Feminization...

Don't get mesmerised by the title, I am neither deploying female hormones in anyone, nor is it an experiment, or some scientific hypocrisy! It's my experience about women in general, some weird, some loveable.

One thing, which might have been proven, women are born to talk, gossip and murmur. Most of these siddhis, of understanding women, were gained by me while I was in a serious relationship with my ex for an honourable 3.5 years. I was sentenced in a relationship on 29th February 2005. Because it was a leap year, with the help of my lawyers, my friends, and the judge, my girlfriend, the date was shifted to 1st of March 2005 and I was given the statement at 6.15pm at Balgandharva Rang Mandir(BRM), Pune. I know, you were expecting some romantic place, but unfortunately it was BRM. I was sentenced to indefinite relationship, until the possibility of marriage, when I said those three lovely words. I wish those were "Mera Bharat Mahan".

The years weren't as bad as I made them sound. They had quarrels and fights, love and caressing, jokes and laughter, ethics and manners as well. Talking about ethics, I remember that girls are very particular about how their boyfriend present's himself in public. I was always poked or pinched while, eating without worldly concerns, driving too fast or too slow, talking nonsense to anyone in front of her, doing nothing, having dressed too dull or too glittery. I still remember a big quarrel of ours on my eating habits, which resulted in 3 days of mental agony. We were eating "paani puri" together, and she ordered a last dish for herself, through me, which never went to her. I gulped the entire dish, in my own dreams, not realising the world, as if I've been starving for a decade. Then I realised the quantity of my mistake and the quality of quarrel to come.

A lot of girls I've befriended possess extreme characteristics. A couple of them are career oriented, bold and stern in their decisions, which usually are hard to impress. One of my friend is comfortable in not crossing her comfort zone. One job for life time, no intention of change or shift, same road to office, same vehicle, same people around, same daily routine for years. How is it possible for one to be so sternly dumb, highly boring, working in a creative environment? (being a classmate, she was a graphic designer too). I am attracted to girls who are bold, decisive and career oriented. My ex was the same, hence I felt for her. I have another friend of mine, who's bold, decisive and, instead of career, she's boyfriend oriented. She likes to change boys like, disposable nappies.

I used to be a flirt in my college days, playing pranks with my girl friends. Some girls knew it was just a prank but sometimes it used to get serious. A few girls revealed their feelings for me, a few didn't talk after that, and a few were on the verge of slapping me, until I told them that it was just a prank. Neither was I a hunk of the college, nor was I rich. I came to college on a grey coloured Bajaj's scooter, of my dad. So, only if it was a time in 70s I would have been a hip, girls running behind my scooter. Many of my girl friends never liked sitting on pillion's end. They reasoned it as being uncomfortable, but I knew, they'd certainly occupy the seat if it was a lavish motorbike. So, the verse, "girls like cash and bikes more than the person" is absolutely true. The ones who'd deny this might be in true love or something. Later on I bought a new motorbike, and each of my girl friends wanted a ride on it. Although I felt revengeful, I fulfilled theirs wishes. For one, most memorable event in my relationship, I still respect my ex. That was, while buying a new bike, I faked her that I'd be buying an ordinary bike, showing budgetary concerns. She had a simple answer and she said it without a single thought, that, I was more important to her than any materialistic thing.

A few things I've understood about women are: They expect a lot from guys. They never let out their expectations, and we have to understand those. They want a guy to be understanding, caring, supportive and entertaining at times. Most girls, like aggressive guys, even if the guy resembles a blade of grass. "Girls like shopping", is not true with me as I haven't had a deadly experience of it, even my ex wasn't shopping savvy. And, last but not the least thing I'd say is important dates. Guys who tend to forget these dates are vulnerable to a heart break.

Life in London

28th Sept, 2009. Nawathe kaka came to pick me up at kings cross station. While his struggle for parking, Vikram was inside the station, waiting to guide me to the car, I was struggling to carry two big suitcases and a guitar. Finally, we made it to the car. I was cheesy, being happy more than thankful, to have saved 50 quid on taxi home.

Life's been cheerful since I've moved at 14, Layfield road. I exercise, jog and work regularly. I've been roaming around London on weekends. I also met old friends, who had been in London for a while. Laughter and Jokes are "one of 5 a day" routine. Nonsense, makes sense and illogical ideas stroke unstoppable laughter, times in a day.

To take an instance, we watched the movie, Sholay, which was 16th time for me, and just thought, what if "Gabbar singh" and "Thakur" were gays? So the movie would have a prologue, Gabbar and Thakur had a break-up before the train action sequence resulting in hatred, consequently expanding into a 3.5 hrs long movie of conspiracies and drama. Another thing was - if Thakur was never taught horse riding he'd never go at Gabbar's place to get his hands chopped off for nothing. Basically, he'd never be able to catch Gabbar, and Gabbar would never exterminate his family in revenge.

Life is seriously casual these days. We are used to laughing in the midnight and one fine day, actually yesterday, our right side neighbour came and told Nawathe kaka that kaka's nephew, who just arrived a couple of days back, laughs loudly in the midnight and she could hear it. We had another reason to laugh at this.

I moved to London for opportunities, and I learnt a lot of things. Those are, making flour, cooking chapatis, usage of different masalas, creating gravy, chicken curry, architecture of Brent cross shopping centre, London tube travel, buses home after midnight drinks, etc.

"पापी पेट" - the stomach and the evolution of humans

Since the earth evolved, every living being is striving for food. The time after the evolution of humans and apparently science, the concept of biological balance was evolved, which stated the difference between carnivorous and herbivorous animals. Herbivorous eat herbs and carnivorous eat the poor herbivores, to maintain the so called biological cycle. So, its this hunger, which all the living beings have, forces us to do kill and eat meat, fish and other food.

I am glad, that we've not actually started eating the crispy currency notes instead of food. They would be categorised as 'moneyvorous'. Just imagine how the diet of the rich and poor would be. The rich would eat only, 500 or 1000 Rupees notes and the poor would extend their living on coins. The middle class would chew the fivers, tens, fifties and hundreds. India would have more to eat than the US or UK due to the currency difference. Foreigners would come to india just to convert their dollars or pounds into more money and satisfy their hunger.

Recently, man has evolved into 'junkivorous', which is a new phenomenal evolvement of humans. This was discovered when people were striving for money and comforts, than just food. The evolvement of 'junkivorous' mammals can be stated when the human race discovered delicious pizzas and burgers. Increment of cheese and deep fried food in these made the evolution much easier.

These junkivores have a different physique than the normal humans. They are in a perfect, round shape. They're also called as obese people. Their aim is to consume as much fat foods as they can and store the energy in their body, in spite of the physical concerns which arise during the course of evolution. The reason for this is to use this energy when we finish with all the natural resources mother earth has given us.

Just imagine the yellow fat inside the obese people, would be excreted from their body to be used as fuel in our cars. The more bulkier the person, the more value he'd have. The loose fat, of some, would be converted into engine oil, healthy fat into cooking oil. And fat would also be converted into electricity.

These people have work as their primary concern than food, so just for the sake of "पापी पेट" they eat junk to make themselves feel full and satisfied. At the later stages of evolution, it becomes hard for the person to walk, climb or even work his routine. This is the stage when the fat extent is the highest, the person would be ready for fat-into-energy conversion.

"पापी पेट" is also the main reason for all the diseases as stated in Aayurveda. What we feel and look like is the result of what we eat. So, junkivores are round in shape, which is the same as a round pizza and a bulkily breaded burger.

These junkivores, would further in the future, sacrifice their partners as their shape would disrupt their partner's public image. And, some sad fat junkivores would eat more when depressed. So that would add more kilos in their already-extra weight. In some thousand years, maybe all the organs and even bones would be just fats! Everything would be fat and people would look like heavy air balloons.

A wordy caricature

It was a fine sunny morning, when me and one of my friend planned to establish a design studio. We went to apply for the registration certificate. Here we met this hilarious personality. Some people struck a chord in your lives and you don't forget them for life. This person didn't struck any chord but did cut our pockets full of enthusiasm and money. To start with such an experience, on an auspicious occasion, made us like a 50 year old, half-bald with a huge belly and ass, saying, 'bhai humne duniya dekhi hai' with a dirty look and fake pride. This experience was as hideous as the character I am about to explain.

Age, mid 30s; sex, male; Complexion, dark. This sounds more like a 'someone missing' advertisement. I used to see these on Doordarshan every Saturday in the evening, while awaiting for the Marathi cinema at 4.00 pm. So, to proceed, his profession: he's an agent for helping to get the shop act license for starting a business without much pain in the ass. He's highly responsible for the development of our country, by helping people start their businesses without much hassle.

He runs it as his family business. I encountered it when I saw his mother handling all the cash, sitting under a luxurious umbrella on the footpath outside the license office. He is also pretty professional in his job profile, to explain: he had an ochre suitcase with papers of all his clients neatly piled up, supposedly, alphabetically.

Describing his looks, clothing and lifestyle, he was a dirty money eating caterpillar, striving on the cash of innocent leaves like us. He was half bald and on his upper head, there were some hair approximately 2 cm distant from each other. The sides of his head were abundant with hair. Half of his hectic work life went outside the registration office, in the sun, and a part of it under the table of the officers inside the registration office. Due to this and the other personal tensions, his upper head was scarcely haired. In those remaining hair, the soaring heat created tiny droplets of sweat, forming a glossy texture.

He was a proud customer of 'Manikchand gutkha'. His teeth had a complete red colour, not even pink(the mixture of white, his teeth and the red of 'gutkha') carrying the brand identity and unique style of the 'gutkha' product. His office surroundings were all drenched in those lively red squashes, which poured from his mouth like a fully flowing tap.

He was a silent and patient person and would not speak unless needed. But, as he used to open his mouth to ask for more documents, his glittery red teeth and the lovely smell of 'gutkha' used to make our eyes red. Thanks for those who invented handkerchiefs, or else we wouldn't have survived chatting with him.

His voice was comparable to the double lowest note of C, on a keyboard(piano), if existed. We could feel the vibrations of the sound his vocal cords made. It would have been a science lesson to study how sound vibrations work, if we were science students. Hearing his tone, I always felt itchy in my throat. I felt like pouring a litre of the liquid 'Vicks' forcefully in his mouth and end the dryness of his voice for ever.

His posture and dressing style was pretty formal. Clothes used to be neat and ironed. In those 5-6 time we met him during our work, he wore the same pant and maybe 2-3 different shirts. He was always wet with sweat. If his sweat was stored and desalinated, it would at-least quench the thirst of an entire lane.

He had a mobile phone, which, I suppose, had a facility to answer only if a person is trying for the third time. Whenever I called him for asking the progress of our work, he had a long pause before answering, as if he's giving a speech like our Respectable Former Prime Minister Vajpayeeji. If I repeated the question, he would go impatient and blurb out the answer, like squashing the red 'gutkha' out of his mouth.

One of his legs had a ligament problem, I suppose, as he didn't walk normally. That might be a result of slipping off the red pond of saliva surrounding his office space.

His mother was 10 times fat than him. I suspect, she ate food and he ate 'manikchand gutkha'. 2 packets for breakfast, 4 for lunch and 3 for dinner, with a glass of water.

This, Mr. Agent is unforgettable in my memories because of his slummy character, poor attitude, corrupt mind, and greedy approach. But is he the one responsible for it? Or is it the situation he faced and saw his entire life made him like this? That's a hard question to answer!

Summing practicality in fiction

Recently, I was watching a documentary on BBC, "triumph and tragedy" which was based on the NASA experiments. It showed all the achievements and failures of NASA, from landing on the moon to orbiting the earth in a space shuttle.

It focussed on the challenges and efforts of making a space shuttle, which can be reused to save millions of dollars. The process of getting out of the earth's orbit needs tonnes of fuel and re-entering suffers tonnes of heat. So tiling the space shuttle with heat resistant tiles was essential. The last tragedy in 2004 when, the crew on board the space shuttle, including the legendary Indian woman, Kalpana Chawla, in NASA's reusable space shuttle fell prey to the excessive heat which entered the space shuttle through a broken tile and destroyed it, including the crew, into hundreds of pieces. That was a big tragedy.

While watching the documentary, an abrupt thought struck my mind. What if superman was in real! Now you would think that I'd say that for saving the space shuttle. NO! I thought, he was resistant to almost everything, including fire, but his clothes? I suspect: no! We have seen him going out and entering the earth's orbit a thousand times, in the repeat telecasts of his movies on HBO. So, my point of concern is, if he was real, then he would require new clothes every time he entered the earth's atmosphere, as those would turn into ashes in the 1500 Degrees of soaring heat. He's resistant even to sun, so even his pubic hair would remain cool as the Himalayan ice, but his clothes? This is the question!

What if, Iron man was here working on the development of his latest suit? NASA wouldn't be there, because, Mr. Tony Stark would reach even the sun, with his astonishing, high speed, one manned, universal shuttle. Though, he would certainly need a space caravan behind him to rest and store his food and supplies.

Ok, lets forget about the western super heroes, and think about our own, "Shaktimaan." Though, he's a colour Xerox copy of Superman, with some spicy addition of ancient, Indian spirituality lessons, like attaining 'siddhis' with meditation, and enduring the supernatural powers, and a spin travel, rather than going in a normal and straight way. He would've obviously fainted a hundred times if he was in real. He has orbited the earth for a thousand times, almost in all his episodes. In his case of re-entering the earth's atmosphere, he would also need a couple of thousand costumes, to start his work without any delay, and a towel to hide his sensory organs immediately after he reaches the earth's atmosphere.

To make the lives of these super heroes simple, I would've suggested them to tile their clothes, with those resistant tiles used in the space shuttle by NASA, or make a towel out of them, to hide in till they dress up with their original costumes after getting home.

SOS/help/F1

Help! All the wise humans are preaching since ages, that we must help each other in good deeds, but the scenario is not the same today. I tried to do some research in this area and plotted down some of my findings. Use of heavy academic lingo like, research and all makes the crap sound evidential.

These days, we have help any where anytime! Life has become so easy. In the US we have 911, in the UK we have 999 and in India we have two or three lines, distributed in their own specialities, as far as I know, the 100 is the police, 101 is for fire brigade and ambulance, I guess. The ones who have experienced a trauma might have by-hearted these numbers. There are companies providing help for a car breakdown, if it does, in an area synonymous to the Sahara dessert or the Antarctic region. We find help in softwares, which is the F1 key. I've also encountered some senseless comics like a drowning person shouting F1 from the sea. Then I've seen some of the NGO's stating SOS planet earth, save trees, save water. Some also feel that drinking beer would be an option of saving water. So everything, everyone needs help and help is everywhere!

Sometimes, can create problems in relationships. Although, help helps in making up relationships, but it also makes them complex. To make it simple I tried to sophisticate it in two formulae, the first one is: Girl + Help = Boy + Infatuation. In this formula, if a girl tries to help a boy, the boy takes it as her interest in him and he gets infatuated with her. This creates a misunderstanding, sometimes ending in a red mark on the guy's face or some earth on his cheeks.

The other formula is exactly opposite of the first one! It goes: Boy + Help = Girl + Suspicion. Elaborating it defines that: if a boy tries to help a girl, the girl can assume that he's interested in her and she tries to ignore him, which can puzzle the guy.

Help can also make up relations. This can be explained like, if a guy helps an old woman cross a busy street, or save a puppy, wandering on a busy highway, in front of his girlfriend, she can get impressed! I had tried to impress my ex. by evacuating a puppy from the middle of a highway, but it ended in impressing the mother of that puppy who chased me for a mile. I luckily escaped 14 injections, possibly some in my belly.

So help has advantages and disadvantages as we saw. We help agents outside any of the government offices to do our work, in that we help save our time. By saving our time we work more at office which helps our job, which helps ours as well as that agent's family. This helps in getting those government officers more corrupted, and eventually it helps in the contribution of the underdevelopment of our nation. So again, help is everywhere, may it be negative.

So folks, help and get help, but only for good deeds!

Hobby

Here are two of my favourite songs, i tried to play on guitar.

Commode

This issue can sound a bit vulgar, but everyone knows and feels the same from inside. Some express some don't! I am the one who wants to express my insights about it and its relations with the world.

Commode is an essential commodity in our lives, not just for the excretion of poop, but also for draining out the most important thoughts, decisions of our lives. Shitting is the only time when we're completely with ourselves. As experts say that one must completely concentrate on the activity and must not listen to any music or even read while in the process. I assume that it is because it might disturb the creative thinking, we're into, during that particular period.

I suspect, the geniuses would have discovered this activity as a self brainstorming session before discovering or inventing out-of-the-world ideas and concepts. One gag I remember, read in some forwarded email, which said, Isaac Newton discovered gravity after an apple fell off from the tree on his head, while sleeping below the tree. But, why didn't he discover it while shitting every morning? I suspect he'd have got the discovery calculated while emptying his bowels, but just to make the discovery sophisticated and to be able to explain it to young children he disguised his findings in an apple.

I think, that Mr. Thomas Edison wanted to light his toilet during the dark winters, which can be the reason which motivated his invention. Although, I am approximately sure about the invention of a motion picture camera, I am damn sure that he invented the phonograph to make those everyday 10-15 minutes enjoyable.

The commode has also created a lot of competition amongst the design of it and mainly the tissue papers. Whenever I roam around in a mall, I think why the hell they have a scented tissue roll with the picture of roses? Who the hell is gonna smell your ass after wiping it? Some cynics might do it, you never know!

The sound of flush is like the sound of those pleasant sea waves, but like a fast-forwarded sound-clip or a worn out, old cassette. I think that can be an inspiration for music composers to make something unique other than stealing pieces.

I don't think there's much inspiration or motivation for painters as they'll find only one colour, you know which one. But Graphic designers can learn from it as they're accustomed to work with strict briefs and tight measurements. So here's the sample of motivated brief: you've one colour. Design!

I've heard that people in Germany first look at the toilet and then the rest of the house while buying a property! I wonder what exactly they look for? The design of commode, its cleanliness or the creative environment to make most out of the daily 15 minutes.

I think India is still a developing country, not because of the corruption but because, in the glittery houses of the government authorities, it misses the breathing space of the toilet! It doesn't have the creative environment for them to think and make decisions. The dark yellow ochre accumulated around the space and the increasing smell of ammonia makes life more difficult.

You might think that I am writing this blog sitting on the commode, but please mind it that, that space is only for thinking processes and not for work!

Westernisation

Westernisation is not globalisation, my experiences says, its when...
the IT industry buy employees, and fat assholes eat 'McDonalds'
English is for status, even if without the sense of 'a' or 'an'
flattering relatives abroad, even if the one is cleaning toilets,
miniskirts reveal fat legs and faces have an ugly shade,
Americans struggle for obesity and Indians for pizzas and burgers,
adoption of eliminated brands of the west,
harmonium is for geeks and guitar speaks the passion of music,
a t-shirt stating USA is a brand in itself,
young know all the American English albums and genres in music,
its when Indian employers lick English and suck the local dialect,
and in spite of understanding that, "we lick the west",
we're fakers in disguise boasting our cultures and traditions,
some do understand the situation, but those are just 'some'
our democratic institution which we deploy, shows it all!

Hindu Vs. Muslim, or Hindu and Muslim?

It has been a long time after my last post. I have been watching a couple of old movies, Bombay, 1995 and Black and White, 2008 this week. After that, I had a chat with one of my elderly friend in the family, discussing the issue of Hindu vs. Muslims. It all started with two of my best friends, a girl and a boy, who are in love with each other and are forced to be apart just for the sake of religion.

The discussion started when I asked, what's the problem in a Hindu, Brahmin girl getting married to a Muslim boy? Why is it always meant to be a disastrous phenomenon for both the families? Then, I answered myself, when myself as a Brahmin is forbidden to marry a lower caste girl in Hindu religion, then it's an issue of inter-religious marriage ceremony. Although, some open minded and educated families do accept such relationships, as it used to be said; these days all the families act open-minded and are highly educated but offend the inter-religious affairs.

The next question asked to me was, how would they adjust with each of their religious views, rituals, traditions, etc.? I feel that if we have a positive attitude throughout our lives, we can enjoy both the religions, experience and understand the beliefs and respect both the religions. I love being a Brahmin and Hinduism, but there's always been a hidden enthusiasm of visiting a mosque. I am not expressing it because I have raised this issue, but it's true! Many, might have this feeling.

Later, why did the girl chose a Muslim person to love? Are all the Brahmins in this world dead? Was asked. How can someone decide whom to love? I said. Some people do try it, but it's usually known as infatuation. Loving someone on their looks and style is kind of a contract of one year, as science has proven that infatuation lasts no more than a year, its due to some 'chemical locha'. In the case of my friends, they haven't actually had an affair, she's saying no and he's not empowering him on her, but both of them know they're made for each other. If it was an infatuation, it wouldn't last for 4 years.

I do not agree with the character of that girl, was told to me! I was outraged by that supposition. Is she bad because she cared for her parents? Is it because she didn't want to go against her parents' wishes? Or, is it because she didn't flirt with him, in spite of the uncertainty of their relationship? The other things, like wearing a short skirt, exposing outfits or huge makeup, were also not applicable to her. So, in which angle should the girl be perceived as bad?

I am with them no matter what. It's the problem of love and not religion. According to me, these are never ending questions. Although, in Hinduism and Islam, the first man and woman were different in their respective religion, practically speaking, I am thankful that this belief system emerged far later after the first man and woman, or else human race won't exist.

Mr. Lusty Pimp

Busy

You'd wonder, why I am not writing?
But really, I am fighting!
A fight for writing,
a two thousand five hundred word periling,
which would either lead to enlightening,
or would be a path of detaining.
I know you won't see me struggling,
hence I've taken a short break in blogging!

A conversation with my mind

From the city of east's oxford, up till the western world of discovery,
my mind hovers in the boundaries of cacophony.
I ask, what do you want?
It says, a world out of logic and creative freedom.
What about the monetary conspiracies? I ask.
I am not bounded with physics of humanity, I want to break free, he adds.
What's the merit of commitments and relations, I aphorise.
Do they prioritise the same as I do? He reciprocates.
I ask, what about the guardians, the dearest ones?
I behold the responsibility, but question their need,
are they materialistic or interest in the happiness of deed? He's quick.
I admit of being blinded with a straight vision,
he asks me to broaden it wide and view the world in cohesion .
I ask, where's the treasure of gaiety and fun?
Is it in having a girlfriend and tun?
He says, having a girlfriend is doubling the cacophony,
and having a tun is a fluttering morality.
Both are comparable to a poison of slow death,
because one hammers my sister, the lever, and the other leads me to death.
Stunned by the answer, and apparent recalling the past,
so what's the real treasure? I ask.
See the wild and live the while,
sit in the sun and run in the sand,
find pleasures in what's in your hand, he replies.
Elaboration is the next, I add.
He went on with his questionnaire,
When did you run, jump and play the last?
When did you unite with peers for the last?
When did you trash your anguish for the last?
When did you help a needed in the past?
The questions you arise, the answers lies in the same.
I was pleased by the solutions which came,
I felt that, fame and name is a game,
everybody desires a victory, but a few remain.
Not all in them look like what we see,
They come in this world and depend on destiny,
They seek higher destinations, materials and money,
but they die in the end from agony.
Satisfied with the answers given by my mind,
I continue my life in a different kind.

Rhyme time

What's more irritating than peeling off a garlic clove's skin?
What's more frustrating than waiting patiently for a kin?
What's more deadly than falsely admiring people's hover?
What's more painful than drowning, because someone's over?
What's more kind than giving one an encouraging gear?
What's more pleasing than embracing one's fear?
What's higher than a peak's last step?
A fruitful life or a life full of debt?
What's interesting than an entertaining flick?
An entertainment gear at one's place, or an adventurous pick?
Am I going in a right way?
Is it coming on as a proper day?
Why are questions to be asked?
Why would humans fall in the reasoning task?
There are more questions waiting for a rhyme,
but I am out of time!

Day dreaming

I don't know if everybody experiences the same, but I do sometimes dream during the day, with eyes wide open and conscious mind in action. Its sometimes weird, how mind wanders around varied subjects, and comes to a certain point when we realise and giggle on the visuals we encounter and ask ourselves to come back in the real world.

Yesterday, I was thinking about the rules and regulations for the public and the mindsets of the people here. I became patriotic, thinking about the situation back home, the increasing poverty and need of a developed infrastructure, etc. Then the thought went towards how can things be developed? While surfing through the bbc news website, I found a page where different people across India, from grocer to a software engineer, had expressed their views about what would be their position in the development of the nation if they were offered the position of the Prime Minister.

I started thinking about what my initiatives would be after becoming the PM. The first thing came in my mind was the roads. I thought of the developing the roads in the cities and highways connecting them, which would eventually contribute to the nations economy by ease of transport, decreased transport time and increase in fuel efficiency. Then I started thinking about the contractors whom these jobs are handed over by the government. I visualised the scenario of the Pune roads in the aftermath of the heavy rains. I thought about the corruption executed behind the scenes.

I then visualised a scene in the Marathi flick, 'Dombivili Fast', the scene of a corrupt tanker guy. Then the thought went to the ineffective water reservation in the city. Then I started comparing the efficiency of water here and back home, and I suddenly remembered someone telling me about the filtration of water in the UK, which is, I suppose, seven times the process in Pune.

Till here the story was about the development of nation, patriotism and change, but it started taking a unique mode. I recalled one of my friend's friend, who used to drink the tap water, which was told to me by a friend. He also told me about his friend's hectic lifestyle in here, due to a part-time job and studies, which eventually resulted in strong depression due to isolation. I then thought about my life since I've come here, which is not at all bad, I murmured in satisfaction.

Then I recalled the degree show I had visited in the first week of my study. There was a research presentation, which was on design against depression and suicidal behaviour. I thought how would design change one's behaviour, towards suicidal feelings. I felt that this topic is related to my current Master's project in some way. My Master's project is on, 'how can online social networking website help people unite and build up their confidence'.

Thinking about confidence, I recalled the days in my under graduation, when I had built up some muscles and was feeling confident to socialise, which wasn't the same before. I thought of exercising and muscle building. I remembered a video of Aamir Khan building up his muscles, and the way he was determined and disciplined for a year to get the perfect shape.

I thought of making a timetable of my daily routine and include exercise in it. Timetable made me think about the last attempts of mine to follow a strict routine, and failing them in spite of writing it boldly and putting it on the display board in my room.

Thinking about the display board, I recollected the coming presentation, which was based on the display of our spaces in the studio. I need to prepare for it, I thought.

Leaving for the studio, I giggled about the 'mind wandering' process I was going through, and told myself, "Welcome to reality again."

Shopping

I had been to shopping yesterday and bought a week's food and stuff. In the UK, its all self dependency: "you choose, you buy, you swipe and you pay." A very few are the people around, but those are profound to help and assist.

The malls are huge and almost have everything at one place, from the delicious pastries to the tissue rolls to wipe our asses. When I look at the cats' and dogs' food section, I feel someday the world would be such a social place that these malls would have food sections for ants till lions and elephants. Then there would be a wide scope for architects, civil engineers, product designers to design things for size of the elephants. The toilets would be equal to the size of the malls to accommodate elephants in them.

You take a trolley, and enter the mall, initiated with automatic doors. The sections starts with oranges in fruits and ends straight down to baby nappies. The complete mall comprehends CCTV cameras inside and outside of the mall, maybe to catch a hungry bastard, irresistible to keep the food outside his stomach. Initially, I was prone to be one of those bastards, because of the long walk inside the mall and seductive food sections, which make it almost impossible to keep the food packed. Lately, to avoid being caught, I go for shopping after having a heavy meal.

I've learnt a lot of things since I've started the food shopping. What to buy, how much to buy, what not to buy and when to buy. Its like performing a research project in consumer psychology, involving just myself.

Initially I used to shop without any planning and it would cost me a lot of time. Twenty minutes of walk to the mall, an hour wandering around to look stuff than buying, and wasting money on biscuits and chocolates on a hungry stomach, and finally regretting the buying of biscuits after eating the whole packet while walking back. Now, I make a list, eat a heavy meal and then leave for shopping. 'Heavy meal' is important, because if I just have a meal, I get hungry while walking around in the mall.

The worst problems when you go for shopping without a meal, in a hungry stomach are: you buy more than you need, which wastes money; you need more carry bags, ecological problems; you carry more than you can physically bear and eventually make a taxi back your home, which is a waste of money and deep regression as you're about to finish a packet of biscuits after your tummy is full. These are factual statements, tested and tried out on myself, by myself for myself.

I desperately miss the Indian grocery stores, supermarkets and malls. I remember my parents used to take me to the 'Tulshi baug' and 'Laxmi road' (these are the places in Pune where you can get all the things on Earth and learn the money saving techniques of Puneties). I think bargaining was invented and founded in Pune, by the 'Sadashiv Pethies' ('Sadashiv Peth', an area in Pune) and eventually spread the art all across the city.

Although the trip used to be tiring the fun creates homesickness in my mind. It used to be a picnic more than shopping. The salted peanuts, spicy 'Bhel', 'Paani Poori', and the ice cream while coming back with the load of material, each bought in discount, and the breath of relief and satisfaction after returning home is still pretty fresh in my mind. I still remember the loud cry of my brother and me for buying toys. Sometimes we used to get a toy, but it also depended on the mood of my parents. Sometimes it would end up in a slap. It was a complete freedom, without any tension of money, dad was always there to care.

Now the new shopping culture is gradually getting deployed in the Indian retail genre. Trolleys are replacing the hands holding their little ones. The art of bargain is on the verge of extinction and self payments through debit and credit cards are on high. All in one, everything at once, saves a heck of a lot of time but is it satisfying and fun, is still a question.

Techno savvy

Here is another conceptual 'aatyachaari' illustration. The concept is 'Techno Savvy'

A musical drive

I drew this illustration while listening to music. I wanted it to feel like a musical journey. I hope it makes sense.

Illustrative nonsense

These were done while waiting for a meeting with the external examiner.

Friends part 3.2

Sid and me were the first two of the six of us. The others are Mayuresh, Mandar, Tejas and Bhushan. We all had pulsar dtsi 150s and used to boast attitudes while on road for no reason. Our enthusiasm has no bondage. From emotions till brotherhood(bhaigiri) we always find a chance to enjoy ourselves.

Once I remember, we all were at Sid's place and Sid's brother came in running as some drunkards were behind him for some reason. We all went down on our banyans and pyjamas for a chance to satisfy our scratchy hands. But all was in vain. They had fled away till we reached down. I think they must have seen us coming. We all look quite healthy due to our bulkiness. We all weighed above 70 kilos and averaged of 5'9" of height. I suppose they saw us coming together.

We had weird names for each other. I am still searching a dictionary having their meanings. I am called 'Betrya', Sid is called 'Bolan Bol', Mayuresh is called 'Rapa Rap', Tejas is called 'Basla', Mandar is called 'Bevdya', and Bhushan is called 'Nari'.

Except Sid and me, we all weren't quite good friends in school. But as if it was destined, we came together after departing to our own ways. We came closer and closer until we became a compound of the chemicals used in 'Fevicol'. I remember, me and Mandya weren't best friends in school at all. Mandar had hit my head in school and I was crying as it had started paining. But thanks to him, I got a half day off from school.

Mayuresh is an enthusiast in physical activities. He is always eager in eating, trekking, exercise, biking, etc. I simply admire his commitment towards us. I recall when he had once just returned from Nashik, after his ass busting journey on his bike. Instead of going home, he directly came to the 31st Dec. night party. He was always influenced by army and wanted to be in the Indian army, but he couldn't make it there.

The best thing I recall about Mayuresh, when we're together, is his non-reactive face in our night-out parties. All of us would split his ass on a single topic every time, and that was one of his girl friend's emotional torture. He always used to entertain her in spite that we all and Mayuresh knew he would get a more better looking girl than her. He was and always is speechless on this topic. Tejas is the man who always initiates the topic.

Tejas is more a moody person than an enthusiast. He's a great ignorant of his other friends except the 5 of us. His patent statement, "I'll call you in a couple of minutes" is by heart to us. We knew the meaning and hence we never expected his call after this statement. He is an easygoing person but can sometimes stuck on one wrong thing of yours, resulting in your mental torture and the profit of the telecom service. He'd call you after short intervals until his anger is cooled down. The worst thing of Tejas, to be scared of, is his cricket shots. His eyes have no relation to the ball and his bat is destined to hit or die situation.

Mandar was always a shy, quiet person in our group. We all used to discuss in his absence about the reasons of his calmness and how we can make him express himself. He's a brilliant in mathematics and logical things but only till the academic part. He's the most bullied guy in our group, and he tolerates it only for us. He's now started cracking boring jokes, expecting us to laugh out loud.

Bhushan is the shortest guy in our group, in a sarcastic sense. He is always boasting himself up, but not with us. He is the most enthusiastic person in our group for hard drinks. He is quite straightforward and an intelligent freak.

I remember when we had been to Lonavala for 3 days, those were the most cherish-able moments of my life. We had a lot of funcohol, I mean fun and alcohol. It was my first time to get sloshed away with drinks. I was feeling like I am walking in a virtual environment, kinda video game, when we went outside for a walk in the midnight around 3 am.

We all are freaks and we don't have anything planned in our parties or hangouts. The best moments in our lives were when we used to do all the financial calculations for hours and none of them were successful. Some of us would then had to pull out excess money to save washing the dishes. I remember the day when we returned from Lonavala, we had around 5-10 Rs each kept safely for the bus tickets. But now all are working and wouldn't mind spending thousands of rupees in funcohol.

In all of us, only Tejas is committed and I am the experienced, kinda having a degree in girlfriend management as being in a relationship for 3.5 years. Sid also has a short experience of having a girlfriend, but his was like a two month certificate program. We all adore and respect Tejas's relationship. Mayuresh is in desperate search, and Mandar is out of the love, relationship scenario.

These characters are a metaphorical representation of my life. I am desperately waiting for the next funcohol.


from L to R
Bhushan, Mandar, Siddharth, Mayuresh, Me, Tejas

Rubbish n quick illustration

This is a rubbish and quick illustration about 'online social networking'

Friends part 3.1: The six gems

This is one more glimpse to the nostalgic memory lane in the city of my life. We are six, rocking, sturdy guys extricating fun from our lives. Stating us as rocking and sturdy has an evidence and its not a boast.

The lane starts with our school days, it starts with my langotiya yaar, Siddharth. We were the bestest friends since birth. The only distant thing between us is age, a couple of months, nothing else. We first met when I was nine months old and he was six. It was the occasion of Haldi Kunku at my home, when his mom had come to visit my place. I cannot remember our chat that time, I guess it would have been a recitation of a couple of vowels like aaaaeeeeiiiiioooouuuuu, as most of the infants do. The next time it was a general visit to each other's places as we also used to stay quite close-by.

In school we used to sit besides each other, ate our lunch together, and play together as well. I still remember that he always used to bully me and make fun of me, and that was always related to my studies and my lack of interest in sports. We never had a fight on that issue, and he still does that. I knew and I still know that all that he did was to help me realise my potential and be a sturdy guy in school. I still remember, it was my 1st grade, when he admonished me to beat up a guy who was making fun of me. I had beaten up the first person in my life. As days passed on and as we reached higher grades, I was quite strong and well in academics.

I still remember, we used to sleep during boring periods in spite of sitting on the first bench. There was a technique, keep your hands on the sides of your eyes, rest the elbows on the desk and put the related textbook between the elbows. Now we used to close our eyes. It appeared as if we were reading notes, but we were actually fast asleep. The interval bell was our alarm.

We also used to steal chalks from the teacher's desk and we had around 200 (approx.) chalks at the end of the year. We used to bully a thin guy from our class and we had also complained that he stole all the chalks. We used to push each other from the desk and empower ourselves. The best thing I still remember was, two of us had started planting trees in our school ground after a lecture by some ecologist. We used our water bags to pour water everyday in the recess.

We both were die-hard fans of the Batman cartoon serial on cartoon network and that was the prime topic of our discussion after reaching school each day. We were so influenced by the powers of batman that we had also planned to start our own detective agency, post graduation. We planned work schedule, finances and strategies to make the country a better place. The name of our project was HB. We had sketched how our costume would look like and the secret weapons in it. It was a top secret for us. We used to exercise hard everyday, measure our biceps and count the repetitions.

We used different unique telephone etiquette. We used to blow air and make a kind of farting sound on the speaker instead of saying hello. This started when we learned about the invention of telephone by Alexander Graham Bell and also discovered about the early telephone etiquette.

We separated for our careers in different streams after school, but our friendship's track didn't go separate ways. I can compare it with a rail track, which is always equally distant from each other but still goes parallel till the end. This distance can be stated as freedom or independence. We never enforced our views on each other. We gave each other the respect for our own views and also well understood our needs from each other.

We always had fun together. We rode Sid's bike at 80 kph on the busy streets of FC road just to reach a movie on time. 75% out of all the movies I have seen, were with Sid. Once we disobeyed 5 signals, we tricked 3 policemen and we exceeded the normal speed limits to 80-85 kph, on our Pulsar DTSi 150s, on the busy streets of the city in the morning at 9 am, just to watch Die Hard 4. We were influenced by iron man and recalled our HB memories. We laughed in the theatre loudly while watching Dhoom 2. We recently invented 4th, 5th and 6th law of gravity after contradicting Newton existing laws. Those laws are high in vulgarity and hence cannot be elaborated here.

He was always there for me whenever, wherever I needed him. Just a call away was the distance. He would just put behind his existing work, degrading its importance if I am in any trouble. The only worst thing is when he's angry. He won't speak a word, pick up a call and hide somewhere when I go at his place. He would take his time to calm down and then put a message, full of emotions and bitterness. This was for me only. If someone else, not amongst his friends-list, is a victim of his anger that person would never ever dare to call or meet him again. Sid would either beat him up or if its a girl she'd have a neat firing of words. That also doesn't mean that he's rude to others. He's just right at the right moment.

We never cribbed nor we sought or boasted our friendship in front of each other and others. Its an unspoken, unwritten understanding between us. We are HB, the Hardy Boys.



To be continued...

Illustrating lectures

I was concentrating on the lectures and at the same time conceptualising and executing illustrative visuals of my gained knowledge in those lectures. Following are my illustrations. Critics are welcome.


^ This one was during a lecture on academic writing and journalistic writing differences. So a viable caption for this illustration would be "Writing."


^ This is an illustration done during a lecture on designing innovative research. So a feasible caption for this would be "Research".


^ This one was a pass time illustration with no specific motive. It directly came out of my mind, through my hands on to the paper, without giving my mind the time space to think.

Friends Part 2 - The Fighters

I am continuing another set of nostalgic memories with my classmates. I should rather publish a book instead of writing this blog, as those memories are vast.

You would think why the name "fighters"? the mystery behind this heading is that this story again has three main characters including me, rather best buddies from my class in Abhinav College, Sahil and Abhishek. Basically, we were die-hard fans of Arnie(Arnold Shwazzeneger), and Sylvy(Sylvester Stalone). We always used to compare ourselves with each other and boast our muscles. My muscles were all hidden under excess fat, still trying to convince myself that no, something's still present inside. I still remember ourselves bluffing, Abhya and me used to bluff like rabbits are discussing how to eat a lion. Abhya was once boasting that, all the busses, on a bus stop he was standing, were forced back a couple of miles due to his sneeze. I was not a noble listener to his bluff and in my reply I told him that the earth rotates because I walk and jog everyday. We both used to have these chats in front of Sahil and I can still remember his expressions. We knew, we were childish, immature but the fun and humour was our bond. We didn't care how many people are listening to this rubbish. We were always happy.

Abhya is a bit darker in his complexion but lighter in heart. He was a muscular hunk in our class, full of rage and anger. I still remember his eyes when he had a quarrel with a guy. But gradually he changed, rather gained maturity with time and is more patient, calm than ever, now. We met in my first year, as destined to be best buddies we never had a quarrel, though a few misunderstandings were apparent as everybody does. But those never mattered in our friendship.

The best thing in our lives, I would never ever forget is that we were Karan and Arjun, from Rakesh Roshan's hit film "Karan Arjun". Abhya was Karan and I was Arjun. I still remember, everyday when we arrived in the college and saw each other, we used to pull our sleeves up in a disguise of checking something tattooed on our forearms, like the scenes in old bollywood flicks, and then shout loudly "Bhaiiya"(Brother). I used to shout, "Bhaiiya Karan"(Brother Karan) and he used to say " Bhaiiya Arjun" (Brother Arjun), resulting in a hug. We were supposed to be departed brothers from the so called "Kumbh ka mela". Sahil was our "bichda hua"(departed) third brother. We still do that when we meet.

Once, Abhya called me for a cd of windows xp. I didn't have it but I was reluctant to say no directly, so in a humorous tone I asked him to call and ask Billu(Bill Gates). His response was out of the world, the most gut-busting thing I have ever heard. He simply said that Billu himself had borrowed a pirated cd of Windows 98 from him yesterday. We were laughing for around 15 minutes on the phone. We also used to have giggly fights on comparison of his muscles and my fat. When ever he used to show his biceps after rejoining the gym, I used to call them as pimples. Both Sahil and Abhya used to call my belly fat as a huge packet of biscuits resting down, waiting for the right moment to tighten up.

We were, insane, inhuman and brutal sometimes in our humour. I still remember, we had ruined the names of all the people in our class. We had started calling all the girls, modifying their names to male names and modifying guys' names into girls'. For instance, I was called Ketaki, Abhya was Abhilasha and Sahil was Sayali. In girls, Amruta was Amrut, Sneha and Shrutika were called Suryakant1 and 2 recpectively and so on. Our final examination, the last examination of our group was hilarious, full of fun and serious, sincere work as well. Even if we busted all the people in our class with prankish comments, we never exceeded our limits.

Sahil, we call him, Sandu. He is a dude, a fine artist, in spite of being lazy and a procrastinator he was always the best in academics. Me and Sahil had one thing in common, we never attended classes on time. On an average we used to be 1-2 hours late. Once we weren't allowed to sit for the mid term examination as we had not managed according to the college timetable. We were simply following our own timetable. The next day, without any interruption in our personal schedule we were a bit early. The first day was 2.5 hours late, but the next day we were 2 hours late. Our professor was astonished by our courtesy to come half an hour early. He was full of anger, frustration and anxiety as well. He didn't know that we were fighters, we didn't even spare our graduation exam. There we used to be 10-15 minutes late, though it was much better than earlier.

Sahil and his Ambition. Don't get me wrong, ambition is his 135 cc, Honda bike, which suffered more than those starving africans. Sahil was an expert in wheelies, stoppies and accidents. I thank god nothing major happened and I pray that it wont. The best thing for him is that he recently bought a new Yamaha bike, which is eventually the worst thing for his new bike. I don't remember the name but its the recent one with 160cc engine and 73k Rs.

I still remember our graduation exam, we used to sit beside each other. We were always laughing, cracking practical jokes, shouting and also working at the same time during the exam. There was one classmate, Amruta Saraswate, who was sitting just beside us. She was continuously laughing on our comments, almost rolling on the floor. Later, she used to laugh if even our names were taken by someone. I felt, we were so much influential.

Broadening memories, I recall when Sahil and me used to talk about the world, currencies, and behave in such a way that world is running on our words. We used to call all the politicians, presidents and prime ministers as our friends and would do anything for us. It was hilarious when we boasted our views regarding ruling the world. I used to say that, I was actually going to run the American government but at the final moment, I wanted to concentrate more on my graduation, so I just opposed the offer. Sahil, after my statement would state in affirmation that, he actually passed the offer to me and it was him who was actually going to run America, showing his fake wholeheartedness.

Sahil and Abhya were again the best buddies from my class and the thing I adore again is our informality. We usually don't say "hello" when we call each other, but we tend to change the universal phone etiquette by saying "a bhadya". Sahil and Abhya were my best friends not only because they were humorous or we had fun together, but also because we also shared our life.

We actually are like three brothers, departed from each other in our childhood and Abhinav college was our "Kumbh ka mela", which brought us together.

Dil Chahta Hai

I watched the evergreen film, 'Dil Chahta Hai', today. I couldn't resist to recall the happiest moments of my life with my two best buddies, Viraj and Mandar.

It was the first year of my college, the foundation year, with new people, new environment, new world. I was no more than a kid. I met Mandar, who was studying in the third year, on the Swargate bustop, where I used to board the bus sharp at 6.40 am. Me and Mandy, become close friends in a short time, as if it was destined to happen. Later in a couple of months, I met Viraj, who was studying same as Mandy. Viraj used to boast himself in front of the first year students like he always did, every year.

Mandy and Viraj were kind of elder brothers for me. They used to imitate my innocence, bust me off watching dirty assignments, and also help me impressing a girl. I recall incidences when I used to call them all of a sudden in a serious manner. We would have a meeting and my disclosure was that I was in love. Later, it became habitual for them. We experienced all human senses in extremes, emotions, laughter, fights.These two bastards used to visit my classroom in a disguise of giving a demo of their work. Their actual motive was to impress the girls in my class. Once measured our biceps at Mandy's place, I remember, Viraj was the strongest in size and strength.

Mandy was a flirt, he used to experience all different kinds of girls, as if a doctor is performing multiple DNA tests. He was the most impressed and happening person in our families as well. He was a resemblance to studiousness made by my parents. Of course they didn't know the hidden facts. He was a mastermind in uniting couples, he was always busy giving advices and suggestions to guys on this subject. He was the most hated person by the teaching department in our college.

All these things never mattered in our friendship. I never cared, nor do I now, about what he did to other girls, guys, or any other mystery he has not revealed to us. I only cared about his friendship with me and Viraj. That was always intact and the strongest. I still can't believe that he got married a couple of months back!

Viraj, was always an expert in computers. He was patient yet an angry young man. Me and Viraj are working together since 6 years now, on many different projects. The best experience we had together was when we met Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the honourable former president of India. We also have a couple of photographs with the honourable president.

I call Viraj, "Bhauji". I don't remember when I had his naming ceremony done, but he likes it as well. He was in an unprecedented love with a girl in our college, for four years. He fought, yelled, slapped Mandy outraging his anger in support of his love, but that never affected our friendship.

You would think that why am I boasting our friendship and relating it to the classy bollywood flick, 'Dil Chahta Hai'? The answer is that we had absolutely similar incidences, except we never went to Goa. I think Farhan Akhtar stole our story and added Goa to hide his conspiracy.

Instantiating the characters from the film their resemblance with three of us, Mandy was comparable to Akash, Viraj to Sid and Me to Sameer. Clarifying the earlier facts, one: Mandy wasn't ever serious in girls except flirting, two: he was slapped by Viraj, which was consequential to a quarrel on Viraj's unprecedented and one sided love, three: he had to go to his wife's home (before marriage) to ask for permission of marriage in front of her huge joint family, four: he was never serious in anything until marriage. Considering Viraj, one: he has limited hair on his head, two: he is understanding, controlled, creative, three: he slapped Mandy. About me, one: I was always in serious love with many girls, which were all infatuations of the colourful college life. Two: I was always a mediator in Mandy and Viraj's grudges, helping them to resolve their disputes and enjoy the threesome beauty of our friendship.

I remember a couple incidences when, me and Viraj went at Mandy's place for submissions in my first year. The environment resembled to the scene in DCH when, Sid(Akshaye Khanna) presents his artwork to Sameer(Saif) and Aakash(Aamir). We had colours spread all over, brushes lying down, two or three containers full of water ready to get spilled on the floor, while working on our assignments.

We used to laugh out loud, creating scenes in the public without being shameful. Our typical 'Katta' was Sarasbaug. I remember once Mandy had bought all the balloons from a balloon seller to gift them to some of his girlfriend. That was hilarious. We used to sit, sleep, play, roll on the grassy landscapes in the garden. The chats used to last for hours, without keeping any relation with the existence of time. They comprehended, serious family matters, girlfriend experiences or even a lecture on seduction points of women, by professor Mandy.

Both of these bastards didn't have a specific time to visit my place; one of the informality I adore, which kept our bond intact. We used to eat 10 samosas each sometimes when we were at my place. Amrit sweets near my place was almost irresistible to the three of us. Years passed without disturbing or interfering our friendship or even weakening it. Even if I call Mandy or Viraj after a couple of months, years or decades, the tone and informality of speech is and, I am sure, will be the same.

The last time I met them was on the airport before departing from India. In the morning that day, I was the most angry, I had ever been in my life. The reason was Viraj and Mandy had refused to meet me or come to the airport. The said they were a lot busy in their respective work. I felt like something was fishy, but my anger didn't let me keep a hope of them meeting me. Unless they arrived at the airport directly, one and a half hours before my check in, totally surprising me. I was the most happiest person on the earth, I felt. I was overwhelmed with happiness by their presence. I was almost in tears, but these were 'Khooshi ke aasu',(tears of happiness). They neither said bye or good luck nor did they wish me luck for my future prospects. We exchanged a firm hug and then they just admonished me to make a girlfriend as soon as possible and... (censored)

I think that's what make us different!


"ya toh ye foto 3D hai ya fir humari dosti gehri hai" - bad joke! :)

Combating boredom

I was pretty bored yesterday, so I watched four movies consecutively. The movies were, 'Doomsday', 'Wanted', 'Mithya', and 'Step brothers'. The first two were a complete bloodshed narratives with a typical si-fi touch. The third one was a mixture of comedy, thrill and suspense, and the last one was an unalloyed comedy.

I wondered, what if Karan Johar plans to make a si-fi flick? Which would have Shahrukh Khan in the lead role, Kajol or Rani would lead the feminine presence. The story would initiate with a pandemic, natural catastrophe or the invention of an anti-cancer or anti-aids drug. A mongrel will be the consequential side effect of the drug. But, contradictory to the Hollywood flicks, the movie would gyrate in a family controversy casting Amitabh in a special appearance, making the audience weary with heavy emotional sequences. The climactic scene may comprehend a marriage of the mongrel(resultant of the drug's side effect) with the actor or actress.

In the middle of my journey of movie watching, I tried to cook a nice and different meal for myself. It comprised of onion, potatoes(both cut into strips) with garlic fried in olive oil. The fried vegetables were poured on the mixture of lettuce and cucumber. It was awesome and delicious. Looked cool as well.

I also tried to play some new songs, and practise the older ones, on my guitar and read a novel as well. I tried to defeat my extreme boredom the same day, but it vanished the next morning with new, fresh and random thoughts in my half asleep mind.

My cricket career...

I get quite nostalgic when I recall the moments of playing cricket in our society. I call it my gully cricket career. I want to share the passion of 6 of us(me and my friends) to play cricket and the agony of the elders in our society caused by us.

My Gully Cricket career started when I was in the 3rd standard of school. We used to play a series tournaments, usually during the after hours of our exams. Who said ball and bat are mandatory to play cricket? We used a writing pad and a ball made with handkerchiefs to play cricket. We had a cricket stadium specially architected for us to play cricket after school. It was a durga mata temple.

We had six different stadiums in our society. First one was in the parking of my building. This stadium was a compact one and we just had a chance for leg-side strokes for single, doubles and boundaries. No straight shot was allowed as it was the house of our watchman. Offside was a canal and backside was a bloody witch who used to eat our cricket balls. It was closed down by the cruel societians by allegedly parking their vehicles between our cricket pitch.

The second one was, in one of my friend's bungalow. It was a nice, safe area and free from elder's conspiracy to stop our play. It was all well until I - inspired by some Indo-Pak tournament - took the responsibility of breaking two consecutive windowpanes. My friend's family finally outraged their agony and their long lasted patience was over.

The third one was one of our friend's terrace. It was the best place to play cricket, no pressure of breaking windowpanes, no disturbance of vehicles. The only problem occurred was when the ball was shot out of the terrace. The person responsible for the stroke was also responsible to go 3 floors down and climb up with the current or a new ball on his own expenses. In spite of the immense physical labour of bringing the ball up, climbing the stairs, the batsman used to be declared as out. It was a strict rule in the terrace stadium. This was all going well, until my friend, who was living on the last floor below the terrace, complained of the plaster falling off from his roof. It was emphasised more as one night the plaster fell on his father's nose, which led him to stop our play in immediacy.

The fourth stadium was granted to us by the government, after watching our agony and passion for cricket. We started playing on the roads. Now that was well going, we had a big space, long boundaries, and we were able to play with full-pitch bowling. It was again my honour of breaking the fourth and fifth windowpane. The fifth stroke was so hardly and blindly hit that the glass was shattered in innumerable pieces, some falling into the house and some outside. This resulted in sacrificing my cricket bat for halal to the house owner. The anger of the house owner was so immense that we fled leaving all our cricket kit there itself. We lost our three new wooden stumps, two bats and three tennis balls. One of our younger players also lost his new pair of floaters in the attempt of fleeing. That poor guy was just removing the dirt from them while waiting in the resting area.

Then the sixth and the last stadium was on the other side of road. Same things happened. We weren't mature enough to learn from the history and it repeated itself almost 6 times, this was the sixth one. One of my friend and me distributed the responsibility of hitting the belly of a mid 40s women and breaking a windowpane respectively. That was the time when we felt like the societians would commit a satyagraha for us to quit playing cricket. The agony of that women was immense as the ball we were using that time was a plastic one. We fled as usual, and the news reached our parents. Most of us were beaten up by our mums or dads as our parents were unwilling to pay the expenditure of replacing the windowpanes.

Finally we were granted a legal permission to use the terrace stadium as my friend's father had fixed the roof with new cement plaster.

Graffiti

A couple of days ago, while I was roaming on the streets of Dundee, I came across an exhibition of Dundonian graffiti artists possibly exhibiting their art work for the entertainment of people passing by. I suppose, these artworks depict the outrage of people on a personal front.

I have taken a few snaps from these fine artworks...












© Images copyrights reserved by Ketan Kulkarni - 2009

Dreams

I have heard my grand parents saying that the dreams seen at dawn come true. Also sometimes my parents used to say that. I am absolutely thankful to god for not letting them come true.

If supposedly my dreams would have come true, the consequences would be disastrous for my individual self. I don't know the rocket science behind this mystery of god, but I do wonder why such dreams come at dawn and not in the night or midnight?

Till I was in the school, I always dreamt of failing the examinations or arriving late in the examination hall to see the closed door. Roughly analysing the average of my exam failure and late arrival dreams, they would approximately count 100. I would get it every year, one month prior to the final examination. If we suppose that dawn dreaming is a true phenomenon, then I would have failed a hundred times, never reached early to the exams and would still be in the second grade. To formulate the fact, 100 (the average of my dreams) divided by 10 (from 1st till 10th Grade, the SSC) equals 10, which is the result of my repetition in each grade. So, concluding the fact, I would have been somewhere in the middle of 2nd Grade appearing for the 5th or the 6th time.

In another instance, when I planned to study in the UK and after I booked my plane tickets, I dreamt of missing the flight until I was sleeping in the flight itself. Recalling those days, I can figure on myself dreaming the flight miss, which was approximately 10 days. That means if the dreams would have come true then I would have missed the flight 10 times. In that case, I would have to book the plane tickets for those many times, which would cost me approximately 4000 pounds, which are actually half of my living expenses for the complete year in the UK.

I have dreamt of riding a 36 geared bicycle on the steep road of Mahabaleshwar. I have driven a car on the highway at the speed of 200 miles an hour in my dreams. I had a motorbike race with a cheetah after discovering on the discovery channel, that cheetah's the fastest animal on earth. I have also dreamt of Deepika Padukone being my girlfriend and Shahrukh Khan being my fan.

I have many a times fallen into the valleys of sahyadris after coming back from a long trek. I used to dream of myself shouting "fall", which was taught to us in a mountaineering course to alert the lead climber if you're falling while climbing a rock patch.

I wish some of my dreams would have come true, but I can't imagine the consequences if all would have turned into reality.

Autobiography of my 6610i

This is the autobiography of my mobile phone, same kind as we used to write in school. I can remember our Hindi teacher asking us to write, "Cheenti ki aatmakatha" or some similar subjects in exams or as a homework, indirectly torturing our innocent minds.

So I'll handover to my mobile phone for sharing his experience of four and a half years with me.

Hello, 6623s and some 1100s or my rival iphones, I hope you all are doing well. To initiate with, I would like to recall my owner's desperation of buying me, one of the popular mobile in my species, four and a half years back. His eagerness, enthusiasm to play with me and use me still gives me a shiver. I still remember the care taken by him for my complexion, and the extra clothing for me to protect me from accidents. There was a hype of condom covers at that time. Though the real name of that cover was different, I remember him calling it by the same as it was elastic and white coloured same as a condom. I felt ashamed at first hearing the name but was fine after its comfortable fittings. But soon it was removed as it was difficult for me to enter the pocket of a jeans or any other trousers due to sturdy friction. Then many different clothes came and went away keeping my nudity intact at the end.

Gradually, the use became rough. I was beaten up whenever my keypad won't work. I remember one incident, when one of my owner's friend tried to punch him and it hit on my face. My display panel was broken into pieces, but I was happy to have a new skin after that, like having done a plastic surgery. The fake beauty wasn't for a long time, it vanished when I was dyed in pink from grey on the festival of colours,'Rangapanchami'. I suffered in agony, whole of my life by being dropped away on a running motorbike, being thrown on bed several times and also being thrown on floor in someone else's anger.

My respect was descending towards my owner due to his attitude towards me, and I used to be jealous when he saw at my advanced friends. He would always think of replacing me with them, but for my fortune and his bad luck, I am still with him. My life is like a long term bitch by gaining complete satisfaction until I become old and then my place is taken by another beauty.

I have become old, I can only store 200 text messages, and use 3 mb of space for the rest of applications and capturing images. My camera is like an eye suffering from a cataract. It can shoot images but keeps the identity secrecy of the person or thing shot. My skin was again changed recently, this time with a duplicate one, black in colour. The back portion of my skin is not changed but the front part with keypad is new. It has already lost its colour. My look is like an African-American breed of humans, but not merged together. The front is African and the back is American. My heart, the battery is on the verge of extinction. I am feeling like being on a dialysis like a human suffering from kidney failure. I need to be charged almost daily or sometimes two times a day. I remember the early days when my stamina was praise worthy, and I had a status in our ethnicity of Nokians regarding my battery life.

After serving for four and a half years of my faithful work, I will soon die of a battery attack. Till then I hope my bastard owner keeps me in a good condition.

Hero

I wish, I was a hero,
trillions would know me and millions would admire me.
I wish, I was a hero,
The young would keep me their exemplary model,
an attraction of the adolescence.
I wish, I was a hero,
a reason of endearment for girls or an ideal man of their lives.
I wish, I was a hero,
to kiss the most beautiful woman on earth,
or a reason for beauties to lose their virginity.
I wish, I was a hero,
not for controversies, bodyguards, media around me,
but for resemblance to be made with legends.
I wish, I was a hero,
for trends to follow me, styles to change on my will.
I wish, I was a hero, not for directors, producers to make a blockbuster or for any financial gains,
but for a change, to experience the fame, the thrill.
I wish, I was a hero, to run on the train, to cry in the rain, to jump on the trees, to fight against the badies,
not in the film but in the actual drama of life.
I wish, I was a hero to bring a change, to brighten the depressed, to bring equality, to reduce poverty.
I wish, I was a hero to make the world a happy place, co-operative space, to motivate masses lend a helping hand.
I wish, I was a hero to ask mother nature, the forgiveness and exception of her disastrous arrogance towards her misled kids, an exception for pandemics, and an exception for nuclear fireworks.
I wish, I was a hero to educate the masses about power of love, lust of money, for my words would count more than their lives.
I wish, I was a hero to make the world a happy place, end in peace and leave a remark for unborn legends to follow, not in any movie, but I wish, I was a hero in reality!

Chewing gum

Apologies for making ketan-daily into weekly. I wasn't well for a couple of days.
Here's the next post, hope you find it interesting.



I was just scribbling on my notebook and I drew the above illustration. I was chewing a chewing gum and thought, what if we consider life as a chewing gum? The nonsense illustration above states that the art sense inside me is still alive.

Things in our lives are comparable to a chewing gum, considering the fact that things are sweet and luscious at first and gradually lose attraction, same as a chewing gum. Chewing relationships is different than chewing materialistic things. When you chew anything like an ipod, mobile phone, computer, clothes, etc. you gulp the juices by boasting yourself up through showing off to your friends, relatives, and other people prone to jealousy from your show off, and gradually your interest in them decreases and you search for a new and better chewing gum with more different and luscious flavours.

If we take relationships, for instance between a man and a woman, its like a chewing gum with multiple flavours. Those can be categorised as trust, devotion, attraction, sacrifice, etc. Some chew it hard, gulp the juices, throw the chewing gum and buy a new, fresh one. Some take their time enjoying the taste, blowing a balloon out of it and at times chewing multiple gums at once in an attempt to make a big balloon. These kind of chewing gums usually don't have all the flavours and hence don't last for a long time.

Our school and college life, initially, is an ambrosial chewing gum but as years pass on, the taste vanishes and we spit it for a degree or certificate. After going into the professional world we recall the taste of it and wish if we had one of that kind again.

"वादळा पुर्वीची शांतता", PRE STORM SILENCE

I am NOT forecasting any weather or disastrous circumstances! I discovered that this phrase we usually use in marathi is derived from HOLLYWOOD! I'll explain how...

Basically, I wanted a topic to write on. So, while I was having my dinner yesterday night, with the TV on, while watching some thriller movie named Dr. Who. The movie casted a doctor, supposedly mutated into a monster by typically mixing some green and pink coloured chemicals, having clouds coming out of tubes, putting them in a microwave like instrument and drinking the so formed compounded chemical. One thing I don't know about these movies, why do these doctors, scientists, heroes, destroy almost everything, with majority of glass materials, in their labs to show the reaction of chemicals consumed? Although this was just a supposition from my si-fi Hollywood movie knowledge, I wondered why don't they use a different room to conduct the experiment?

Moving ahead, there was a scene in which the hero - I suppose, as he was the lone combatant against the demon - as well as the monster get silent for a couple of seconds. They both are on either sides of a closed passage divided by a firm door. Hero, his girlfriend, her mother and some side actor (an intern I suppose) were on one side, and the monster on the other. The hero has strength, courage, and all wit to combat the monster even if it contradicts the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. He asks the ladies and the guy around to calm down, keep complete silence and face the situation. Both the sides calm down for a couple of minutes, may be building up strategies, coming up with plans to either destroy the opponent or fly off from the spot somehow. I can understand about the humans, but why does the monster need to think or stop suddenly? In the next instance, the hero and the demon try to hear noise on either sides at the same time. Hero hears a silent roar of the monster and feels him moving backward. Then there is a complete silence - pin drop silence as our teachers used to scream in school - and everything goes numb as if things have frozen. This lasts until the monster blasts again breaking the silence, giving the hero an opportunity to impress the lady's mother, by of course fighting with the monster.

Then, when I thought of silence, the marathi phrase, "वदळा पुर्वीची शांतता", came in my mind. Then I made a conclusion that the phrase, is derived from Hollywood action movie sequences. We can take examples of hundreds of action packed thrillers from Hollywood, like the matrix trilogy, Harry potter, Bond movies, etc. who work on the principle of "PRE STORM SILENCE", incorporating a huge piece of silence before an attack and then an explosive, reverberating sound, almost tearing our eardrums . This is called a storm.

I switched off the TV before the climax scene, because as soon as the silence began to rise my food got empty. End of my day wasn't as climactic as the movie, it had washing of dishes, utensils than kissing a girl, which usually concludes any movie's climax.