Chuck Norris

This is hilarious
http://www.dahl-lumholt.dk/Chuck-Norris.html?index

Replace "Chuck Norris" with "Rajnikanth" and all the jokes continue to work

Guten tag

"How old should you get before you stop doing tags?" - Old jungle rhetorical question.

I started off being passionately anti-tag, but now my views are slightly more charitable towards them because I keep hitting the dead ends when I realise I have nothing else to write about and these tags give me a good excuse to get self-obsessed once again.

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how yu got it

This is a story from way back when Basketball was our religion. Pups, one of the important apostles, always advised me that I ran towards the basket too fast ; in his words "like an ape with his tail on fire". I took that as a compliment till I got the scar that I'm going to tell you about. It was our usual afternoon game. I had run past two guys, completed a layup and released the ball like everything was scripted. Things went wrong before I could land on the ground. Keermam shoved me hard while i was still in the air, I lost my balance and my landing was screwed up by some other stray foot. I went tumbling several feet beyond where I should have stopped. And then I heard the loud bang and saw the bright light at the same time. A few seconds later I even tasted that mysterious metal taste that appears at the back of the tongue when you injure your head. I could feel blood flowing down from my forehead.

The stitches went right across my left eye brow. Before the wound could heal I was looking forward to a cool scar that would lend me some character. My face at that time could sure use some ruggedization. Unfortunately that mallu nurse at Martha's did a swell job with the stitching because even I can't find the scar anymore. So that's that! and btw, the ball went in!

2. What is on the walls in your room?
Daddy long legs . post-its.

To be contd.

Salim Ali wrote a book. I just sulked.

There was some commotion in the tree under which I stood waiting for my cab to pick me up. Before I could even look up to inspect, a Barbet nestling crashed to the ground. Evidently not having learnt to fly, it hopped about frantically, trying desperately hard to avoid becoming a meal to some crows that had surrounded it. Here's a trivia: a group of crows is called a "murder". For once, it made complete sense. Each of the crows took turns to hop next to the barbet, ceremoniously gave it a peck and then hopped back. The barbet, meanwhile, squealed so horribly that I felt extremely restless. I felt the need to intervene. I instinctively shooed the crows away. It's hard to just say "Let nature take its course" when you see something like this happening in Bhashyam circle. It just doesn't cut it. Just then, one rather enterprising crow picked up the chick by its wing and flew away awkwardly. Here's when something rather bizarre happened. Two mynas started to chase the crow. It gave the whole episode a dream-like incongruence. They kept trying to make the crow drop the nestling. I stood there thinking I should have picked up the barbet. When my cab arrived the bird was dead. I couldn't stop thinking about it for the next half an hour. The experience was eerily disturbing. And not particularly for how well it summed me up. I manage to have all the right intentions but when it comes to doing anything I just don't seem to know where to begin.

Matte finish please

Completely agree with Chimera on this. I never really understood the reason for those raised doors and walls in western-style toilets. I'll admit they make good props in thriller movies, when you know the victim is in one of the chambers and the serial killer tugs on your nerves as he slowly goes about peeping through the gaps (The killer always starts looking from the wrong end but that's not really his fault). In real life these kinda toilets serve no useful purpose if you ask me. In my previous place of work, they had compounded the inconvenience by laying mirror-finish tiles on the floor. As a result, you had to take extra care not to look down to the sides lest you end up making eye contact with your neighbour's reflection. It's a very sticky social situation, one that not many of us are trained to handle. If you smile, it's plain silly. If you don't it's rude. Either way, the picture sticks in your mind for way too long. Moreover, since you've lost your anonymity you feel compelled to put on your best behaviour. That's not really an ideal environment for crapping.
I vote for a little more privacy.

4 months

Before the first interview, I remember looking at the tie and saying "You dirty colonial relic. I ain't got no use for you". Sure enough the first question I faced was "Why aren't you wearing a tie? Are you trying to make a statement?" Another guy added "It's not even all that hot!". I mumbled something and said "I'm definitely not making a statement". For the rest of the interview three guys distracted me with mindless questions while I preoccupied myself with coming up with clever retorts to that tie question. Esprit d'escalier!
Three months later, I have to attend another interview. It's the hottest goddamn day of the year and I decide to wear a tie. The minute I walk in to the room, my interviewer shows up in a T-shirt and says "You can loosen up your tie, I don't want this to get too formal". I just can't seem to get it right. But here's a useful tip for survival in a phoney world "It's better to be overdressed than under-dressed".

That's what I've been up to. Interviews. Crossing fingers and toes. And hoping against hope. Meanwhile life's been in an extremely uncomfortable state of suspension. I've hit the most formidable fork in the road and it's not my prerogative to pick it up. My nerves have frayed. Trying to be prepared for the worst seems to have made me a chronic pessimist. 8 Floyds. I've begun to question my attitudes too often; like yesterday while J and I were sipping tea from dirty cups in a dhaba I asked "When did I become so unspontaneous?". At least a dozen of those every day. I long to find the much celebrated aaha-moments; 40 second free-falls, Coming back to Life or when S finally arrived. Now, half my sentences begin with "If ...". And that is why this site was shut down too. This evening I realized something. I'm never blogging when I'm taking my life too seriously. I don't know if that's a genuine correlation or just another of my stupid superstitions, but several voices in my head and one outside convinced me that I should start crapping in public domain once again. To the latter, probably my last remaining reader, this post is for you.

A new l'eau

We couldn't help laughing at how the whole Shilpa Shetty episode got blown completely out of proportion, finally ending in the lady getting seriously delusional. ("I'd like to thank Big Brother for giving me the opportunity to make my country PROUD"). Proud? Proud of a big brother winner??? That would disgraceful, even for a country of an average IQ of 80. I watched the videos on youtube - yeah I'm a closet reality show junkie- and I couldn't see much racism. In any case, If I got paid 3.5 crores, there's not a word in any language on this planet or elsewhere that would offend me. Seriously! I'd be willing to put up with mild physical abuse too.

Anyway, we were sitting in the cafeteria discussing how it's nice to be part of a downtrodden race. We retain the liberty to be racist and yet carry the license to cry foul when anybody else indulges in it. The topic then turned to our prejudices. How we judge people based on established stereotypes. The gregarious punjabi who dances all night to variants of the same song, invariably containing the words kudi, munda and chak de phatte. The enterprising but noisy Gujju opening motels all over the world. The bong whose intelligence is only surpassed by his pretentiousness. The mallu who is wire-transferring money from some arabic speaking country. The gult whose summit of accomplishment is the H1B. So on. Stereotypes are extremely handy. They simplify life and give you a reason to not be all understanding and deep and insightful and all those terrible things. Then it struck me that I'm not really aware of what stereotypes are associated with my breed. I thought it would be a nice exercise to discuss that. "Unambitious", "Rude", "Insular" , "Narrow minded" were the spontaneous responses. It was not funny. I so badly wanted to protest and do some brand building. But I have this overpowering need to act like the guy with no allegiances. So I just shut up and grinned like it didn't matter.

Two afternoons later, the Cauvery verdict was declared. Suddenly all the buildings had Karnataka flags on them. (Seriously why does a state need a flag. For that matter why does anybody need a flag?) People were scampering looking for the shortest path home. Some were memorising some kannada sentences. And not entirely in jest too. It suddenly hit me, we are pretty mean.

I don't know what the verdict really meant. I'm sure not many people do. Even if the court had said 500 TMCs for you and 800 for TN, we still would have cried ourselves hoarse. It never was about how much water I need. I suspect it's more about whether I get the bigger share. So next Monday, we'll be on the streets ravaging some effigies and shouting some unimaginative slogans (Beke beku , nyaaya beku????). Vatal Nagaraj will be stop trains and be a complete jerk. Sa Ra Govindu will rouse all the auto drivers into action. We'll all get together and get noticed. If you see a burning Volvo, don't bother calling the fire department, we've got only 200 TMCs.

Bagalkot

I've lived in Bangalore almost all my life. I watched it grow into what it has become now. Despite all it's ills, I still feel pride when when people write and talk about my city like it is the face of progress itself. I know that I'm also in the danger of being fooled into equating Bangalore to the rest of India. Last weekend's trip was, to quote the hideous cliché, a reality check.

Bagalkot is a small town in North Karnataka with not much of a claim to fame except that it is one of the high-profile victims of the Almatti dam. When full, the reservoirs will completely submerge the old town. One of the features that will stay out of water is the Engineering college here. It has 300 students all with the same dreams that any of us had back when we were studying. Not to sound like a pretentious pseudo-self-effacing windbag, but those folks taught me a lot. A lot more than I was chartered to teach them. If nothing, I came back almost feeling guilty for the sinful imbalance in the opportunities that people in Bangalore get as opposed to those outside.

As soon as we arrived on the scene, I figured I had two kinds of colleagues with me. Those that were there to help because they saw a business opportunity that they were going to exploit. Then there were those that were feeding on the cultural cringe and inferiority complex of others in order to boost their own egos. The funny thing however was that despite the lack of any higher ideal or noble cause, it was very tangible that we were helping. So nobody really complained. It wasn't even as serious as I made it sound. At the dinner table while we shared our individual stories and laughed our guts out, we knew we had had a swell time.

What should I use here; the common emitter configuration or the common collector?
first one sir.
Why?
it is better sir.

What's your hobby?
Roaming.
where?
on the road.

What do you read?
books.
Which ones?
Ramayana and Mahabharatha.
Who wrote Ramayana?
Kuvempu

What music do you like?
Silent music.

What is your hobby?
Visiting tourist places.
What's your favourite place?
Belur.
What do you like about it?
The road is very good.

Sane?

Sushmita Sen said in an interview "chastity has no meaning in the current period and it applies to both men and women". I won't venture a judgment on that line because, honestly, I have no idea what that meant. Some Tamil lawyer, however, not only understood it, but also deemed it dangerous enough to our moral fabric to go ahead and slap a case against her in court.

The same lady, it seems, evaded duties on a car she imported. Point it out if you think I'm naïve, but I see no ambiguity here. She ought to be punished here. But the vigilance officer connected to the case doesn't think so. He not only allowed her to submit a letter requesting a waiver, but also arranged a red carpet welcome when she went to his office. ""After all she is a Ms Universe, so the welcome was natural" he says.

I once read an article that placed our national average IQ at 80. I remember feeling outraged then. Now I wonder.

Hampi

The splendour is definitely gone. All you see now are the ruins. Pick a direction to look and you'll find some dilapidated building. The sheer number of construction sites and the area they cover makes you wonder about the grandeur that must have surely existed back when the kingdom was still prospering. It also makes you hate all the idiots who plundered this place. And then you look at the "Y loves X" proclamations that crowd most of the remaining walls and you realise that the race of the idiots still thrives.

The visit to the Vithala temple was probably the highlight of my trip. The musical pillars are mind blowing. This is one of the best preserved monuments in Hampi. I won't be surprised if they discover someday that even the barbarians were moved enough by the sheer beauty to spare this particular temple from destruction. To get the most out of your visit to the Vithala temple you need to have a guide.

Even the best guide, however, will not explain satisfactorily the occurence of all those heaps of rocks in this area. The explanation that came closest to making the cut was the legend that the gods played marbles here.

A portuguese traveller who travelled to the Vijayanagara Kingdom is said to have remarked about Hampi that the retina of the eye has never seen anything quite like it. You probably can still say the same thing about it. Where else would you encounter a lungi-clad waiter in a KhanavaLi serving you Sphagetti Bolognaise or a Moussaka, or a paan chewing lady dressed in an iLkal seere holding a plate of bondas and asking you in English (U.S. International) "Would you like some snacks?"

My New Year's Eve
Three balding men sported pony tails. We laughed like crazy. We went to a gorgeous restaurant called Mango Tree . The wine flowed. Sounds like fun, no?

This was a blog that I really used to enjoy. The author waged wars against a wide variety of irritants - traffic, dentists northies, you name it- and it was therapeutic just to read it. It was nice to know that someone else was feeling the angst on my behalf. It's comforting ; kinda like having a messiah who dies for my sins. But lately, Dr. Pissed seems to have made his peace with the world and the posts have dried up. So I have to do my own cribbing now. Here are some things that piss me off on a regular basis.

Have you noticed these really chummy pairs of bike riders? The kind that feel obligated by some ridiculous social etiquette to ride along next to each other. It's bad enough that they slow me down completely, but what really aggravates me is that while they are doing this they are also obeying the rules of polite conversation, you know, like making occasional eye contact and all. These days, with the helmet rule in place, they can't really have a very meaningful conversation while they are riding, so they have to scream out the words, and have to slow down further. Yet they persist. Turd-brains!

Someone ask Ravi Shastri to shut up. I know magic-eight-balls which had more things to say. "That's just what the doctor ordered" . "That went like a tracer bullet". What the f*** is a tracer bullet anyway!

(These are not completely my words, but they are exactly my thoughts.)
Respect your religion? Firstly, you ask for submission and not respect, so screw you. Next, even if you mean respect, I have no obligation to RESPECT your religion. I respect your right to follow it, but I refuse to respect your/any religion. You don't see me asking you to respect atheism. Stop pissing me off.

I'm back

Back from the self-imposed exile to publish more of my pointless crap. During the break I haven't read a book or watched a movie or a tv show or played a game. This morning I couldn't wait to get my life back. I played basketball like a man possessed. I made a complete fool of myself, missed almost all my shots. And now every muscle hurts. I feel so alive.

I got myself a new job. For the first time in my professional life I completely understand the meaning of the phrase "total wavelength mismatch". I'm not claiming intellectual high ground here. I am surrounded by very intelligent people. I'm just saying if everybody in my team drew venn diagrams representing their interests there won't be a single overlap. It is not the best setting to spend 40 hours in a week.

Never before have I looked forward to the christmas break so eagerly. I want to read the books watch the movies, make a trip... The blog posts will follow.

Words that English ought to borrow

One of the joys of learning a language is the kick that you get when you encounter a truly expressive word that has no equivalent in any other language you know.
How many times have you looked at Emraan Hashmi, Deve Gowda or Himesh Reshammiya and struggled to sum up what you thought about their faces? The germans have just the right word for it. "Backpfeifengesicht": a face that cries out for a fist in it.

Just last fortnight, on our trip to see Kuranji Pushpa, we stopped at a lake called GaLikere for a while. The lake is perched on the top of a mountain and Everytime a strong wind blows, the water tips over from the side. That's how it got it's name. It used to be one of the most pristine spots I've ever seen, until a super-idiotic belief suddenly sprang up. People started to follow the custom of leaving their underwear behind after they took bath there, b********! Anyway, that's not the point of this post. At the lake, I got the chance to show off my skill at the game I used to call, until recently, "bouncing stones on water". Apparently, in dutch (oh I'm so in love with the language) they have a name for the sport, plimpplampplettere.

Every Saturday morning, my mom drives herself into a frenzy and turns the house inside out in her quest to personally attack every dust particle. In deutschland they call the mania Putzfimmel.

Read this article.

Meet Goobe

Meet Goobe. A cat who until recently was an uninvited guest in our balcony. He used to hang around there at night, and take flight as soon as we opened the door.

Meet my sis. She has held snakes in her hand but she is completely scared of butterflies and moths. Scared enough to cry when a hapless butterfly happens to get into the house.

Last week, Goobe won himself a lifelong devotee when he jumped up acrobatically and caught a moth. He now gets food and drink on the house, and also has a cozy little mat for himself to sleep on.

I was bugged of tags ere I was tagged by 'bug

Regular vistors to this page will note that this blog serves to satisfy the self-absorption of it's author. So when another opportunity to talk about himself came along, he gladly latched on.

The origin of my nick name, Deppe, is shrowded in mystery. I have a vague recollection of being christened thus when I was in engineering. I also have a faint memory of having hated the name. Much later, while I was talking to myself, I caught one of my inner voices addressing another as Deppe. Shocking!

I am obsessed with reading number plates on vehicles and making judgements about the driver based on his origin. Not unlike people who say "Oh! you are cancerian? That explains it", I , for example, look out for the number plates of drivers who honk incessantly and feel very gratified when I see KA-06 (Tumkur) or KA-11 (Mandya). I'm trying to quit this habit btw.

There was a time I was really fanatical about my home town, Bangalore. Now I practically hate it. If there's any geographical feature in India I am parochial about, it is the Western Ghats. I got childishly angry once when somebody said the ghats are very monotonous.

The ghats have never looked as stunning as during the last couple of weeks. There are particular weirdos in the plant family that inhabit this part of the deccan. Every 12 years they all bloom together and cover the peaks with a purple carpeting. It's a sight to behold. I digressed...

I once stood for elections for the post of class rep, after someone nominated me in jest. I gave the worst possible speech; I said nothing. I got 3 votes ( or was it 2?). I like to think that my life would have turned out dramatically different if I had got just one vote.

To be continued...

Jobless

Why did the french invent a spelling scheme so unappealing to my sense of logic? What's the fun if half the letters in a word are silent? It's not pretty. Not at 7 in the morning. I really think they should reform their spellings a bit. Now that would be a French Revolution I'd appreciate.

Forenoons and afternoons are for interviews. I enjoy the interviews, except for the one ocassion when Toshiro Mifune himself quizzed me while wearing his Samurai temper on his sleeve. What I don't enjoy, though, is driving all those miles in this unbelievably horrible traffic, a topic I intend to crib about in greater detail in succeeding posts.

Evenings remind me about the joys of being unemployed.

Just before I hit the sack, I wish the day had a few more hours. Someone told me that that's a good sign.

Hyderabad trip

Everytime I travel in a bus, train or plane, I always end up sitting next to an obscenely obese gentleman. Each time, I wait for the law of averages to catch up with me and usher in some long overdue justice, preferably in the form of a hot-babe neighbour in the bus. I sent up a little prayer before boarding the bus to Hyderabad, but apparently I'm not doing it right. The guy who sat next to me looked like he could easily edge Yokozuna out of the dohyo.

As a result, I was playing mind games with the fatso all night long when I should have been sleeping. Straightaway I realised that I was the underdog, and I graciously relinquished all my rights on the common armrest. But these fatsos never stop there. As soon as they sleep, they spill over in all directions. My first course of action was to repeatedly recline and straighten my seat in order to point out that large chunks of adipose had made their way to the wrong side of the common armrest. When that failed to work, I took jerky jabs with my elbow to upset his peace, while pretending that I'm doing all that in my sleep. I must add that I adhered to all bullet points on the geneva convention's regulations for this kind of warfare; my elbow never once left my airspace. But sigh! I guess the nerve endings were buried too deep down because he didn't budge an inch. I gave up trying to sleep.

Apparently, I've accumulated a lot of bad karma, because on the return trip I sat next to a man, who in an ideal world, would voluntarily buy two tickets for himself.

And here's the vote of thanks.

K, you're a swell host buddy. Although you should work on your welcome gestures. Atleast wear a few more clothes.

M & A, thanks for the charming company. See you in bangalore soon.

I'm pissed

oh boy! Give the book a break. It was written a million years ago. Those things do go out of date, you know? Maybe the guys who wrote it were the smartest people at the time, but for fuck's sake, they may have got it wrong. Take Aristotle. He was bloody smart but he misunderstood his own outstanding brain; the guy thought that it was an organ to cool the blood. They get it wrong sometimes.

Who the hell gave those other turd-brains the right to make you sing something you don't wanna sing?

nationality and religion. Why do people expect you to be loyal to choices you never made?

Things I'll miss

Things I will miss when I leave Belgium, in pretty much this order.
* Buana , Roberto, Meneer and Charlie. I came here a year ago looking for the same things that people usually look for when they leave their own shores; experiences, money, an illusion of advancement, expansion of the mind and all that jazz. Funny, I never had thought I'd make friends too.
* The Flemish language and the Flemish people. Belgium is a tiny country surrounded by chauvinism on the east and south and self-assuredness on the north. Somehow the Flemish have managed to stay immune to those vices, evident in the way they take pride in speaking at least 4 languages.
* The beers. When I first made a rather naive vow to taste all belgian beers before I leave, Buana asked me to extend my contract for atleast another decade. I then saw this board and knew what he meant.

The 280 doesn't even begin to cover the number of types and brands of beer you get here.I will especially miss Leffe Bruin and Rochefort 8.
* The fries. Notice I don't call them "french" fries. You get the most awesome fries in the roadside shops (frituurs) here. I don't know if it's a myth, but all 10 million Belgians seem to believe that a Belgian invented the fries and the French took credit for it. Charlie calls it the greatest crime in history.
* The main street of Antwerp, Meir. The city square,Groenplaats. The riverside, right bank of the Schelde.
* Playing pool and watching football with the ghanians and the kenyans.
* Ice skating rinks.
* finally, DEFINITELY the belgian pout!

Switzerland

Random notes from my swiss trip.

* Although we hadn't planned for it, we landed in Zurich right on the day of the famous Street Parade. It's hard to describe the scene. By the end of the evening nothing in the world could shock me.
* The mountains of Switzerland are teeming with Indians and Chinese. One of the ticket collectors on the train spoke a bit of hindi too, kinda like Tom Alter as a firang oppressor in all those period movies.

* In the places where there were no tourists, Switzerland is as beautiful as any place I've seen. Jungfraujoch, the highest peak in Europe (?) is not one such place. But sometimes you have to visit these marquee destinations which are vulgarly crowded, mostly with desi couples. There's even an indian restaurant at the top, with a carefully crafted ambience, complete with rude waitresses.
* The high point of my stay,quite literally too, was the sky diving. Experiences like that have a way of creating bonds. That evening, the bunch of us who went on the plane together drank almost till morning. We felt like best buddies. I no longer remember their names.
* For anybody staying at Interlaken, I strongly recommend the hostel, Balmer's Herberge. If not for the great atmosphere you should go there just for this gorgeous bottle they give you when you check-in.

* On the third day, L & I hiked on a random mountain, just to escape the crowds. We sat there by a hilltop-lake saying nothing for a long time, hearing nothing but the chirping birds and the rustling leaves. While I was in the middle of pensive introspection, L chose to break the silence with the most uncalled-for statement "This landscape reminds me of the Brokeback mountains". It's difficult to overstate the peace-shattering effect of that line. I started to pack up before he had uttered the last syllable. I longed for the chinese tourists.

* If nothing, you can just buy a train pass and spend all your time travelling on trains, and the mountain rails and the rope cars and it would still be a worthwhile swiss holiday. I loved the train journey from Interlaken to Luzern.

* I'm definitely going there again.

Commercial Break

The field of advertising is often characterized by superb imagination. But even in this field banalities rule. Last night, while I was channel-hopping, I found the following laws to be relevant to TV ads across cultures and nations.

° Toothpaste ads shall feature fictitious dental organisations (with ridiculous names) vouching for their favourite brand.

° The effectiveness of sanitary napkins shall always be illustrated by the use of blue ink.

° Detergent ads shall employ the services of B-grade celebrities knocking on the houses of very bad actors who are trying their best to look like unsuspecting house wives. The detergent shall always be used to remove ketchup stains.

° Users of shaving creams, razors or after-shaves shall be so obsessed with feeling their own glazed cheeks, they shall not even notice the hot babes clinging on to them.

° Animated chicken shall persuade people to eat their eggs.

° Boys who consume health drinks shall jump over fences to prove that those nutrients really help. Girls shall engage in a more mental activity, such as solving jigsaw puzzles, to prove the same point.

° Contraceptives shall have grossly exaggerated aphrodisiacal effects.

° Shampoo ads shall blatantly ignore populous demographics such as curly haired men or short haired women.

A Monday I Can't Complain About

I'll use a borrowed line. The ratio of the number of times I've taken off in an airplane to the number of times I've landed is no longer 1.


There was nervous energy in that airplane. Probably because many of the passengers were flying for the first time in their lives without having to wear seatbelts. Easy to explain why there were no seatbelts; because there were no seats! We took our places next to our respective jump masters on the floor. There was a breathtakingly beautiful view from the top, including a picture-perfect rainbow, but I was just storing the sights in my brain. I was in no condition to enjoy them at that moment. A few minutes later the door opened and the first pair of guys jumped out. I was to go second. I peered down to see how the first pair was doing. They had jumped less than 10 seconds ago and they were already just a tiny speck way down there. Here is where a sky dive differs from a bungee. Once strapped and standing on the bungee platform, you fight an infinitesimally long but monumental battle in your head to convince yourself to make that critical tilt. It's quite often vanity that pushes you forward. In a tandem skydive, however, when you strap yourself on to the instructor, you surrender some of your rights. So before I had the opportunity for a second thought I found myself in a free fall. The first few seconds are the hardest to describe. The jumpmaster tapped me on the shoulder, which was a well-rehearsed signal for me to spread my arms out. But at that moment it didn't make any sense. He had to pry my arms open wide. I got used to the fall soon enough to pose for a cameraman tumbling around me. For 40 seconds or so, I actually felt like I was just hovering in the air. Only the chill moist alpine air stinging my cheeks reminded me that I was going down; real fast! I even remember looking at the Brienzersee lake and wondering why it was so green. The next exciting thing was when the chute actually opened. The deceleration is so fast that I felt like I had reversed my fall and was now shooting back up. The canopy ride is one joy ride and I had all the time to soak in the details of the swiss landscape. The landing was pretty exciting too. They make a swooping arc to generate some horizontal velocity, which is needed for a slide-landing. In the end, it felt great to be on the ground again. It's hard to describe what goes on in the mind during and just after the jump. I felt powerful, cleansed, euphoric and maybe a little vain. The most surreal thing is the way your sense of time gets distorted. Did it last forever? Dit it take a small fraction of a millisecond? Keine Ahnung.

Photos here.

I

I am thinking about...
... the pressure to appear witty in these answers.

I said...
... "bitte druecken und be" . Some things don't get lost in translation.

I want to...
... go roadtripping with my two favorite allies. Fully loaded with snacks and supplies.
(I didn't change this one from jax's)

I wish...
... I could swap places with Michael Palin.

I hear...
... cicadas in the background when I remember my fondest childhood memories.

I wonder...
... if 5 yrs from now I'll regret the choices I'm making today.

I regret...
... a lot.

I am...
... a bathroom whistler.

I dance...
... without joy.

I sing...
... at 10 decibels or lesser, with a frequency range to rival a dog-whistle's.

I cry...
... when there's too much chlorine in the swimming pool, or when I'm cutting onions. Grief, hurt and despair only bring those lumps of varying sizes in the throat.

I am not always...
... vegetarian , patriotic , in-control , selfish , adult

I make with my hands...
...chapathis that consistently look like maps of australia.

I write...
... increasingly dispassionately. I don't even care if that last sentence was grammatically incorrect.

I confuse...
... debit and credit. plaintiff and defendant. stalactite and stalagmite. Point and Cover.

I need...
... ( and I'm quoting a friend here) "one woman to lavish my love on, one mentor to show me the way, two good friends, some meaningful conversation, a little adventure, some activity that helps me grow intellectually."
To the author : Plagiarism, you think? See you in court. Where you will be the plaintiff. Or the defendant?

And finally...
... even when I'm not fully serious about it, introspection always leaves me depressed!

That tag was brought to me by jax. I pass the tag on to :
Disha
Kavs
MS

Deppe Recommends - 4

Movie: The Apu trilogy
I know I suck at reviewing movies, which is why I usually stop at just recommending them. It's all the more hard to describe the beauty of something as uncomplicated as the Apu Trilogy. Finally I understand why they esteem Ray so highly. He doesn't seem to do one thing wrong. Although he made this movie in an age when it was necessary to exaggerate every emotion on screen (remember Annavru and Shivaji Ganesan?), he gets the actors to trick you into believing that they are not acting at all. There are especially the scenes of Apu and his bride "learning" to love each other, like it happens so often in arranged marriages; the honesty in the portrayal of that romance is mind-blowing. And the humour of a smart observation, while not making you laugh aloud, can still be so satisfying. The music is great too, except on a couple of ocassions when it seems to resort to an emotional arm-twisting that the movie itself refrains from doing. Kinda like a laughter track telling you when to laugh, sometimes the music seems to tell you "now you are supposed to cry". You can tell the impact of a movie by how long you linger in the experience after the movie has ended, and judging by that alone, this ranks high up there. I had watched these movies when I was too young to appreciate it. While I didn't remember anything from the first viewing, watching it again brought back pleasant memories of more innocent times when all members of my family could agree on one channel to watch. Not that we had a choice, of course!

Book :East of Eden
For a tale set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America, the story is held together by a very unusual character; a cook of chinese origin named, surprise surprise, Lee! The cooking is just a livelihood for him. He has enough original philosophy to give Confucius a run for his money. The Lee of my imagination looked like a portly version of one of my chinese colleagues, and it was a struggle to allow him to talk proper english. Lee seemed more realistic talking plopel english, if you know what I mean. And oddly enough, thats the same kind of prejudice that Lee finds himself fighting several times in the novel. Made for a very interactive experience. Lee is like Lord Henry of Dorian Grey, he gets all the good lines. When Cal, one of the protagonists hints at ending his own life, he remarks "Suicide! Its the cheapest form of self indulgence".

Song:Dinosaur by King Crimson
Alright, wipe the tear traaks!

Haven

"Where are they from?" C asked. "They are trainees from Senegal" D said. "Doesn't their hair stink? It looks so greasy". "That's false hair. I assure you they change it more often than you would think possible." "Their skin is absolutely jet black. We are so much better". Since D didn't know where to begin correcting that opinion, he chose to change the topic: "You see the statue over there...?" He had an unconscious need to display how chummy he was with his town. "...and that's how Antwerp got its name. Let me tell you something else about this statue..." He had used that story several times before but for the first time it had failed to captivate his audience. They were already looking elsewhere. "Take a picture of me with that shop in the background" C requested. K's face clearly reflected what he was thinking "Beer Beer everywhere, not a drop to drink". "What's over there?" asked P. "Ah! nothing much" D replied. "But the buildings look nice." "Those are just old buildings at the harbour. Don't think we can go inside. Besides there are no trams from there" he said, scanning his brain for other visit-worthy places to suggest as alternatives. "I don't mind walking" she insisted. He had always prided himself on calling a spade nothing but that, and now he had somehow been manipulated into feeling that he needed to talk euphemistically. He hated it. "Ok that's the red light district. Not many ladies go there". He felt relieved already but he continued "maybe because there are no male whores in those windows. Hey I wonder why not?". Some other day, and with some other people, that would have drawn atleast a few smiles, if not a healthy intellectual debate of a half-baked anthropological nature. That day, it just folded up the evening hastily. Not to mention, there was very little eye-contact.

Köln

I was sitting on a parapet by the fountain dipping my tired feet in the water and watching kids of all sizes splashing about and trying to beat the heat. That's when the pro-Israelis came on to the square waving their flags. In less than 2 minutes there were hundreds of them. They were soon followed by a small clutch of folks holding the Palestinian flags.

And then they started arguing with each other...They all looked like decent people but I swear there was a nervousness in the air. It prompted the "Ah Scheise" from the locals and "Jesus Christ! lets get outta here" from the American tourists. The square by the cathedral is anything but boring.
Don't miss these things if you ever happen to visit Cologne/Köln/Keulen.
- Visit the Dom. Its a cathedral whose hugeness can't be captured in a still photo. To give you an idea it has enough stained glass to cover a hectare. In the evening, watch the skaters, skate-boarders and stunt cyclists showing off just behind the cathedral.
- Taste the Kölsch (its a kind of beer) in any of the charming beer gardens in the Altstadt. Here's a tip; you should open your mouth only if you want to order something other than a kölsch.
- The bank of the Rhine is one 10,000-people-barbecue.

- (For reasons I hated doing this all by myself, but still...)Cross the rhine in the rope-car. If you are too much into morality don't look down.
- Take a boat trip on the Rhine.
- Shop at the Neumarkt. Don't forget to visit the 4711 address, where the famous Eau De Cologne was and is still being made. So far, I thought it was an exotic french perfume, but apparently they started making it to spray it around a very stinky cologne as it existed when Napoleon captured it.

Lastly, here's a statue that defies everything I think I know about harmony. A really grotesque nordic-looking caricature of David, with a vulgar pink body and bright yellow hair. I can't explain why it is there.

Cycling in Mol

After Holland, Belgium must be the most bicycle-friendly place in the world. Not just the roads in the cities, but even the most obscure roads through the woods have cycling tracks. My colleagues told me that if I stayed in Belgium a full year and didn't do atleast one long trip on the bike, I deserve to rot in hell. So we decided to go to the sand-sculpture exhibition on bikes. These 9 kg bikes, with all their weight optimisations are great, but do they really have to have such uncomfortable saddles? That combined with deficient padding in the concerned areas ensured that I had to do the last bit of the journey without fully placing my butt on the seat. That apart, I'm feeling very satisfied. It was a fantastic route through woods and by some gorgeous lakes and canals.



Sand sculptures

Deppe recommends - 3

Movie: Monty Python's Life of Brian
I don't know how to understate this but Life of Brian is absolutely the funniest movie I've ever seen. I highly recommend this one to all the people whose religious sentiments are not easily hurt. Actually I recommend it to people whose religious sentiments are easily hurt too: you'll probably self-immolate and die which is not necessarily a bad thing. Sample this

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand?! Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

I always knew Michael Palin and John Cleese were funny guys but here they outdo themselves. Only the poor technical quality of the film gives away the fact that it was made more than 27 yrs ago. The script and most of the funny material are timeless.

Song: Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues
This one is not as much a song as it is a poem. Its got one hell of a video too, which probably cost nothing to make.

My own HSBC ad

The power of local knowledge

Blast!

Do you know how many people were convicted in the Mumbai blasts of 1993? Exactly zero. I bet that number isn't any different for the Diwali blasts of last year.

Another blast. The politicians get their chance to use the word "dastardly". The phonies get to praise the "resilience" of the Mumbaikar. I get to sit on my high chair and get all acerbic. Life goes on. See you at the next blast.

The cup

Now is there ANYTHING left unsaid about the famous headbutt.
There are even those who appreciated the aesthetics of the act but mostly, there are people who are sad that their hero fell from grace and ask "why? Zidane why?". There are others who volunteer an answer. The fanciest of those explanations was from a guy (with his tongue firmly in the cheek) who speculates that Materazzi had a crush on Zidane, and asked him to "give a head" which Zidane took too literally. Don't discount this theory, because Materazzi pinched the frenchman's nipples minutes before he got rammed.

For days before the game the newspapers were filled with reports about the English crying hoarse over Ronaldo's "ungentlemanly" conduct. The tiny island with the highest density of hooligans in the world, was suddenly outraged by a wink. I bet they still think their ridiculously overvalued team would have walked away with the world cup if Ronaldo had not had those two words with the ref. Zidane, thanks for the headbutt. If nothing, it atleast shut those Englishmen up.

I am fanatic. Don't expect reason from me. For me, the man with that mysterious monk-like serenity just got a little more enigmatic. For me, Zidane is right up there, one tiny step behind the Maardonas.

Other random world cup notes

* South Koreans with blonde hair look ridiculous
* Nedved went home too soon
* The best fans award at our pub goes to the Irish waiters, who joined us in supporting Ghana. Close runners up were the French girls who cried at the end of the finals.