Murderers exonerated again

I would seriously hate turning my blog into a commentary on the social environment in India, but I am aghast at the levels this society is getting to.
TOI HT

Can this get worse?

The taps are dry and I have spent the whole day out in the sun, so my shirt is far from dry. I am hungry but I am reminded of the long sweaty day whenever I lie against a pillow or on the bed. Even switching on the AC at full speed doesn't help much. I worry about how I will manage to reach office tomorrow without feeling like a crumpled, sweat-drenched shirt.

To add to it, Strato refuses to talk to me. Different people behave remarkably differently to stress situations. Strato just shuts up and stops contact with just about everyone, including me. I tell you, it strikes me like Bush's shock and awe therapy. Suddenly, I have no clue whether she has lost her cell or is sleeping or is not willing to talk. As hours pass, I come to understand that there must be something bothering her. Lots of cajoling ensues. She relents to talk, only on gtalk, and then on her insistence, I decide to let her be alone, hoping that it would calm her down.

All the dishes are lying on the sink, dirty from the last day and half. I had nothing else to eat, so I decided to cook some Maggi. Half way through the process, which is when I the tastemaker into boiling water, I realised that I am short of tastemaker. A potfull of colorless tasteless cooked Maggi now lies on the sink.

So here I am, dirty and hungry and lonely.

As part of damage control, I ordered sandwich from subway and decided to take bath in the half bucket of water that is still there in the bathroom, hoping that the water shortage problem will be solved by tomorrow. Suddenly, life is not all that bad. May be, a new day will come and taps will be flush with water and Strato will talk and the dishes will be clean again.

There are worse things which have happened, but too much gloom is not good for the reader count of this blog.

May you have a better day than I did.

By the way, I watched and enjoyed ICe Age3 today. The good feeling it generated, however, is suddenly lost somewhere in all this gloom and doom situation.

Revelation?

When the warrior feels lonely
and the battle feels long,
he needs a dose of love
to feel renewed and strong.

But such are quirks of life
and rapid twists of fate,
that no one seems to bother
and life is a long long wait.

He hoped he wouldn't succumb
to the feeling of despair,
he waits and finds all over again
that life isn't really fair ...

A murder is a murder...

If it is committed by policemen, it is even more heinous.
What has happened in Dehradun is a clear case of murder. If Ranbir was shot dead point blank, he couldn't have been escaping. His call records can easily corroborate or disprove police's claim that he had criminal connections. A lie detector test of the prime witness can clearly establish the manner in which Ranbir was rounded up.
If the government wants to find out the truth, it is not going to be difficult. If this was a fake encounter, the police officers involved directly should be tried for murder and those who tried to brush up the case should be tried for obstruction of justice.
Isn't the police supposed to protect common men?
Is the common man's life of no value ?
This case calls for a speedy trial and a clear and quick justice.
Cold-blooded murder!
ref: TOI HT IBNLIVE etc etc
You might say that I am jumping into conclusions, but hey, the circumstantial evidence against the police's claims are just too strong ! There is a PRIME witness who refutes policemen's claim.

Shekhar Suman says...

"To maintain your character as a woman is the most difficult task on this earth"...
What shall I say!
[Disclaimers : This has been plucked out of context. But still... He he]

Mango fest and my first sub

I am enjoying a mango fest at home. Slice to drink, mango for snacks, mango shake for breakfast, mango ice cream for dessert! I'm lovin' it. It is surprising but Slice ads do seem to have enticed me into drinking Slice. And guess what I found - there is a substantial difference in taste between other Mango drinks (incluing Maaza and Frooti) and Slice.

I had my first subway sandwich! Incredible as it sounds, I never tried subway because I never associated healthy sandwich with good taste but I have been proven wrong. The first time I tried a sandwich of that kind was in Germany. There were these shops displaying 'Doner Kebap' - a misspelt version of Doner Kebab(or Kabab, what the heck). Those are not Kebabs as we know them in India, they resemble a big bun partly sliced and filled with shredded chicken and other sandwich stuff. I liked those but they were monstrous - I could never quite eat more than 50-60% of it in one go!

I have finished reading Blink! and I must say I need to go back in time and eat my words. I have liked this book a lot. Some propositions that it makes initially about what it is going to describe and detail made me categorize it as one of those Deepak Chopra genre books but it is far from it.

If I end up with enough enthu, I might write a better description of what this book is about. But I can't wait to start reading The Selfish Gene. It has long been on my reading list, having been inserted there at the recommendation of Kamlesh. He's one fellow you can depend on when you are in need for a book suggestion!

A very interesting (and in the words of Strato - gross) thing happened today. I planned to make egg curry for lunch and in order to avoid any potential disasters, I thought I would look up on the internet to see if there are any special things I must watch out for. Guess what Google Ads displayed (the ad on the right):

Hard at work

The moment she said those words to me, she knew she was in deep trouble.
A friend asked me this afternoon - "So what are you doing? Hard at work?"
I thought for a moment and thought again.
The answer was no indeed. The company I work for has banned gmail and orkut and facebook and any other website known to help mankind pass their time. You get the drift right? How could I be hard at work when I was working so hard? There was simply no reason. And it wasn't in the morning.
I have this problem. Not the one where you are never hard at work, but something else. I can't help it when people say things filled with innuendo, deliberate or otherwise. For some reason, I am able to see or hear things hardly ever intended. This was one case. There are countless others. Wait till you say something like that to me :P

Discovering TedTalk and wearing a nice t-shirt....

I can't believe it, but I discovered TedTalk only yesterday. It is fabulous. Thanks FB for leading me to it, and I found a lot of awesome videos. Link 1 , Link 2 and many more.
The video about Sixth sense, from Media Lab at MIT is incredible. This guy, Pranav Mistry, really is a genius. The generous applause he gets at TedTalk seems to be completely deserved, and recognition at such a forum can be a great career booster. Hats off.
A tall, attractive girl today complimented me on my t-shirt. In fact, she did it twice. Got me thinking. Well, if I hadn't been so much in love with Strato (Yes, I finally admit it in my blog), I would have tried to continue the conversation a little longer, and I believe I stood a good chance of making a good friend with her.
No, I am not reading too much into a simple compliment, but her demeanour does seem to indicate that she doesn't think I am as hideous as I sometimes I am. Anyway, ever since the love story with Strato started, I have really lost the enthu to make new friends - beyond a pleasant acquaintance.
At my cha cha class, there are a lot of interesting people. The instructor is a very funny guy who points out our mistakes and corrects them and adds humor to the whole process. The girl instructor is a beautiful lady made all the more attractive by the wonderful way in which she dances. When the two instructors dance, (I don't know if they are a couple or not), it is a sight to behold.
Then there is a girl who has just cleared her Class 12th exam. Considering the rate at which my hair are falling, I am not wrong in thinking of her as a bachchi! Well, she has a very pleasant smile and she dances reasonably well. Then there is the girl who complimented me on my t-shirt. There are others, most noticeably a gentleman, around the age of my dad, who is so well-mannered, I must tell you I am impressed. In simple gestures, he shows a gracious demeanour. If he were younger, he would be popular among the girls!

How time flies by...

It seems like it was yesterday that I blogged about cha cha classes. It was yesterday that I came back exhausted from my cha cha class. And it was only yesterday that I was celebrating another weekend. Apparently.
I just finished reading 'Weighing the Soul: Scientific Discovery from the Brilliant to the Bizarre'. I loved it. It describes the development of a few puzzling concepts in science which were incredible when first proposed and is a treat for lovers of scientific history.
The one thing I absolutely love in a book is its ability to present itself as a conversation rather than a lecture and invoke some kind of thought process in my head. The two classic examples, and amongst the ones I often use as a benchmark for judging books I read are Organic Chemistry by Boyd and Inorganic Chemistry by J D Lee. These names might force you to label me as a maggu and I hotly dispute that, but let us keep that as a separate thread. These books are benchmarks because these are among the first few books I really loved reading.
Both these books have, in my opinion, set standards that have made me reject a lot of books. Sometimes, serious fiction might not suit the conversational style, but it often has. I loved reading Great Expectations and I still remember the feeling of being told a story when I read it. Then there are novels where you have to read and figure out the story. Almost invariably, I stop halfway through them - if at all I reach there.
I started reading Mother by Maxim Gorky. Serious literature. I picked it up, read the summary and liked two things - it was about a culture I know little about, so reading it would be like exploring a new place and Gorky is a name that has always intrigued me. He is reputed and I had read none of his books. A third of my way through the book, I gave up. It was way too taxing for me.
I have started reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Having read Fooled by Randomness and mildly agreeing with Taleb's argument, I do not find Gladwell's arguments very convincing. He does have a point when he talks about how we like or dislike a book in the first few sentences we read from it. Snap judgements they are. But they are as likely to be right as to be wrong - Halfway through Blink, for instance, I am not enthused to complete it. Definitely not when it competes with sleeping and cha cha for the very little free time I get. Contrast that with 'Weighing the soul' , which I used to read even at midnight out of curiosity.
I am thinking of watching X-Men 4 but I am not sure what to expect. Ladies go there with the allure of Jackman, but whats there in it for men except some fast paced action?

Life's like that.

Small pleasures, big pains!
I take delight in small accomplishments. A problem had been haunting me for some time. Then, after a brain storming session, I went back to my previous approach, and with slight modifications, I was able to achieve a result close to what I had been wishing for. No money made, in fact, if the proof is in the pudding, I have only gotten to the point of reading up the recipe on the internet. There is much more to be done before it leads to any tangible benefits but I felt happy.
I have also gotten addicted to Cha cha cha. I just love dancing to the tunes, though I am scared of doing it in the presence of anyone other than the people in my dance class. Suddenly, there is some novelty, something new to create excitement in life.
On personal front, I am really trying hard to get things to move. I am determined to not celebrate the new year alone - if you know what I mean !

Too much in the name of show off

Our social lives are attuned to the custom of showing off. A marriage ceremony is treated as an opportunity to impress the magnitude of affluence on others, even if it results in budgetary cuts over the next few years. Parents save over years (actually decades) to be able to spend on that one occasion. It is fine to spend, but the problem is that a wedding ceremony becomes a circus performance. The bride and groom wait for gruelling hours, standing and smiling, their cheek hurting from having to maintain the grin for extended hours. How encouraging is that?
My own experience of wedding ceremonies (as a friend or close relative) tells me that not many people might want a simple ceremony, but those who do cannot express their desire without risking displeasure of family members. After all, log kya kahenge.
I am full of contradictions. I am socially conscious about minor things such as appearance, but on major issues, I really really think 'log kya kahenge' should be the last bit of concern. Who I am marrying, what career I want to choose for myself, how I should celebrate something - things of such importance shouldn't be decided based on 'log kya kahenge'. I have one life and should I choose to do something in one particular way, I needn't worry about people's perception.
This does not give me the licence to parade naked on the road (who wants to do that anyway!),
but yes, the bounds of social norms are imposed far too stringently in our society than I believe befits a liberal one.
Our society is not liberal, you might say. So what are we doing about it, I ask you!

Sway with Cha cha cha

I have started learning Cha cha cha. In fact it has been 4 weeks. At a session a week, the pace seems slow, but we have been taught some pretty complicated steps. At my level of initiation, a lot of things seem complicated. But I am trying.
I absolutely love this song :



I really want to go on a trip somewhere. The last time I went on a long trip was in last November. The length of the trip was a meager one week. That is what a working life reduces us to - beasts of burden. I wonder what it must be like to be able to take a month off from work and travel around the world.
With a busy work life and lousy social life, I really have no choice. And when my friends tell me about their lucky travel plans ( one to Bondi beach, another to Brazil! ) I can only say Lucky Basses [The obvious expletive avoided to keep this a paarivarik blog ].
My dream travel destination : Scandinavia. I have been there once, but I can't get enough of it! It is just too beautiful. [ And way too expensive! ]

The skipping of a movie by the Coward Vyom Gupta

Well, what more can I say?
The movie has a long name and slow pace.More importantly, there was no actress - none till I watched. How long could a single guy in a long distance relationship have waited? I mean, the movie is serious and on any other day, it would have made for a good choice. However, a gripping movie can cripple the gripping power of any other movie for the next few hours and I had just finished watching Frost/Nixon when I started this one.
May be I will complete it some other day.

Frost/Nixon is a fantastic movie. Gripping, serious drama. It is intriguing how a whole movie has been made of a very small (though with over reaching effects) set of incidents. I suppose the small-ness is only in the length of the time over which the incidents are spread. Recommended stuff for history buffs and (Nixon,drama,Michael Sheen) fans. Movie buffs don't need a recommendation anyway - they watch whatever is screened or available on hard drive.

What larks eh?

This is an expression from a novel I loved. Truly loved. Since I am a fan of Dileep Kumar style tragedies ( I would award Devdas an Oscar if I could!), -(well, so is God, why else would I be writing about all this! ) (- oh I also love writing sub comments inside brackets!), I loved this novel. The other haunting expression from this novel is 'What have I done'.

Without sounding like a boring old widower, I must assert that I am suddenly feeling quite empty. Most of my friends tell me times will turn around and it will all be ok. But this period definitely has proven to me how important some people have become. Not that I had forgotten but still...

I have a long weekend with potentially nothing to do. A few movies on the laptop, probably one in a hall (alone) and sleep - thats how I hope to while away my time. No wonder I reach office pretty early on Monday mornings - I am so bored of spending a lonely weekend!

That was quick...

My manager said that to me, when I showed him the results of a thing I was working on. It completely made my effort worthwhile. It also made me realise that I am better at what I am doing right now than what I was doing before this. It also made me happy enough to leave office at 7 pm. What precipitated my action, actually, was a frantic phone call from my flatmate. He had kept the house keys at a safe location near the gate and was concerned that someone might have seen him do that.

I had a long conversation with a friend about faith in this world. My opinion turns out to be that when it comes to money, trust is not a central issue. When the stakes are high enough, most, if not all, people will make the transition from the ethical to the not-so-unethical. People shouldn't be naive enough to trust others with their money. I stand by that!

Today's song

Driving is fun...

I have begun to enjoy my drive to work - it is a cool 15 minutes journey and other than being punctuated by canine corpses, it is rather uneventful. The showers this morning made it a much more breezy affair.

Just this morning, my flat mate commented - "Teri biwi bahut khush rehne wali hai!". That was after I made a quick banana shake in the morning - a concept almost alien to most bachelors my age. I enjoy the process as much as I do the outcome. I wish I could tell Strato and remind her of what she is missing.
Well, every hour reminds me of what I am missing. The amount of time spent on phone has drastically reduced. Some of it has been replaced by anxious thoughts about the future. The remainder is still blank.

Having joined a small firm, I get much lesser holidays. This friday is a holiday for most people but not for me. Anyway, it is better to toil and do something you like than to while away the time doing nothing most of the time and something you hate some of the time.

Celine Dion - I Drove All Night (Video)
Uploaded by sagelion13

A lover of poems

As it happens, I love poems. And short stories.
I have written a few of both, but that is beside the point.

Just yesterday, I came across this very moving poem (again). It completely moved my cheese:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
...

[http://www.poeticexpressions.co.uk/POEMS/Grow%20old%20along%20with%20me.htm ]

I am missing Strato, as is to be expected. The only other person I have ever missed more is my housemaid in Mumbai. She once vanished for a full fortnight and the housing society members threatened to evict us because of the foul smell coming from our house. It also explained the dizzy feeling we got whenever we came near the kitchen door - from the other side; to enter the kitchen was a long forgotten ritual by then.

Actually I am missing Strato very much. In a fit of rage, she refuses to speak with me. Anybody who reads this and knows her email id, please do send across a soothing email to her. Anything I say right now is only going to add (rocket wala) fuel to the fire. She is smoking hot, man! (Sounds so weird without the comma, doesn't it?)

I am working at a start-up right now. Everything is closely monitored and I am enjoying my work. I am in office at 9 and leave around 7:30pm. I was hoping they would make me the employee of the year, but then, since there was no cash award, I think it is alright not to get it! Not to forget that I am a fortnight short of the 3 month duration which is a minimum to be assessed. (It just struck me as strange that assessing has got nothing to do with asses. Probably they used asses to assess in ancient times and therein lies the origin of the [species] word).

Kudos to Jarnail Singh. Next I hear he is being signed up by Nike for an ad campaign.

No songs today - mood nahi hai.

What else, another tragedy.

Another tragedy in the life of Dileep Kumar. What else did he expect?

Still, it is quite surprising. Life seems to have come full circle. A long circle full of joy rides and a big bump at the end. Wait, its not the end - I am still hopeful it will work out. 'Against hope hopen'. One thing that I have indeed understood is that it is very difficult for others to understand your predicament. Sometimes even people you trust seem to not understand that there are deeper issues than what appears at the surface.
Life is complicated and patience isn't that common a virtue. I wish it were.

This might sound cryptic to most people except one. The one who seemed to be the one. I still think the one is the one. But who is to tell the one!

My head is spinning in full circles. Rapid circles.

For the first time in my life, I will allow things to settle down. Hope that everything works out. When I try, it goes in the opposite direction. So I better keep it slow. People who love you will miss you soon, won't they? I hope they will. I sure as heck already do!