amazing 'one-pack', who manages to constantly and continuously break down in tears. Especially when he got the very necessary Bollywood slap, when the only Sardar I've ever seen unable to hold his drink consoles him. This Sardar who spends the majority of the movie flirting with women suddenly acquires a wife when John ditches the team, who spills all manner of state secrets involving sacrifice, which leave the team and John largely unaffected, for that scene at least. Though Arshad bhai manages to remember the sacrifice later in the changing room, before a crucial match that the team inevitably loses..
There was also the fact that they couldn't have any fight scenes in a sporty movie such as this, so at one point, when Arshad Warsi's running after Boman Irani to get him to coach the team, they play fight music anyway, to a very odd long wide shot, largely empty, with Boman Sahib standing in the middle in a position I see most men against walls peeing in. That isn't to say Boman Irani did a bad job. He's a brilliant actor, and the scenes with him were only slightly bearable.
Not to mention the big John-Bips kiss. She gives him a cute and rather endearing peck to his lips and runs, at which point he grabs her, brings her into a stranglehold, and proceeds to indulge in what I can only describe as a devouring of her face. She keeps her eyes tightly shut and her lips puckered, and he goes to town on her lips, which is to say he sucks on them like a freaking popsicle. It was the only time I've ever seen two people kiss and be unsure of whether to turn my head and retch, or else to step in and teach them how to do it right.
Then there were the team itself. The entire team somehow, a depressing bunch at large, went from a joint hatred of the Johnman to intense love and bonding. There was also the scene where John Abraham and Arshad Warsi were on the verge of spooning, when the effects of their alcohol had managed to wear off, even though I couldn't see an IV on either of them. While the scene and dialog was one of the few (read almost only) that inspired any sense of emotional depth to the characters, it was promptly forgotten the next day, when John got picked up by a superior club, with a Porsche dangled in front of him that he only knows how to drive in a straight line, constantly increasing the volume of the radio.
Finally, the technical. This movie was bad enough for the casual movie-goer, hell I've never seen an entire cinema hall in splits from non-tapori jokes. For a media student who's shot and edited a few short films and sequences, this movie was torture. The cameraman had some strange notions, and the editor(s) had me wanting to offer to re-edit the entire film, free of charge.
All shots of someone sitting in a car had the camera locked at some weird angle where the entire front pillar and a large chunk of the windshield were also visible, leading to an under/over/under/over-water effect, there were some strange empty shots with a football in the foreground and two exhausted characters tucked away in a corner far back with a lot of rainy empty space, shaky shots, which I suppose were intended to follow the actor's steps but only yielded a sense of vertigo, and a lot of shots that were completely off focus.
Message to the director: I can even understand trying out new spot boys and focus boys for your movie, thanks for giving the next generation of camera assistants jobs man, I appreciate it already, just please make sure you reshoot the scenes where the lighting's skewered, and where they didn't quite grasp the concept of aperture when it comes to depth of field.
The editor(s) decided the film needed endless quick cuts, and when the training montage came up, they decided to put a few random man-boobs lifting (and pulling) weights in the wrong way. They also seemed to feel that the audio tracks didn't need to match the video, as when Bipasha screamed out Sun-ny, rather than run out and check on him herself, being the team doctor, I could've sworn her lips were saying Dooood-man.

I would be really pissed right now if I had paid for the ticket, and I hadn't been consoled during the interval with three hot dogs and a giant tub of popcorn with extra butter. I'm also getting a butter chicken meal at my beloved Krips tomorrow to make up for this god damn abysmal movie.

Intermediate

In the intervening days since investing in the time to indulge in an inspection of this here blog-of-mine, I've become inexorably indisposed and inexcusably incapacitated.

Bear with me. Regular posting will resume shortly.

And in answer to Pri's latest comment which seemed to remind me that I actually have a blog:
"Not by the hair of my chin-ny chin chin." Which in my current unshaved state, is a lot.

A few points...

When attempting to teach a roomie how to cook for his new girlfriend, don't have too much faith in the guy to start him off on something like Smoked Sea Bass with a Khus Khus filling, and if it seems imperative that he must be started off on this variety of fish where jaw-stabbing bones don't pop up periodically, leave signs all over the kitchen regarding the importance of de-scaling the god damn fish. Hmm, not bad. (crunch) ah, another scale.

When spending the night at home, being woken up by the dog nibbling on one's toes to be taken for a walk is not a terrible thing. The answer to that is not to call said dog over to head level, and chomping down, hard on his snout. Regardless of how lazy sleepy one is.

Angels in my Kitchen, other than being unwelcome in my kitchen, will always choose to rip you off on their chocolate croissants. The chocolate will only be found in the innermost layer of the croissant, and constant microwaving of the croissant over the period of eating the massive thing will yield to lovely gooey goodness that will attempt to burn a hole in one's tongue and than proceed to do so to the esophagus and any other organs it encounters. A definite option is to heat it a bit, then tear open the sides and fill them with Nutella. This results in a most lovely hazelnut variety of croissant. Although too many hazelnut croissants could be bad along the lines of cholesterol and result in a mild case of deadness. Symptoms include immobility, an inability to respond to interesting events, and a pervasive, unpleasant odor. It is almost always fatal.

When a punju boy in his pimped lancer stops at a traffic light and regards one with a challenging look, revving his engine in an attempt to intimidate, have mercy on the guy's poor girlfriend sitting next to him, god bless the girl for putting up with said punju boy, and hold back on racing him. He will lose. His engine will start coughing, and wheezing, and start to release great gouts of smoke. He will then glare, blaming you for his predicament, while the soon to be non-girlfriend screams at him. Under no circumstances should you agree to drop the now non-girlfriend home if she so asks, lest punju boy fall to his knees as a big, sobby, spoiled brat of a mess.

When sharing your nice, clean blood with a 16.6 hemoglobin and 275k platelet count with a leukemia patient, feel free to begin to lose all faith in the nurse when she exclaims her inability to find your vein. Feel freer to do so when she molests your finger with a needle to re-re-re-confirm your blood group before the actual process of bleeding you dry. Finally, it is within your civil rights to rant and rave at the nurse and all her colleagues, and the world at large, and attempt to invoke the name of Sir Ganga Ram when incompetent nurse manages to pierce through the vein on the other side too, so that during aspheresis, platelet-free blood pumped back in ends up getting pumped directly into the skin, forming a bruise the size of a grapefruit. You also retain the right to scream and snap at the patient's hot niece who came in to check in on you, when she asks if your face is contorted into a veneer of fury out of fear, while said incompetent nurse is squeezing the crap out of your arm's grapefruit to try and get some of that extra blood out. It. Bloody. Hurts.

Heart and body, mind and soul... (part 2)

First off, I saw the Visa ad again, it's actually Mind and body, heart and soul. My bad.

We rejoin our motley crew sprawled across the mattresses in the other room, after having succumbed to paratha power. India Today Office Spotter had fired up some random tennis game and was losing to Federer, when he remembered cricket. This was the first sign. He replaced the tennis game with a cricket one, and started playing as India. Not so Hungry Sir Sleep-a lot called out play pakis, which we all silently acknowledged. At this point Ralph suddenly called out War! Huh!... Yeah... What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! It wasn't a number I had saved, so I handed it to the Upstanding Religious Individual. I wasn't sure why I'd kept Ralph with me that day, he just rang and rang and pissed me off all day. I had to remember to dump him on JD when I got home. Calling Ralph however, turned out to be the religious one's mamu, Mamu.
Mamu wanted to watch the match on a large screen in CP, with the company of alcohol, and all of us being of empty wallets were inclined to decline. When Mamu offered to foot the bill, we all screamed out We love Mamu! and got up. Sutta Break Caller and myself needed to answer vicious bowel movements, but couldn't do so at the residence of the office spotter, as there was no water, so we told the other idiots to get to TGIF and grab a table, while we went to my house. There was still a good hour and fifteen minutes before the match was to start, more than adequate time for them to get there, although my stomach was complaining a little more audibly.
I got home in record time. My beloved Silver Zen, Aurelia, made me proud.
My bowel buddy got a bit shy and clenched when we got to my place, as my mother had reached home by this point. As I attended to my woeful stomach, he managed to get himself and the office spotter an invite for a home cooked dinner after the match, which he was only too happy to oblige to. Having finally set out for CP, I stopped off at my beloved Pushpanjali gas station, the one next to The Grand, and while I filled my tank, the smoker went into the Acha lagta hai store and fetched me one of those canned Nescafe cold coffees I like to drink while driving. With a good forty-five minutes on our hands to get to CP, I of course, took fifty-five, having taken a wrong turn at some point and winding up at Gol Market, where I took another wrong turn and wound up at Karol Bag. At this point the religious one texted to check if we were near, and we replied back with our orders of Guiness and Kingfisher, with Mozerella Sticks. Having finally reached and deposited my beloved Aurelia in the Palika parking at a nice open spot, and memorizing that spot, we got lost two more times, once winding up near India Today, and the second time at India Today. Wait a second... We finally reached TGIF, getting ready to bypass the giant crowd as my reliable buddies would've got us a nice snug table fairly close to the screen, only to find them standing outside with Mamu.
Now Mamu's fairly fond of me, each of the last four times he's come down to Delhi to visit, I've gone along to pick him up from the airport, all the while singing the Mamu song with the religious one from Munnabhai.
Mamu rushed ahead to meet me before I could wring the religious one's neck and explained how they'd decided to check Ruby Tuesday instead, but managed to get lost in the giant expanse that is Inner Circle. What they quite wisely forgot to mention to me was that they could've written down their name at TGIF and gotten seated in a mere 15 minutes, but the religious one insisted that Ruby Tuesday would be empty, on the day of a world cup final.
We spent the next hour approaching every nice bar, every lousy bar, every shady bar, and eventually every coffee house to get to see the match. To calm Mamu down, I periodically checked the score on Ralph, who's capable of providing me with the internet. Finally, we relegated ourselves to watching the last few overs of India's batting at Wimpy's, surrounded by equally pissed off people picking at their shitty food which they had purchased just to get a seat at a place with the match on. My two (undeserving) dinner guests and I then left to catch the last couple of overs at home, and upon entering the Palika parking, promptly forgot where I'd left Aurelia, all alone, in the dark. For a few seconds an image of myself running around wildly pushing her buttons (not again!) the central locking's button yes, that joke got old last time until she called out to me flashed through my mind, but I quickly subdued the image and hopped over the barrier to where I hoped was sure I'd left her.
About forty five minutes, hour, many arguments about the music, and a few more cans of cold coffee later (the HP next to Khan has them too), we were speeding down the home stretch of Nelson Mandela and got in with enough time to spare to catch the last six frantic overs. There was much screaming, hissing, booing, and cursing, followed by abject depression, when Misbah quite arrogantly got on his knees to deliver a last pelvic thrust six and win the match, when our Mallu fielder got under there and won us our first world cup in over a quarter of a century. Much, much, much screaming and jumping and shrieking like little girls war crying in a manly, testosterone-filled way later, we sat back down to catch Dhoni a la paunch take off his shirt and put it on some kid, who I'll assume he knew, after which the camera shifted to a rather confused Shahrukh Khan a la scary abs fiddling with his own camera.
The rest of the evening (with JD suspiciously absent, even though I managed to leave Ralph behind for him, HA!) involved a mother-cooked dinner of khatti-meethi daal, bhindi, and pyaaj pulao, with much tattling-on-Renovatio. We then spent a little while making a CD for Adelina, Aurelia's music system, from office spotter's laptop, into which he quite slyly snuck in some Justin Timberlake, Mika and Akon, along with a few dozen Punjabi tracks. He did however, manage to put in at least one song I wanted, Chunbawamba's only known number, which provides much sing-along fodder. I do suspect he made that CD more for his own listening while on the road with me, but I will candidly admit I've been trying to sing along with Mika.

Heart and body, mind and soul... (part 1)

What a day.
It began with awareness. I found myself in the college parking lot. The sounds of Apocalyptica from the speakers, and the smell of FCUK wafting off my freshly ironed shirt as my Beloved Silver Zen eased into her parking spot. She let out a contented sigh, followed by a bit of a jealous growl from her engine as she caught me peeking at the swanky new Accord we had parked next to. I was waiting for the last few notes of Inquisition Symphony to play out before I killed the ignition, when Ralph, my socially inept cell phone started buzzing with excitement. Now Ralph had a bit of an accident at the Nokia factory, due to which he was unable to speak. He could only beep and vibrate for lack of coherent sentences, or else he could sing entire songs out to me. He could also display words across his outer face. Ralph had a troubled youth, and so devised a 'clamshell' existence, where he hid his true face to all but those he trusted most, and showed his outer face to the world. At this point, his outer face was indicating that Upstanding Religious individual was trying to get in touch with me. I was informed that I need not climb the stairs to class, as there was none, rather I ought to join him and Visiting Student at the panwaari outside the Sainik Farms gate. Maneuvering my most Beloved Silver Zen out the long winding trafficky straight road, I joined them outside, and was intercepted by another classmate of mine, Hungry Sir Sleep-a-lot, and the lot of us decided to drop by at the residence of Arbitrary India Today office spotter, as none of us had the required credit in our phones to check if he was home.
Once we had been let in by a rather cheap sycophantic room mate, we found our dear office spotter curled in a fetal position sleeping softly and soundly on his mattress, under a motionless fan. Finding that rather adorable, we proceeded to shake the crap out of gently and play loud music close to his ears softly nudge him awake. The religious one, easily fascinated by shiny objects, ducked into an adjoining room to identify the source of blue light emanating from the floor of the (almost) pitch black room, and tripped over a passed out napping Sutta Break Caller, though not before discovering the blue light to come from a tiny laptop mouse. After bodily hauling the tired smoker to the room we were in, only to discover me now apparently passed out on the mattress next to the one our office spotter was on. Before any spooning cuddling teamwork-in-sleep could take place, we were all woken up by Ralph giving us a hearty rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Isn't she lovely," the ringtone I had set for the butt ugly 'charming' but annoying department secretary who calls us individually on our phones to give us new instructions regarding class over the days to come. This was cue for the rest of the occupants of the two mattresses to pull out their own phones and turn them all off, while I answered the phone in my sick voice. Realizing I had already been to college and wasn't putting off showing up there, I resumed my regular voice and reassured her that I would be unable to turn in my script as I was still at the observations stage. I also informed her that I had absolutely no clue as to where the rest of the class was, the fact that more than half of it was in the room as we were speaking notwithstanding.
Here began a period of forced tranquility, During which the five of us uncomplicatedly lay on the mattresses in a pattern resembling those funky optical illusions, each thinking of the same thing, each with the same yearning, each with the same question on our minds: What the hell are we gonna eat, and when are we gonna eat it?
The silence was finally interrupted with a great rumble from the stomach of Sir Sleep-a-lot, in answer of which I hopped up and very in-your-face-ed-ly exclaimed "See? I told you so! We need to get some food right now. I'm tired of telling you guys."
Five frantic minutes passed, where we turned the entire room inside out looking for the keys to Beloved Silver, only to find them perched atop the fridge, leaning precariously into a wall. Rescuing the keys from a fate worse than death, office spotter and I then went down the stairs to get food. Pushing her buttons just the way she likes it the button to the central locking was rewarded with an enthusiastic toot-toot! from Beloved Silver. I then fired up the engine and enjoyed a few moments of cooing in that sexy voice of hers, and we were off, being informed on the way by the one hit wonders, The Vapors, about how they seemed to be inexorably "Turning Japanese."
Half an hour yielded 16 assorted parathas from the guy across Passion in Saket, which, clutched under my arm as I sprinted away from Beloved Silver, pushing the button for lock which was answered with a saddened toot toot [:( ], and up the stairs, only to toss the parathas at the religious one, while office spotter and I transferred the aloo sabjee to a suitable bowl. That first bite of gobhi paratha left my stomach grumbling, Oh shut up, I just want a paratha or few, which it was rewarded with. Once the coke arrived, in the arms of a cricket enthusiast delivery boy, we proceeded to top off our food orgy lunch with a little bubbly. The non-alcoholic high-on-pesticide variant. As we all began to succumb to a good-food induced coma, there was only one thing known for certain. The seed had been planted. The India-Pakistan match was going to have to be watched.

Alright, the plan was to write about the whole day, but I'm going to have to continue this later.

Of Late Night Escapades

There are times in my life when I find myself so mind numbingly bored, I would just like to kill myself. Due to principles and an itchy trigger finger as regards the honor and comfort of the women in my life, I find myself getting into rather peachy scrambles at times. Due to some unforseen circumstances, fate had it that my previously injured lower back was to make contact with a metal frigging pipe, hoisted by a spineless assailant, referred to as, the bastard, last night. Needless to say, I'm in excruciating pain, and being held in a bed against my will, without any books, a computer, or access to a usable oven.
To provide for my comfort, though I suspect more to keep me resting, a number of my friends, including said lady took off from work and spent the day with me at my friend's place, where I was forced to come back to. Post bed allotments, I found myself sharing the (very short) double bed with my lady friend, who I am glad to say, has finally, fallen asleep. To celebrate, I hoisted myself out of bed and decided to alleviate my lower back pain by resorting to some of my pseudo-ab inducing physio. It being rather late at night and rather silent, I decided to amuse myself by doing my physio off the backrest of a chair, as opposed to on the floor.
As my bedmate happens to sleep like a log floating through a river of treacle, I first visited the kitchen, and whipped together batter for a chocolate cake, which I had wanted, but nobody could come up with a feasible recipe for. After transferring the batter to a cake tin, I approached the flying saucer oven. Now this damn thing I only understood to be an oven after my friend pointed it out to me. As its ergonomics defied use in seven different ways simultaneously, I resorted to the manual, which was written in Italian. Now those that know me are aware that I have a fascination for languages, which led me to pick up words and phrases in a number of them. That meager knowledge has armed me with the confidence to attempt to decipher the manual.
By resting my most lovely sculpted butt on the buttrest of the chair and using my calves to keep a firm hold on the top of the backrest, I did the crunches advised by dear Doctor Marya for my physio, while trying to make head or tail of the manual. Due to a spasm in my left leg, I relaxed my hold on the backrest, while my body made a rough (upside down) 120 degree angle. This led to me losing all balance on the chair and falling off, rather loudly, waking up my bedmate, whose shouts led to a waking up of the other occupants of the aparment, to a general crescendo of even more pain. I was screamed at, much, and fussed over, even more, until I got rather tired of it and got up and actually got the damn flying saucer oven to work.

I'm lying on my stomach right now, with a ziploc of ice cubes on my lower back, finally being handed a god damn laptop with working internet, with rather interesting smells of chocolate cake wafting into the room. Who knows, I may even sleep soon.

The Recount Continues...

We step back further back into the weekend... Certain unfamiliar terms just might have a helpful tooltip.

Getting tired of the mandatory half hourly sutta break, one complains, that not everyone present is a smoker, at which point an upstanding religious individual comes up with the genius idea to visit Bangla Sahib. Since one doesn't like to interfere with peoples' religious tendencies, and being outvoted by the rest of the group, one decides to visit the Mentor, the man who sowed the media seed in a very confused and depressed individual coming fresh out of the boards, very unsatisfactorily, and whose office happens to be on Barakhamba Road.
As two cars are filled up, one requires sustenance, particularly double mutton single egg kathis with hazelnut coffee from the aptly named 'The Kathis' in GK. As none of the occupants are rather unaware of how to get to CP, one leads the way to India Gate and begins circling it, looking for the KG Marg turning. One full circle later, it is discovered that the roads around India Gate have obviously changed their names since the last time one visited CP. Discovering the kathi on hand to be rather excellent, one decides to concentrate on it, expecting the rest of the occupants to find the turning, without being told to do so.
So begin the three slow circles of India Gate, with one concentrating far more on the kathi on hand than the road, giving it nothing but a token glance, if only to avoid hitting the car in front, and to keep moving in a circle, as opposed to turning onto the wrong street. All this while being informed by JD Fortune about how he'd like certain hot girls to ruin his life and whatnot. Halfway into the third circle, one realizes that there is a long line of cars moving equally slowly, honking and cursing, as are the occupants of the car, and the upstanding religious individual on the other side of the phone call. Going up the central road instead, and turning onto Central Secretariat, the route one assumes also leads to CP, one finishes the remnants of the hazelnut coffee on hand.
Upon reaching CP, one receives a phone call from the upstanding religious individual, as the latter's car seems to have misplaced the former's.
So begin the seven slow rounds of inner circle, pointing out the various landmarks the various occupants of the two cars can see, including, a suspicious number of times, the office of India Today. Much ranting and screaming(on the part of Sweaty, whom some of you may remember, who had to visit a toilet ASAP) and weeping(on the part of sutta break caller, who had consumed the majority of a rather potent green chilly) and cursing, including the most vile swear one is known to fling at upstanding religious individual, Indira Gandhi, which is not to say that one has anything against her, rather admires her immensely. The swear is only akin to that used by Trey Parker and Matt Stone's characters in invoking the name of Barbara Streisand. Either way, once all of the niceties were done with, arbitrary India Today office spotter came up with the commendably brilliant idea that one stop the car at the Palika Parking and wait for upstanding religious individual to catch up.

Needless to say, neither car was able to find a parking spot close to the other. Finally, one car was placed on the ground level, and the other, somewhere in the lower basement. A fact even more needlessly obvious, not one individual managed to remember where either car was parked once the three hours the cars were left there had passed.

A Recount...

Monday morning, one wakes up with a very heavy weight on one's chest, despite lying on the stomach, and a level of discomfort. As the hands seem to be inexplicably pinned down under the chest, one reaches for the pillow with the teeth, and bites down to pull the pillow closer. On a clamping shut of the jaws on the pillow, the pillow gives off a whimper. Finding that at least a bit strange, the teeth then attempt to banish the entity hiding inside the pillow case by shaking the hell out of it like a dog does to a newspaper. Finding that method to lead to more whimpers, and an eventual Fine, I'll make breakfast, just stop biting me, one decides to get up and figure out their immediate surroundings.
By locking the arms in a push up position, and lifting off, the weight is lifted, and it rolls off, grabbing the arm of its significant other, who had occupied the couch, pulling him off as well. The resulting commotion woke up the last bit of sleepy flesh, thrown across a corner, but still occupying very little space given the 5 foot flat stature natural selection had chosen to spare her with.

Here follows a converation between Little One(LO), Myself(R), Pussy whipped guy(PWG), Bloody weight across my chest first thing in the morning(BW), and Birthday girl aka pillow(BG).

LO: Renovatio, what the hell's wrong with you?!?
R: Screw you, none of you even drank anything, can't you sleep still? Look at him, he slept on the couch and kept to himself.
PWG: Dude, when you live with a woman, you'll learn to do that too.
BW: Shut up and go back to sleep.
PWG: Yes darling.
R: No, get up, it's seven, and we all have work and stuff to get to. It's gonna take us two hours to get to frigging Delhi from here. God damn middle of nowhere place you live(to pillow).
BG: Well I'm sorry about that my lord, and what would you like for breakfast.
R: No, shut up, happy birthday, I'll make something. Where's your bloody fridge.
Chorus: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear pillow...
BG: Shutupshutupshutup! he's right, I didn't have any alcohol in the house, but you're all making me feel like I'm having a hangover.
PWG: What the hell have you been drinking, you feel like that after shrooms.
LO: Why is it always about shrooms with you?!?
PWG: Dude, shrooms ro-...
BW: Pussy whipped...
PWG: Sorry darling.
R: You know what, I found some cold bacon here, this is mine, you guys find your own damn breakfast.
BG: Just make some of your omelettes Ren, or pancakes or something. Pleeeeeeease.
R: Oh bloody hell, fine. Someone make some coffee, I refuse to make it sugary and shitty like you retards drink it.

Some time later, I'd managed to finish putting together a modest breakfast for the five of us involving pancakes, the bacon(cooked by this point), fried eggs, coffee and juice, and once having finished eating it, we left, with much complaining about the choice of music in my car.

I will relate more of the last weekend soon.


In unrelated news, I know those online IQ tests are bullshit, but I took one for the hell of it anyway.

Your General IQ Score of 149 shows how able your mind is in general. Anyone with a General IQ Score this high is considered to be a genius. This score is better than 99.95% of all persons taking this test. All known occupations can be comprehended with a General IQ this high. You should be able to handle any academic challenges.

Holy shit.

On owning one's first car...

Saturday:
Welcome to Maruti Service Masters, Okhla. We hope you had a pleasant time finding the damn place, which should have taken you no less than an hour, while remaining in a five hundred meter radius the entire time. Please remove everything not nailed down, and figure out a way to remove your brand new speakers as well, or we will screw them up. Your car is in excellent condition, and we appreciate that you decided to come in for a servicing to start the service cycle, so that we can mess up your car and give you reason to come and get it serviced hereon. Oh, and we forgot, speakers can't be removed. Very well, we'll just have to screw them up. Enjoy the auto-rickshaw ride home considering we shall neglect to inform you of our value-added service of providing you a car for the day we keep your car with us for servicing, and remember, that not only will we call you over the day to tell you your brakes are close to failing, something you didn't notice because of your habitual double clutching and double braking as a result of spending time with drag-racing types, but that we must replace nevertheless with our exorbitantly expensive genuine Maruti parts lest the result be a mild case of, well, death for you. Remember, bring a credit card or lots of cash, and keep in mind that you will be back to see us in a matter of days, since your car shall begin to wobble when you cross speeds that we don't touch on, completely neglecting the fact that a fellow your age will never drive his car at 60 on an empty road. Especially not at fifth gear, as we prescribe for most efficient fuel management. Thank you, and have a great day.

Wednesday:
Welcome to Maruti Service Masters, please sit in our sub-standard lounge and eat stale patties while we screw you some more out of your hard earned money. Today we shall take over forty five minutes to send someone to attend to you, and then take another hour to re-balance and re-align your wheels. Once that is done, we shall take you for a road test, only to find out that your car still wobbles at 80. Very well, you shall return to the lounge for another thirty minutes during which time we shall discover that your wheel's bearing and hub have worn out and need replacing, something we couldn't possibly have figure out last time you were here for a full car service, considering we're only certified Maruti car technicians. This process shall only take us another forty five minutes to complete, during which you can try and scrape together something over thirty five rupees so that your friends who accompanied you for the 'half hour' this was supposed to take can get to Nehru Place and an ATM. Once you have sent them off, we shall take you for another road test, to discover that once again, your car continues to wobble. After sending you back up to the lounge for another obligatory thirty minutes, we shall discover that one of your wheels, which we allegedly removed and balanced and aligned and played musical chairs with no less than three times, has, on the back side of it, well, A BIG BLOODY GASH. This wheel will have to be changed, and we can't put your spare tire there instead, as it is also completely worn out. We will now treat you like a retard for no less than fifteen minutes, all the while dropping hints, but not acknowledging that you are already aware of the fact that you will have to replace at least four of your wheels or else you'll find the ones you replace wearing out far too early. Oh and while we're at it, we'll arbitrarily point at something on the underside of your axle that you, being a lifetime car owner and all-cum-car technician ought to recognize as the suspension arm, which we also must replace. And before we forget, we have to change the entire steering frame of your car. Did we mention we're going to charge you through the ass for all these spare parts? And we'll continue to commend you on the amazingly well maintained five year old second hand car you bought with only 30k clocked on.
If you would like a car to take home while we keep your car overnight, follow Prashant, the incredibly inept car technician overseeing all the work on your car to our loan-car fellow and waste yet another forty minutes waiting for him to tell you that he just gave their last car to someone, and that if you wish, you can come any time this week with the car, all the way to Okhla again, and sit for another five hours waiting for us to discover other problems in your supposedly well maintained and smooth driving car.

In Flames

I sit here on a system I purloined from my colleague, waiting, wondering, hoping that the one I was working on is alright. I suppose I overloaded it with the last render, but whatever I did, I caused the UPS to catch fire. Burned my thumb a bit too. Again, hopefully, it's alright.
It's being narrated in my voice entirely, they seem to like it, and I've been able to do a decent job with the editing, considering the footage they gave me. I've spent way too many hours in the last week and a half sitting in my 19 degree office working on this damn movie to see it go up in flames.

In flames.

My life changed with those flames, four years ago. Having just got back from Pakistan, one of the toughest and scariest but most memorable times of my life, a time I was forced to grow up a little too soon, with everything happening around. I was attending Woodstock school, for the rest of the year, away from my folks for the first time in my life. The customary six week period where we weren't allowed to meet any family starting on my 14th birthday behind me, I spent a weekend with them, where Dad treated me more like a man than the kid he'd always treated me as. I knew he had something he wanted to say, to tell me, but kept himself from saying it, until perhaps the next time I met him. Little did any of us know.
The following thursday, I was fumbling with a problem in Star Math, they all thought I was some stellar student, when I got called out of class. Wondering what the hell I'd done this time, I followed the peon out and was rather surprised to see my aunt as well as my sister at the office. I was a bit apprehensive, even more so when she said Dad had an elevator accident, but wouldn't say anything more. I went over to my locker, and grabbed a book for the ride home, thinking I'd need something to do while we sat around in the hospital waiting for him to recover. A few hours later, my uncle took us aside in the train and told us he was gone. It had been instant.

It took until the next morning for it to sink in. The next few days passed like a blur until I found myself at rishikesh wading knee deep in the river, pouring his ashes into it. I remembered carrying his body, lighting the fire below it, taking a stick and cracking his charred skull through the pile of logs. I remembered going back the next morning, to look at charred bones, all that was left of my Dad. I opened my eyes and found myself at the river again. I swore at that moment not to shed a tear, to be strong for my mom and sister, that Dad's strength would flow through me.
I found out over the rest of the week from newspapers that he was with RAW. That was what he had wanted to tell me in Mussoorie, the last weekend I met him, what he couldn't tell me in Pakistan because I was too young. The accident had happened in CGO complex, his own office. The lift had stopped, and he had tried to climb out, along with all the other senior officers, and gotten crushed when it started moving.
I numbed myself to everything around me, I strove to be the man Dad wanted me to be. I put my faith in love and love alone, just like Dad always taught me. Time and time again love kicked me in the balls, left me gasping on the ground, but I got up just the same, ready for it to find me again. Keeping myself strong, Dad's strength flowing through me.

Then came the book. Apparently some Major General had published a book on RAW once he retired that's been banned around the country, but we found a copy at Midlands. A chapter of the book was his own account of it, he was in the elevator with my Dad, and for the first time I got to hear exactly what happened to my Dad.

It's sapped the last of my strength, I've been absolutely empty, but the misery only came two sundays ago, when I found I couldn't talk about it, and I sit in my nineteen degree office from nine in the morning to nine, ten, eleven at night. Days my boss makes me leave early, I pack up the computer and get my buddy JD, who's staying over with us right now, to come pick me up, and I take the computer home and keep working from there. I don't know what I'll do once I finish these movies, I don't know how I'll keep myself busy then, but I need to do a great job of it.

Wasted mornings and a lost happy trail

So I sit here, waiting for tech support on my computer at work, as outlined on the other blog I write on even more rarely than this one, the whiney one. It's one of the blogs on the right side what has the word 'whine' in it.
Flipping through messages I had read out to me from my best buddy staying over at home containing death threats from my sister's boyfriend for not waiting for her to take an additional two hours to get ready to drop me to work, and then pushing off with the car as I didn't want to get late, I remember exactly why I so pointedly left my phone at home, but more than that, I think of happier things, like the source of all that is happy, my happy trail.
Now not everyone is familiar with the happy trail, it's basically the line of hair that goes from just above the belly button to a bit below the waist. It spans the region that is also known as the 'paunch' for people that have one. Personally, I have accidental pseudo abs as a result of the physio I'd had to do post my back injury. Now pseudo abs aren't real abs, just a bit of the ab-by outline that shows up to mark the beginning of abs. As I'll be joining a gym soon, I'll fill them out soon enough. But I don't have a paunch, so my happy trail area gives me plenty of happiness.
This morning, while shaving, I wound up clogging my razor. It's a nice green Gillette thing that vibrates. After clearing it out, I thought that perhaps it had dulled enough to warrant a change. To confirm, I gave it an experimental swish down my bellybutton. Needless to say, my happy trail is now bald.
This leaves me with one thing to say. Of course there are other factors, other reasons, but the one I've chosen to speak about, is the lack of a happy trail.

I am not happy.

Acknowledging the Tag

Couldn't sleep, got too much on my mind, so I thought I'd (finally) answer the tag-bagging that Anki, Blow, and Dude decided to throw at me.


1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.
I have a tiny stab wound at the base of my left pinky. My sister stabbed me with a packing knife when I tried to save a few balloons she was letting loose on with said knife.


2. What is on the walls in your room?
Uh, speakers in two corners, a random charcoal drawing of a man and a horse, my class photo, the last picture I have with my dad...Cupboards, bookshelves, a mirror, a little dressing table below the mirror between bookshelves, you know.


3. What does your phone look like?
It's the butt-ugliest phone ever made by Nokia, the 6255. It's cdma and it looks like this.


4. What music do you listen to?
A lot of mixed bag, mostly alt rock, accoustics and unpluggeds, but I'll give almost anything at least one listen, if it doesn't mention bling, bitches, butts, and (b)hoes (aww).


5. What is your current desktop picture?
Something off Digital Blasphemy called Idyll.


6. What do you want more than anything right now?
The same thing I've wanted for months now. She knows, no one else needs to.


7. Do you believe in gay marriage?
Absolutely, I'm very tolerant, until they decide to hit on me(gay men that is). I'm no one to stop them from doing whatever homosexual ladies and gentlemen like to do amongst themselves, and I believe everyone has a right to have what they want.


8. What time were you born?
No clue. Sometime in the wee hours of the day/night.


9. Are your parents still together?
In heart yes, but well, dad's not with us anymore.


10. What are you listening to?
How to Save a Life by The Fray, and Nightswimming by REM's next.


11. Do you get scared of the dark?
Naa, plus I can't sleep unless I have pitch black. A bit of a problem regarding my mouse, as it has a bright little blue light in the scroll wheel, which I have to find a way to muffle. Paper does the trick most of the time.


12. The last person to make you cry?
Nits. Long story, must blog about it.


13. What is your favorite perfume/cologne?
Lanvin. I'm also fond of fcuk. I have a number of moods associated with my various colognes. Lanvin for when I'm satisfied, fcuk for when I'm missing a certain someone, Nina Ricci Club for when I've got a long day ahead and I'm feeling a bit off (it's a strong one), and Chrome by Azzaro for when I'm going out with a bunch. Also got your standard Polos, Perrys, and Davidoffs. Used fcuk a lot lately, and not much of the Lanvin.


14. What kind of hair/eye type (yes, I changed it) do you like on the opposite sex?
I like long straight hair and deep iridescent pools for eyes.


15. Do you like pain killers?
I don't really bother, the pain will go away. Unless they've been prescribed and I've had a stern "you better take em" from dear ol' Doctor Nagpal, I won't bother. I also won't drink Red Bull right after having one... closest I've been to being stoned in my life, and I've got the pictures of the ceiling of Hookah to prove it.


16. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
Naw. If it's someone new, what am I losing out on, even if she does, she's not rejecting me, she doesn't even know me. If it's someone I've known for a while, I'll allow the relationship to happen, won't force it. Talk about it, yes, but no need to make it "official".


17. Favorite pizza topping?
Doesn't really matter. Pizza's nothing great here. Take me to some good pizza and I'll call out toppings.


18. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
I'd like some nice lobster right about now.


19. Who was the last person you made mad?
Other than my own self, there's someone I wish I could make un-mad with me. I'll do it yet I tell you, I'll do it yet.


20. Is anyone in love with you?
Not that I'm aware of. No point, I'll let them down.

That's pretty much all. If you want to, then by all means, consider yourself tagged. Pretty much everyone who's likely to do this tag already has.

A good song...

"In the sun... now that's a good song"
"Who's it by"
"Joseph Arthur... it reminds me of Taru"
"No Renovatio, you're a good song" she called out with her doting smile as she got out of the car.

Now there's the sister I wish I had over this lifetime... unfortunately the circumstances at which she adopted me as her big little brother I'd prefer not to have had. Her sister, Tara, my ex, got hit by a truck in Sidney, and she died on the spot. I've been taken up as a sort of replacement sibling, younger, but still treated by this naive bundling joyful soon-to-be 26 year old as a big brother she's always looked up to. It's been a bit over a month, but I'm already chalked out to meet her boyfriend of 6 years to approve or disapprove of this guy she plans to get engaged to soon. She's already spent an evening with me at Fortis while I waited to hear about my uncle whose appendix burst. She's already kept my mind empty through some of the most frustrating, lonely days, put me to sleep by singing to me.

She calls me her Hairy Butt Bear, and that's because my face is hairy and my butt is cute... so she says

And she does all that because she loves her sister and loves me because her sister loved me.

This one goes out to Tara... Neets and I miss you Taru, and we wish you were around to hang out with us... I drive now... so you won't have to :)

I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You cant keep awake

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
You

I dont know anymore
What its for
Im not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe youre not even sure what its for
Any more than me

May gods love be with you
Always
May gods love be with you

Superficial butterfly

There are times when the lips of fate part and bite you in the ass, and there are times when they pucker up and leave a wet one. Unfortunately, there's much more biting. Much more biting pointed at me, and much more biting pointed at the people around me. There are times when you've gone through yet another sleepless night, only to wake up and realize that life just isn't going the way it was a few months ago. Then there are times when you need to step up to the plate and change something.
At this point, I find myself against a wall. A step taken went awry, and when the chance presents itself, there will be much explaining to do. A long drawn out issue may find some form of resolution, though knowing those kismet-ic chops, I'm not too hopeful. Either way, of the two urges I currently have, to finally shave or to cook, I'm going to go with the former.
I just have a good feeling about it.

Bloody Mary...

To finally put an end to a seemingly endless day, one that began at seven in the morning and involved a failed attempt at getting my driver's license due to all the license-makers being out on election duty, which went on to a hassle-wrought shoot involving three guys cheering up their newly-single buddy by taking him out in the car for a 'singing-therapy' session, our final project for our sound unit that kept me in college until 6,and which will undoubtedly keep me there tomorrow too, for the edit...
Oh, except for the fact that three out of the four of us had upset stomachs and didn't have the inclination to do the last two shots, which would undoubtedly have kept us in college for another hour or so, so we have to carry the shirts we wore the previous day to ensure continuity in the shoot... but what about Sweaty? The big, salt-patch guy among us... is there continuity in the previous day's sweat-salt patches? and what about us... having to bear that... Yeach...
Now Sweaty's an annoying bitch... he causes the bottoms of cars to scrape the sainik farms speed breakers, a particular breed of speed breakers that are of abnormal height and refrain from any markings to distinguish them from the rest of the road. Speaking from experience, when I flew a foot off my other buddy's motorcycle gliding over one of those... luckily I landed back on the motorcycle... the same one... But I digress, I shouldn't bitch about Sweaty, I'm sure he hates me just as much, for not bringing a fourth spoon with my gelato the other day...
Now I'm a picky picky little bastard... I want each of my shots to look good, so bearing a bedroom in mind, I'll try to convert my classroon into one by moving around tables and tv trolleys, keeping random doors slightly ajar to resemble bathrooms, and fiddling with the tripod incessantly to get both the phone which my newly-single friend isn't allowed to make the call with, despite repeated attempts to pick it up and dial, oh and to avoid MEDIA written on the edge of the table.
Couple this with the fact that they decided to hand me the college's new hdv camera. Now this is a slightly complicated piece of equipment. Not only does the little whore have a wider screen, ensuring that even using a tele lens gives us much more of a frame to worry about, such as a lapel mic taped to the edge of the table, the fact that it's hdv means higher quality, so even if we could've ignored the lapel mic taped to the edge of the table before, this camera has to display it perfectly with all it's individual pixels and make it look beautiful... and so wrong placed on the edge of the table... well taped to the edge...
Don't get me wrong, I like the hdv... it's lighter than the pd 170 which runs dv/mini dv tapes(which the hdv does too, along with the nicer, sharper hdv tapes), has a wider perspective, something considered to be a good thing by most cameramen, well at least the ones who aren't still going to college and worried about how every inch of the frame in a 22 second clip looks, and it's got more options for playing with light, or well, a lack of light. This basically means we can throw open a window and not get the frame washed out, and we don't even need to make use of a light porta-kit, something our college's too damn cheap to afford. Unless they have one and don't want to give it to me... bastards...
To put the icing on the cake, our professor's this insane dude who used to handle sound for an independent film company, who hoots and screeches at random intervals for reasons unknown. Well to maintain sanity I tell myself he does it to keep us on our toes. This guy can't walk in a straight line, and will keep turning 60 degrees in a random direction while talking, expecting the person he's talking to to anticipate his choice of direction and keep up. The first time this happened, I was listening to him harp on about the benefits of final cut pro for editing over adobe premier, through an interesting analogy involving touching your nose. I noticed his voice to be getting softer and more distant for some reason as I walked straight out of the cafeteria, and upon turning around, noticed him to be walking towards the college parking lot, still talking to the space next to him he expected me to be taking up at the time. Of course the guy's brilliant. He might not know what each mic's called, but he knows everything there is to know about sound, and how to get certain sounds you want and how to cut out others you don't want. Of course he won't just tell you how to do it. He'll hint about it, and say oh you know, this mic cuts out ambient noise, but it also picks up engine sounds, and expect you to figure out that it's not a good mic for the cafeteria because of the motor attached to the water purifier. I like him for that. He gives us a whole lot of independence to work and figure stuff out for ourselves.
All in all, a good shoot. I can't wait to see the scene where we were all sitting in the crv with our camera mounted on a tripod in the boot of the car, with each of us singing an atif aslam number horrendously. Of course since we used both the singing mic and the lapel, something went wrong. Something I'll only find out tomorrow.
To bed I go, perhaps I'll drench my shirt in some deo overnight. Harping on about Sweaty, I might be there on a minor scale myself. Hell I don't leave salt patches, but it is really really hot...

Oh and Mary's our professor's ex-wife... he hates her... so he keeps calling the 'fucking ass computer, work' as he puts it so politely, a Bloody Mary. The man actually told me to change the mouse so he could work the 'Bloody Mary'. I didn't ask, and it took me a while to get it...

Guys' nights out...

This is the first time I'll be sleeping in my bed in three days, but the second night out, the one that almost was, just wasn't quite, that's what we'll talk about...

So the plan was to crash at the german butter chicken buddy's, after spending a little time at hookah sans women... Not meant to be. I went down to priya after my driving class, with the guys sitting in the back, bitching every time I let go of the clutch too fast. Got to hookah, met a lady friend of his there, and we got sick of the fumes and left for coffee, and walked around priya for the rest of the night, post coffee of course... Now somehow, this wasn't bad, even though it broke the rules of guys' night out... oh and he was with his girlfriend anyway, so technically, we hadn't quite started...
At some obscure point, we finally got to his place, post a disappointing call to dominos where they refused to deliver after 11, so it was time to take matters into our own hands...
Raiding the fridge and storage, we found a leek soup, which we heated up, and stole huge chunks off a loaf of multi-grain bread his dad had whipped together at some point during the day. After leaving the coffee to brew, we then proceeded to make an omelette. Now cooking is a great way to get your mind off things. This seven egg omelette was accompanied by onions, strips of cheese, and cold slices of ham tossed into the mess after it had started bubbling. Unfortunately, I was fated to not make one of my prize omelettes, considering the skillet we found was made of iron and weighed a few tons, so we ended up with scrambled omelette-thing... This of course wasn't enough, so we purloined some chips, cookies, granola bars, coke, and the rest of the cold ham, and found our way to his room.
Dipping the bread in the soup, we found the soup excessively salty, so we poured liberal amounts of water, only to find the soup absolutely bland by this point, so we abandoned it, and got down to the omelette-thing. Once these primary sources of nourishment were put aside, my buddy fired up his laptop and played a round of tiberian sun from the cd I'd brought along, giving me a good ten minutes to spend with myself. This time was well utilized in goatee twirling. Due to some gloaty goading on the part of Dude and Hobo, I pulled out Serenity and gave it a watch. Rather good movie I'd say, probably made better by the Burnout revenge we punctuated it with. Nothing straightens a well twirled goatee like a session of on-road/off-road car-ramming. We then watched the Last Samurai, and midway through, around 6:30, went out to his lawn to catch the sunrise. I had a huge sense of great day ahead and new day et cetera on my mind, so this sun rise wasn't to be missed. Took some great pictures, and proceeded to finish the movie, chasing it with a good session of making rappers beat each other to a bloody pulp on some game whose name I failed to catch. Granted my rapper got beaten to a bloody pulp more often, considering I was incapable of doing the thing that's supposed to hit harder, but, bleah.
At coffee with his folks, we discovered that it was in fact the bread which was salty. We then proceeded to escape to priya for some counter strike and butter chicken at krips. Due to a phone call, I was rather ape-shit during the counter strike, though I was nice enough to let my buddy get a few kills in a row until I gave him 8 headshots in quick succession. Such was my ape-shit-ness, I was still able to toy with my poor german buddy wholly lacking in reflexes.
We then proceeded to said lady friend's place, and tried to emulate professional couch jumper Tom Cruise and Katsumoto with some bamboo sticks, though splinters prevented us from taking this course of action.
The rest of the day wasn't much, just driving class, a concert and saaaalsaaaaa...

Note to self: Next time those assholes come along for driving class, if they make too much noise, ram the car backwards. Or hit the brake, hard. Bitches.

How about...

...when you say you don't feel like talking, that you want to be alone, when in truth you want to talk, meet, and be with her so bad that it hurts, that you plan trips out of town without your phone just so that you're not tempted to call her each moment...

On brooding, male bonding, and butter chicken...

Now I've been out of the 'blogsphere' for a couple of days due to a second accident, exactly a week after the first one. This time it was a dtc that came and hit my auto from behind, screwing my back. Apparently tall people have a natural tendency to slouch, and so over the years their backs get screwy. Either way, mine is now... the bottom of it looks like an upside down narrow question mark. But excluding the medicinal (nu)patch I've got on, which I'll remember tomorrow morning as I pull it off along with some hair and skin, I'm still kind of content. But only on the outside. Inside, I've got the Badger Song going on in my head. Thankfully, I'll be gone for the rest of the week, but more on that ahead.
This will be a long, but hopefully enjoyable read, so bear with me.

Let me make a very brave statement. Men don't get women. At all. No matter how much time they spend living with one (or more), they'll never get them. Women like to be in control, and they think they are. They probably are too, but I don't know how effective their control is when us men couldn't be bothered in the first place, considering we have our escape, the holy Brood.
Let's be honest. Women don't get men either. If they did, they'd know that two men locking horns the first time they meet is not attitude, but male bonding. There are several topics that men bond over. Sports is not one of them. Women think it is, but the biggest, is in fact homosexuality. Men bond over a shared distaste for gay men, and failing that, and (or well, in the rare case that they haven't been hit upon by gay men), an even more shared fascination for lesbians. Men also bond without knowing a thing about each other. They can look at a group of men indulging in our holy Brood, and strong brotherly sentiments flow across. Some chauvinists claim the world goes around because of men. They're both right as well as wrong. Behind each successful man is a woman, twisting his arm, and behind each successful woman is another woman, her bosom buddy, telling her she doesn't need the man getting the arm-twisting. Women don't get along like men do. Women don't connect to other women deep down. They have to examine each other, look for flaws, convince themselves there's something wrong with the other, even if the other is a best friend. But the strong connection each man has to his fellow man balances this negative energy and ensures the world keeps spinning.
Let me give an example. A man is upset. He meets four men for a Brood at say, barista. While women would discuss what's upsetting them, these five men will avoid that topic like the plague. Unwritten instructions stand, instructions as deeply etched in all men as the rule that states that in a group of six urinals, if one is occupied on the left side, the one on the far right must be taken, that the moment the upset one mentions the topic, he is to receive a smack. Often enough, he gets the smack(s) from men smaller than himself, men who would never get away with it in the first place. Now a woman on another table looking at this spectacle has those same thoughts. "What the fuck are they hitting him for? I mean he could easily hit them back, but he isn't. Hell, he actually looks grateful." A man on the same table looks and knows exactly what's going on. He smiles to himself and sends some positive energy their way. Now suddenly, the one being bruised flicks one of them in the face. This leaves the woman watching even more confused. She's thinking, "Why the hell didn't he just do that earlier? Oh wait, the little one hit him again. What the hell's going on?" But the man with her nods to himself and thinks "He shouldn't have hit him on the nose with the menu. That's going too far." Along the same lines, the woman probably doesn't even know that they're brooding.

Let me get on to the most important topic- The holy Brood. It's a faith that men the world over, regardless of race, religion, color or creed, share. Each man is born knowing how to brood. Each man knows the various ways, styles, locations and positions, but for the sake of my female audience, I'll disclose that their are many. In fact, there are as many unique ways for men to brood as women have bags or pairs of shoes. Men with long hair can brood sitting behind their hair. Men standing next to a bookshelf can lean on it and concentrate on the space between Gone With the Wind and Life on the Mississippi. Men can brood in the middle of an argument. Men can even brood while playing video games, something that doubles up as a male bonding technique. Finally, men can brood over food. Hand a woman a can of pressurized whipped cream or a tub of ice cream, and she'll sit through Jerry Maguire obsessing over what she misses. The munchies men get while brooding exceed anything women can come up with. Two men brooding over things upsetting them, but with the company of butter chicken can get through anything. I don't remember what mixed bag munchies I had in my vegetarian days, but ever since I've known butter chicken, my own brooding has definitely improved.
I have a dear butter chicken buddy. He's german, and nearly as tall as me, but when push comes to shove, and its time to brood, we head down to krips, and consume over two and a half chickens between the two of us. The brooding metabolism is apart from the normal metabolism, so anything consumed over the course of a brood will not contribute in any way to our size. In fact, within fifteen minutes, a brooding male will be ready to eat again post a butter chicken, half a tandoori chicken, a dal makhani(his own), and four naans. Not to mention those little pickled onions. Can't forget those pickled onions.
Another aspect of brooding. Men can brood on command. When a fellow man needs a brooding session, his comrades will give him just the brood he needs. Group brooding can happen with alcohol, food and video games, or even singing. Put four men with deep voices in a car outfitted with a 'thumper', and throw in a tape of aerosmith and james blunt and you've got some serious brooding. They'll have those windows down, singing in their horrid falsettos and put any punju boy with his dhinchak tunes to shame. Not only will they be sharing the brood with the one who needs it, deep down, they'll all be brooding from the heart. That's the beauty of male bonding and our holy Brood.
Another great group brood style is the 3 am testosterone movie with a few laptops on wireless with counter strike on them. I had one of the best group broods on new year's. I was at a rather large party with a ton of old friends who I met after ages, and once all the drunk stumbled out, we went back up to my buddy's room where we'd been playing some counter strike. Now there's something about running behind your buddies with a gun, shooting them in the face (virtually of course), and screaming "GOTCHA MOTHERFUCKER!" that brings you closer to your fellow man. It enables you to share a single bed with two other equally large men and watch the dullest actor in hollywood in blade trinity up until 4 in the morning. True, I made many script changes, none of which I can remember at this time, other than the fact that they could've swapped Wesley Snipes for someone else, and Ryan Reynolds was not to be taken seriously with a sixpack after watching him in Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place, that greatly upset one of the guys, my butter chicken buddy incidentally, but it was an excellent brood, and a great beginning to the new year.
Actually, come to think of it, the time I was brooding with a buddy over forgetting the last date to apply for the hutch marathon, we were armed at 3 in the morning with omelettes and Lion King 1 1/2. Okay, so any movie will do...

Tomorrow morning, I head out of town with some of the guys for an intense Brood that will last until the end of the week. This is a brood I've called. We still have no clue where we're going to go, but that's part of the magic that is our Brood. No phone, so no calls from college, asking us why the hell we aren't in class, no calls from work, asking me to come in and do the last voice over, and no calls from any of the women in my life outside of the 'once a day, or maybe less' quota I've given myself. Just three CDs especially prepared for the occasion with one full of James Blunt, Live and Dave Matthews for singing to, one of Santana and Nirvana for 'whinging' to, and a third mixed one with lots of Apocalyptica for quietening the badgers, an assortment of liquor for the alcoholics, and ingredients for butter chicken we aren't likely to find in Mussoorie or Nimrana if we end up going there.
I bid you all a fine week ahead, and I know all you men will brood in your hearts for me, and perhaps you women have gained a greater understanding of us men, and why we brood.

EDIT: Our out of town Brood plans got scrapped last minute... I'm trying to make up for it myself at the moment...