Vegas

Random notes from my Vegas trip
* Gambling is addictive. I was up $65 by the end of Saturday. I thought I had figured out the roulette. I couldn't wait to double my money on Sunday. By the end of the trip my net loss was $105. It's all orchestrated. The dogs make you win on Saturday so that you get reckless on Sunday.
* What's a few hundred dollars? I put something else at stake on Sunday evening, my life! The rides (XScream, Insanity and BigShot) on Stratosphere are the meanest I've ever been on!
* The casinos are impressive in their scale but there's something stupid about watching a replica Eiffel tower with the Louvre (I think) in between its legs!
* Driving 20 hours in a weekend is hard. In the one hour that I decided to take a break and hand the wheels over to my co-passengers, we got pulled over for weaving too much on the highway, almost rear-ended another car on a freeway exit, burnt so much rubber while braking that we could smell it for the rest of the journey. I even once opened my eyes and found that we were cruising along on the wrong side. I took back control and drove the rest of the way. Concentrating for 20 hours is tiring as hell. I think I built a lot of character. Now, how often can you say that about a Vegas trip?
* What(ever else) happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So that's the end of that.

God doesn't play dice

N calls me his brother from another mother, and I take the title seriously. We even get a little silly and emotional about it at times. N & I booked our cars on the same day. We got adjacent even numbers on the plates. We drove our cars at almost the same time out of the showroom, had the tanks filled at the same pump and even had it blessed by the same Ganesha. Two months ago, a huge jackfruit fell on my car totally mutilating the roof and windshield (and somebody stole the fruit while I was examining the car but that's another tale). And in a conclusive demonstration of the profound order that rules the universe, this morning, a coconut landed on N's car. His turn to hurt and mine to see the funny side of the story that he kept trying to make me witness.

What are our personal obligations toward the environment?

That is such a hard question to answer. The freaks tell you to go back to the stone ages. The freaks on the other end dare not even entertain the question. In the end, most people are stuck at a relativistic position that roughly translates to setting the bar at precisely the lifestyle that they themselves are leading. It's not unlike the law of driving "Anyone who's driving slower than me is an idiot, and anyone faster is a maniac". This is when the economists' detached unemotional approach is so refreshing to read. Found this really interesting. The comments are great too.

Deppe Reccommends - 5

I started Guenter Grass' The Tin Drum on May 15. The narrator is 30yr old Oscar Matzerath, a mentally challenged midget. His account is set during the second world war. The incongruence of Nazi germany is beautifully captured in symbolisms and Matzerath's vague attempts at comprehending whatever transpired, but the book just did not engage my fancy beyond a point. Exactly 3 months after I started reading it, I noticed I was still on the 300th page. I kept it aside and my reading rate has returned to levels I'm content with. So, it's time for yet another edition of Deppe Recommends.

Fiction: The Fall by Albert Camus
The narrative is a monologue in the form of a confession. As the protagonist lays his soul bare I got persuaded into some really intense reveries from my own life. In the end I was sighing at the meaninglessness of it all. Sartre called this Camus' best work and I can see why.

Short Stories: Dark Side by Guy de Maupassant

Here's a little excerpt from The Horla that I really liked
"Jul 14th: The French national holiday. I went walking in the streets. Fireworks and flags still delight me just as much as they did when I was a boy. Of course, I realize that it is quite idiotic to rejoice on certain dates fixed by government decrees. Ordinary people are a silly herd, sometimes stupidly docile, and sometimes fierce and rebellious. When they are told: "Enjoy yourselves!", they enjoy themselves. When they are told: "Go and fight your neighbours!" they go and fight. When they are told: "Vote for the Emperor!" they vote for the Emperor. And when they are told: "Vote for the Republic!" they vote for the Republic.

Those in charge are also fools, but instead of obeying other men, they obey principles that can also only be inane, sterile and false just because they are principles, that is to say, well-established, certain, immutable notions in a world in which we can be sure of nothing, since both light and sound are nothing but illusions."

Non Fiction: Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley.

Song: GnR's cover of Sympathy For The Devil.

When I was broke...

I've been broke for a few days now. A couple of days ago I was driving my car wondering where I will get the money I needed for a project. Just as I had resigned, my guardian angel appeared in the guise of an irreverent, murderous, totally obnoxious auto driver ("Is there another kind?" - Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men), overtook my car from the left and flashed me a sign. I'm convinced that there's a very appropriate financial advice hidden there. I didn't figure it out, and I'm still broke, but I managed to come out of my blues. I'm guessing it's because you can't really be perplexed about one thing and worried about another at the same time. The "what the fuck does that mean!" feeling had completely displaced the "I'm doomed" thought. Guardian angels work in mysterious ways.

Red tape

For reasons that I've kept aside as material for another post, A & I found ourselves in the office of the District Commissioner of Chikkaballapur. The office is in the middle of nowhere and has a corridor which also serves as the waiting area. I can now vouch for the fact that that place is a proven time warp. The corridor was full of people whose frustrations were clearly written the faces. Uncomfortable nervous energy prevailed. As if somebody was challenging the piqued lot to make the situation a little more absurd, there was an unguarded AK 47 lying on a chair, waiting for someone to pick it up. We waited there but we can't tell you for how long. All I can say is that when we eventually got out, we came into a less-innocent epoch where a bomb could take you out anytime. There had been 8 bomb blasts in Bangalore and A's car was a victim of the paranoia that ensued. We had parked it at Bangalore Central. The police had had the place vacated some time in the afternoon, and they got suspicious of this one car that hadn't moved. That's all we knew. We had no clue whether the car was still there or it had been towed away. As we ran from one police station to another trying to figure out the whereabouts of the old zen, we developed a deeper understanding of the term "Kafkaesque". Getting home, when it eventually happened, never felt so good.

Item #19

They say that if you never lose at anything, you are probably playing ping pong with a 4yr old. It might sound like an irritating positive spiel, but I think It's a good sign if you suck at a few things. It probably means that you are challenging yourself. I do confront my own mediocrity quite often, and I've grown to even accept it once in a while. Yeah! Occasional mediocrity's cool. But every Sunday I come face to face with downright incompetence. My salsa class! I pay 1500 Rs to a guy who asks me to send my rib cage, spine, arms and legs on radically different journeys for the first 7 counts and assemble them back on 8, all the while making me watch my own reflections on 4 dozen mirrors. I pay 1500 Rs to have my self-esteem sucked out of me, one portion at a time.

Boléro

I've probably mentioned this somewhere else before in my blog, but one of life's most underrated joys is when you finally "get" a song that you've been hearing a few times. This morning I entered into that period of infatuation for Maurice Ravel's Boléro. Continuing my recent habit of questioning the evolutionary purpose of every human characteristic, I began to wonder why we evolved into a species that likes music. What survival benefits does that afford? Here's the most satisfying answer that I've come across . We acquired the faculty of pattern recognition early on. That's what allowed us to plan a hunt, allowing us to improvise our strategies based on the position, number, and distance of the prey and on the nature of the terrain. This ability to recognize patterns has obvious benefits for the success of our species. I'm guessing this same faculty then manifested in what we now call aesthetic sense, and specifically into the appreciation of music (Exaptation they call this).

What I still haven't found an answer for is why we yield our emotions to the persuasions of a nice song. Today, for instance, I felt rapture and pathos and calm and angst all in the space of 15 minutes, while the different instruments played the same notes for dramatically different effects. Well, I think I should listen to A for once and just enjoy the experience without the noise of a million questions.

NOW the world is doomed

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN2339172520080623

Nandi Hills redeems itself

The annual school trip to Nandi Hills was my groundhog day. Every nandi hills trip was like every other nandi hills trip. The only detail that ever changed in the 6 trips I made to that place was that when I was in the 7th class I wore shorts, but the year after I wore trousers.

The trip would begin with the assembly in the school grounds. It was then followed by the bus trip on which we were allowed to loosen our ties but were warned using not-so-subtle clues that we were being carefully watched. They always fed us apples on the journey. As soon as we arrived there, Peetappa herded us out and made us count ourselves. It was then time for breakfast, which invariably was uppittu and kesaribath. I have no recollection of what we did for the next 5 hours, which is a good indication that we never did anything fun. All I remember is that some of us who were in the boy-scout and NCC troops reminisced our own grander getaways. At dusk, we used to be served tea and biscuits before being packed off back to the school where irritated parents waited to pick us up.

As you can see, I don't have too favorable an impression of Nandi Hills. However, I agreed to go there a couple of weeks ago, mostly because it is really difficult to say 'No' to the S-man. And boy was I in for a surprise! It probably made a difference that we left at an unearthly hour, reached there just before sunrise and were treated to some gorgeous sights of low flying clouds. Take a look at these pics.

Hash

Jon Culshaw wonders on Commercial Breakdown "Why isn't women's football more popular? It has everything a man ever needs; women and football". It doesn't always happen that you bring two great ideas together and there's magic! But last weekend, I did stumble upon two (or three) individually good ideas that have been brought together to some remarkable effect. I've always enjoyed the woods, I freak out on running and I can't always say no to a cold beer. Last Sunday, I went out with a group (Hash: "Drinkers with a running problem" or something) that does these three together on a regular basis. We found a completely deserted place near Bannerughatta, ran like crazy (10 kms cross coutnry), reached a hilltop and then drank cold beer while watching a gorgeous sunset. wow! As part of the initiation ceremony, we first-timers had to sit on ice, kneel in dirty water, and drink beer out of pisspots, but it was all worth it.

1056 words

I like this little afterthought in which the quack realized at the end of his promo that he can cure brain problems too.

The anandrao circle newspapaperman

We bangaloreans are given to a lot of nostalgia constipation. We just cannot stop ranting about how Bangalore has changed so unrecognizably. As a consequence we really cling on to those few things that have remained constant. For instance, even the rudeness of the waiter at MTR makes us all emotional. One character who has stayed on unchanged continuously for at least the last 25 years is our newspaperman on Anandrao circle. He still insists on calling out the "breaking news" in his high-pitch excited voice. He has lost all his teeth and you can bearly understand his words, but he still manages to evoke curiosity. He's probably the last of his kind.

The 10 km run

Reading the Selfish Gene (and the Origins of Virtue after that) screws up the way you think, at least for a while. You stop participating in human experiences normally. Instead, now when you watch people do something, you step out and think what's making them do it? or What's the evolutionary advantage that this behaviour gave us as a species? So this morning while I was running the 10k event in bangalore, I was noticing that there were twice as many people facilitating this event as there were running. Even I did my altruistic bit by egging on the stragglers. There were people on the pavements who had come there just to cheer the runners. And I felt this overwhelming sense of bonhomie towards everybody; the runners, the cheerers, the organisers and even all the people inconvenienced by this event. I could see that everybody was experiencing that feeling too. And naturally, I am wondering what evolutionary plot is behind this feeling. I didn't get the answer but I managed to finish the race in 55 minutes, 5 minutes lesser than I had initially targeted. I felt incredibly proud, despite knowing that those absolutely gorgeous running machines that drop in from Kenya and Ethiopia and other godforsaken places run this stretch in roughly half that time. Anyway, one of the best things about running is the way you enjoy everything else you do immediately after that. The water down your throat never felt better, Masala Dosas were never more satisfying, and I don't even have words to describe the cold shower.

All in all, it felt great to be in that sea of humanity, coming together for a seemingly inane activity, but nevertheless feeling that warm fuzzy sense of togetherness. At the parking lot, trying to get our cars out of the almighty mess, though, we were all back to hating each other.

New folks

Like my last post revealed I'm having a lot of conversations, mostly with myself, about age in general, mine in particular. One of the reasons, I figured, is the amount of time I've spent with a couple of new sets of friends who are all from such diverse age groups. For example in the last week I've sat at the same table with A.jr, who is a decade younger then me and I've also had a drink with Chief, who is a full twenty years older than I am. It's striking how similar all these people are in their joie-de-vivre. On the one end I sat there admiring A for how well-adjusted, confident and comfortable she was in her skin and so un-overwhelmed by the new place and people and on the other I was in awe of the Chief for how much and how easily he smiled, and how meanly he bent his harmonica during that absolutely unforgettable virtuoso performance.

Marathon kit

There's something about turning thirty. I imagine this giant ominous odometer on which the units wheel goes from 9 to 0 goading the adjacent wheel to skip to the next numeral. Although I know 30 is just one more than 29, just like 29 was one more than 28, it just feels a lot more momentuous. There's suddenly more evaluations; "Is this where I wanted to be at this point in my life?" and "What next?". There is a lot of paranoia. A good indicator of that is the list I have of things I want to do before I turn thirty. Most of the things on that list are pretty cool and diverse but they all have something in common; they all reveal a fear of ageing and all of them have the theme of proving something to this youth-obsessed world. Item no. 14 was to run the half marathon. Since there's no half marathon happening in the near future, I settled for the 10k run that's happening tomorrow.

Yesterday I collected my marathon kit. Although I know I paid for more than what I got, I still can't stop getting excited about "freebies". The kit has some really useful things such as a water bottle, some biscuits and candy. But some things in that bag are bizarre. There is a packet of instant pasta. Ok, maybe pasta makes you fasta, but what's sugar-free doing there, robbing you of the carbs when you so badly need them? And most weird of all, there's a packet of chilli powder. R had the last word "I can think of 18 ways in which you can employ chilli powder to make ANYBODY run the full marathon!". Makes sense.

A little less...

I'm dead tired and ready to plunge into deep slumber if I as much as blink. I've driven half way around town, spent an eternity in the sun and managed to get a lot of work done; I've earned my rest. Yet I'm forcing myself awake. I'm rolling the memories from the day over my tongue one last time before I swallow them. Suddenly I remember two separate incidents from the day. In the morning I had almost driven past a left turn that I was supposed to take, realized it rather late and chose to give my wheel a tug and made that turn; the kind of turn that emits a screech and leaves a generous deposit of rubber on the road. I am now thinking of what could have been. There could have been pedestrians in the path. There could have been vehicles in my blindspot that I may have taken down. I am thinking of everything that could have gone wrong and my palms are sweating uncontrollably.

Another incident elicited a different kind of fear but very similar bodily reactions. RR asked me if I want to join his startup. I don't know the future there, I don't know the pay and I don't know the work so I gave him a courteous but phoney 'I'll give it a thought'. Now lying on my bed I'm actually giving it a thought and I can sense all my organs starting to malfunction.

I'm going to be awake for a long time now.

Another Hallmark Day

RJ: Good mornin' bengalooru. Happy Women's Day. On this day, exciting prices kodtha idheevi.
S: Write this down! Kannada won't make it to the next decade.
RJ: We've got our first caller on the line. Rekha, how are you doing today? Tell me, why do you think women are better than men?
Rekha: hmmm...
S: How about that we've never started a war? ever!
Rekha: hmmm...basically...uh
S: How about that we never install rear spoilers on our cars? ever!
Rekha: ... women are more flexible, responsible, creative and strong.
S: Fuck!
RJ: Wow! That's so true. You win yourself...
ZAP!
S: ... a gift voucher to a shop that'll sell you a misguided beauty ideal.

Recent Peeves

There are a lot of things about this world that make me raving mad, such as the fact that the Self Help Industry is a 6-billion-per-yr-growing-at-12% one. But ironically one of these self-help fundas instructed me to list down all the things that irritate me on any one arbitrary day and I decided to oblige. This exercise is supposed to illuminate me on my degrees of intolerance. So here's my list for one such average uneventful day.
* This guy is explaining to me the new house that he is building. I manage to overlook his excessive attention to detail and his over-the-top lifestyle obsession. He wants me to be impressed by his "achievements" and I play sport. However, I lose it when, for the second time, he pronounces the word Duplex like it's a french word "Dew-Play!". So I say "Oh Duplekkkss! that must be nice". He gets the hint but he is convinced that I'm uncultured and wrong. So he frames a completely contrived sentence with the sole intention of using the word so he can convey the correct pronunciation. I, for my part, forfeit the use of pronouns just to be able to use that word in another sentence. This exchange goes on for a couple more iterations and before things get too "Com-Play" and I do a quick pranayama and bail out.
* I'm not proud of this but file names with spaces irritate me.
* People who enter the lift before everybody has stepped out.
* And then there are things that not as much irritate me as make me lose faith in humanity, such as Dan Brown and Puneeth Rajkumar Fan Clubs, or worse still, the latest fad of sticking up gauche posters wishing pseudo celebrities a happy birthday. We, as a people, are not very well-known for our visual aesthetic sense- just look at our (Karnataka) flag if you need the proof- but these posters take gaudiness to a whole new level. Like the one wishing Rajnikanth a good day. The words go "There can be many suns and many moons but there can be only one star" and has a Rajni likeness covering most of the real estate on the poster. Wherever there are spaces, you have pictures of moustachioed men speaking on their mobile phones.
I'll post a picture soon.

Men Are From Halebid, Women Are From Belur

Adversities had beset us all morning. We had almost died from not having had breakfast. The roads, or their absence, had threatened to disintegrate the car. S, with her accented kannada, had almost taken us to the "Helipad" (YEAH! Hassan has a helipad!), but we finally made it to the temple on our way to Chikmagalur. The theme of the trip was set by a fairly casual and dreamy comment made by A about what traits she would like in her knight in shining armour. By the end of the third day we had decided that this gentleman needed to reconcile a lot of mutually exclusive characteristics. Someone who surpassed this creature in hodgpodgeness.

On the other hand, V (and I found myself nodding in immediate agreement) had a simpler set of expectations: nothing an average cosmetic surgeon couldn't furnish. Once again, the temple had the answer.
We did pay dearly for our shallowness. We were "objectified", evaluated and judged during the rest of the trip. That apart, I couldn't have asked for a better way to start the new year.

I need a road trip

Notice how different road trips in movies are from the ones you do in real life? There's no Shelter From the Storm playing in Dolby Surround and there's no fading of the sound track when the characters have something interesting to say. There are no long shots of the car from a helicopter. There are no deserted highways that stretch straight all the way to the horizon.

There's just a chaos of behind-the-canvas thoughts that you don't even realize you are thinking as you see a slideshow of people, towns, cattle, streetmeat and vehicles. Only the distant trees and the clouds indulge you by seeming to ride along with you reminding you that you are not really going as fast as you think you are. There is music playing whose only purpose seems to be to divide opinions in the car. There's the harsh wind rushing through the window and making exhaling difficult. There's the short moment of eye contact with the occupants of a passing vehicle when you make snap subconscious judgements at all of them. There are the pee breaks, usually meant not just to change the drivers but also the rhythm of the journey. And then there's arriving.

I want to go on a road trip.

"Spirituality" is looking at a Sequioa tree

I'm driving through a shrub jungle behind a huge pickup on a pleasant day. The road is winding and I'm alternating between concentrating on the turns and cursing the culture that has made driving big cars fashionable. While I'm still staring at the yellow pickup with disdainful eyes and casting sadistic curses on its driver, after one particularly wide curve, the car in front shrunk. That's the first thing I remember thinking when we entered the Sequioa forest. The second thing that I remember thinking is "There must be a god!" The trees are just awesome. They make you feel everything is right with the world. They make you wanna shut up forever. And after I got my atheism back, they looked most magnificient.

YES!

The Nobel Committee got it right, if you ask me. After goofing up so bad all these years, such as giving it to Arafat and not giving it to Gandhi, they finally found someone deserving.

I'm not really sure if global warming is man-made or just one of those not-so-well-understood cycles of nature. But even if Gore is proved wrong in the future I think he's done great service. He's made the guy who drives his Ford pickup to work look very uncool. He's undoubtedly raised consciousness. I think he has changed values. I know of at least one turd-brain who suddenly started being conscientious of how many plastic coffee cups he was using in a day after watching "An Inconvenient Truth" (no, there is nothing in that movie about coffee cups, but that's what is so heartening).

I still believe that we are on course for inevitable destruction. I think we will lose the remaining forest cover (which in India is a pathetic 4%) and the remaining tigers (1200 or so, if you do an honest count) before I have grandkids. I also believe that we will, in my lifetime, turn this planet into, to borrow George Carlin's words, a coast-to-coast shopping mall. I'll return to being depressed later. For now, I just hope Gore will do more of his stunts.

P's Wedding

D: Hey buddy. How was the wedding?

P: I assembled hundreds of people who couldn't stand each other to begin with. Then I increased their chances of bumping into one another every second minute by putting them all in a room for which I paid a bomb. The collective irritability was just not enough at this point, so I deprived everybody of sleep and I then filled the room with smoke and really bad music, besides hiring an illiterate to mouth sweet nothings and to be our boss for 2 days. How do you guess it went?

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.