Omeletting around

Crack some eggs, beat them up. Salt, pepper, some onions, maybe some diced capsicum, some oil on a hot pan, and WOALAH! You are minutes away from delaying a hunget pang for at least another couple of hours.

If you want to get fancy with your cooking, go on and "Google" an omelette recipe. There are tonnes of omelette recipes, like everything on the Internet. But I like keeping it simple. I couldn't possibly cook for a living. But surely can I cook to stay alive. No clue why I said that. Besides, I'm not here to share another omelette recipe.

I cannot conjure up a reason for as to why I am writing about omelettes, specially when there are a ton of ongoing issues in the world that I could write about. Missing planes, a Common Cold epidemic, rising tariff rates of service providers, a looming yet forgotten threat of Ebola hitting India, the India-Australia test series, Hindus being offended by movies as usual, and many other topics that I have no clue about. 

About India, more so, Indians, we are a bunch of very touchy people. It is so easy to offend us about anything and everything. We get put off by movies! A couple of years ago, it was "Ramleela" with scenes to hot to handle for our moral policing boffins. And right now, things have gone from D. K. Bose to P.K. Bose. Now, where in hell did I get that line from?

Back to omelettes. Despite that you can make an omelette out of a tomato, I guess it is safe to assume that the omelettes have long since pledged their allegiances to eggs. 

And as far as eggs are concerned, there is another group among us Indians, whom I may have the opportunity to offend right away, namely the vegetarians.

O am dead sure that if there is ever a movie made on making omelettes, as bizarre as it sounds, there will be a bunch of people who protest and vandalize property, because the vegetarian population deems the movie/documentary unfit for their consumption. Their argument will be that watching the preparation of a delicious, sumptuous omelette will tempt them to consume omelettes, hence causing them to violate the codes of their religion!

I'll start with my mom's case.

Despite her strong genetics, the human body starts to give in after over three decades of incessant work, specially if you are a woman, Indian, a mother of two devils, and also an earning member of the family. And specially so if you happen to use Bombay's local trains as your primary mode of transport to your workplace and back. I needn't lay any more emphasis on how tedious it is to take care of both, your home and work, if you happen to find yourself, or anyone else in a similar position.

The doctors have instructed my mum to consume an egg a day, without fail. Quite obviously, it's all the protein and all the good stuff in the eggs, the doctors think, that will do my old lady some good. But my mum, the pure-vegetarian family that she belongs to, takes pride in surviving all the bone-demineralization and all the bodily catabolism(breakdown) associated with life after 50. I offer you her weekly plan for avoiding eggs...

Monday- It is some goddess's day.

Tuesday- There is something about another god/goddess

Wednesday- Because mu mum's mum told her that one shouldn't consume eggs on Wednesday

Thursday- Because apparently, she shouldn't consume eggs on Thursday

Friday- She mostly forgets to eat eggs on Friday.

The weekends- She probably eats an egg on one of these two days. She's been doing that for the last two weekends, as I've been at home, and have been after her life for not eating eggs.

As I mentioned earlier, I ain't a good cook. But one thing I have nailed, if anything in the kitchen, is the omelette. That is not because I am a culinary genius, not that I don't mind being one. But rather that one really cannot get an omelette wrong. It's like Maggi. The only way you make a mistake with Maggi is that you open the pack above a commode, flush the contents of the packet, and wonder why you do not have anything to eat after waiting for two minutes. The ad promised a bowl of Maggi in 2 minutes. You do have Maggi. Just that now, it's in a pot. It's called the shit-pot. Either that, or you probably don't know how to read, as the instructions are behind the packet!

With the omelette, you just break it! Spill half its contents, nevertheless, but as long as you have some part, any part of the insides of the egg on a hot pan, you're good to go! Finding the salt and pepper might be a problem if that is the first time you step into the kitchen. I know that out of personal experience. I'm a guy. And despite having entered the kitchen "first time" for N number of times, I always fail to locate the salt and pepper. Even if you do not find salt, pepper, or any seasoning, the egg is still better than having nothing to eat. Oh! How can I forget? If one's that lazy, might as well fill up a boiling pot with water, pop two eggs in, with their shells, of course, and boil away! Two boiled eggs out in 5 minutes! That's only if you're a lazy arse! I bet the omelette is faster, and more satisfying to the taste buds. So if you're hungry, and you've got eggs at home, then as Englishmen say, go on! Get Cracking!

Sunday हो या Monday, रोज़ खाओ अंडे! (Be it Sunday, or Monday, eat your eggs everyday!) Yaaaay!!!! Okay, that last "Yaaaay!!!!" was purely unnecessary.

Well, if you're up to getting a bit fiddly with eggs, HERE's something I did a while ago.

Ruminating

I look out of the window

And see the sky, the trees, and everything that's on the other side

I keep looking, knowing little of what or why I am doing what I am doing

I hear all the talks, I hear some whispers

But none of it can I decipher.

It is like language has no meaning, that is, at least for a while.

There's someone talking to me. I know that, because I'm staring into the eyes of the one I am supposedly having a conversation with.

But little does the other one know that I can see right through them.

The view outside the window is as clear with the person standing in front of me, as it is clear without the person being there.

Quite obviously, his/her words are falling on deaf ears

Because I ain't listening. Or maybe I am, but my powers of comprehension, or the lack of thereof, render me indifferent to the string of syllables striking my eardrums. Surely can I hear. But it is as good as I cannot.

I look and stare at things without a clue, of what I look at. It's there whatever it is.

I sit where I sit, transfixed, looking at it. "It" could be a strand of hair, a pen, a piece of chalk, a pretty face, or an ugly one at that, and nothing would matter.

Maybe I am losing it, or was it that I lost it long ago, or even that I had it in the first place, I know not.

But something tells me that I am walking on thin ice.

As far and wide as I look, I see an endless ice land.

Not a sign of life.

And only white noise.

My nose picks up my favorite fragrance from time to time.

But that, I now think, is like a mirage.

My skin feels the warmth of the morning sun.

The glory of the blue sky, by and large.

Maybe I shall start to pay heed to what's being said. The conversation might just become a bit more meaningful.

Vesper

I dedicate this post to Vesper Lynd, the Bond-girl's character played by Eva Green in the movie Casino Royale. Watching this character closely unraveled to me a new dimension, as far as movie watching is concerned. So here goes...

One watches movies, and then, one WATCHES movies. In the former case, the frames of the movie flash past you, just like your life does, and the popcorn gets over. If the movie is spectacular, good even, you find the movie spectacular, or good. The movie gets over, you step out of the theater, or your room, and you go about life like you did 2-3 hours ago, before you started watching the movie. Just in case the movie was good, your mood might be a bit uplifted as a result. 

Now, in the latter case, when you actually WATCH a movie, things become a little different. Firstly, let me make clear what I mean by WATCHING, not watching a movie. When you WATCH a movie, you listen to every, I mean EVERY word uttered throughout the duration of the movie. Each frame of the movie embeds itself in your head. Not a single effect goes unnoticed under your nose. And believe me, it is amazing how much of a movie an ordinary movie watcher misses each time he/she puts his/her precious time into watching a movie.

I'd like to get over the boring topics first, and hence I shall talk a bit about the dialogues in movies, and also a bit about camera-angles. Nah.. I'll chuck the camera-angles part. Each and every movie, no matter the language, always has at least one dialogue that stays with the viewer. That is unless of course the movie is not a Silent-film, or that the movie is very horrendously made, as far as dialogue-writing is concerned. If one happens to notice, that one memorable line in the movie, is usually that of the villain. For instance, I shall quote my favorite one...

"Why so serious? Let's put a smile on that face."

 And now, I shall come back to the reason I started to write this post. The reason why I started to write this post is... wait for it.... wait for it.....

Eva Green's breasts! No, I'm serious!

Presenting to you, the Algerian Love Knot

Guys, I say this out of experience... Trying to peep over doesn't improve the view one bit. Alas! And yes! That necklace she's wearing, it's called the Algerian Love knot. And the man who gave that necklace to her, boy, "He is a lucky man".

I happened to stumble upon Casino Royale out of utter joblessness, and also because I never had a fortune to watch the movie completely. And OH YES! It was worth it.

There are few ladies, that have enraptured me with their beauty, few of whom I happened to have the fortune of sharing breathing space with. Then, there are those, whom I dream of sharing breathing space with. And then, I saw Eva Green in her backless dress in Casino Royale, and forgot everything about the former mentioned categories of women. Not completely true, but BAMBOOZLED I was, if not anything else, at the sight of this lady, more so her bosoms. The way they hung, I could feel my eyeballs hanging onto dear life inside their sockets! Hats off to sculptors who embody their imaginations onto marble and clay.

So lost was I in admiration, that my helplessness spurred me to contemplate about the male admiration for a woman's breasts, and other smooth looking objects in general.Thankfully, my better sense prevailed, and I decided to let go of such fruitless contemplations. But WOW! I sure as heaven would like to know what draws us creatures from Mars, towards the chasms on Venus!

The next thing I would like to discuss is about fathers. More so, about sons and fathers. I call it "That Awkward Moment". Rather "Those awkward moments".

It is that time when a romancing scene is going on on the screen, and a father and his son happen to share the misfortune of each other's company.

Normally, Sunday afternoon is "nap-time" for my dad. I was watching Casino Royale with my eyes glued to the TV screen, for quite the obvious reasons. from nowhere, my dad wakes up, walks into the hall and sits on the sofa next to me. Is it pure misfortune, or is it pure coincidence, or both, I know not. But that exact moment, Mr. Daniel Craig and Ms Eva Green started snogging. In my head, I went like....

Wow! Who makes these images for me??

This is a universally problematic situation, I suppose. In the father's mind, the dialogue goes like 

Dad: "Shit! The kid watches this stuff. Damn! He knows about all this?? From the looks of it, he seems to be enjoying it! With him around, I can't even enjoy the scene! What nonsense!"

Son: "Screwed!! Dad's come! Hell! Act cool! Act cool! Act cool! Calm down! Stop tapping your foot like an idiot. You know what? Talk to him. Maybe that'll help. And meanwhile, the scene might just get over..."

This is the only situation when even Eva Green's breasts can't cure the problem. Mostly, the father and son look around everywhere except two places..

1) The screen

2) At each other

One of the father-son duo starts a random conversation about some topic that makes conversation starter regret the choice of topic for the conversation. Secretly, each one of the two hope that the other leaves the place, so that they could have the TV all to themselves, specially before the main scene gets over. That seldom happens. I'd even go to the extent that the father and the son, each cock-block the other from having the scene all to the other one. It's got something to do with the male ego. 

But somehow, the father-son duo get through the love-making scene on the screen, some way or the other, either by talking the whole time, or by staring here and there, or as in nowadays, by looking into their phone screens. Phew!

Chuck the "Fuck"

It was some time ago that someone told me that I've substantially reduced my usage of the word "Fuck" in my verbiage. There was obviously no effort from my end that resulted in this change. And neither had I observed this subtle change in myself. But for some very strange reason, the change felt very welcome. Specially since the "someone" who happened to tell me about it was a lady. I am pretty sure that had it been a guy who told me about such a change, I would have felt like a complete pussy, and as a consequence, this post wouldn't have been possible. Maybe I'm getting a little too candid. Anyway, moving on, as usual!

Here's what happened. For some reason, I heard myself saying "Fuck" while dreaming the other night. Don't ask which other night. So, as I heard myself, I sounded a wee bit crass. A bit uneducated. The word "Ungentlemanly" describes what I felt about myself, spot-on! This is despite Gentlemanliness never having been my forte. I do greet people well, or so I think. Umm.. What else? Opening doors for ladies has never felt like a chore. But my tongue has never been under my control.

I for one, am a Self proclaimed connoisseur of the word "Fuck". Goodness! I spelled "Connoisseur" correctly at first go! Yeah. So basically, I drop the word "Fuck" in virtually any and every sentence. It surprises me if the word doesn't pop up in three consecutive lines. One cannot blame the word for its versatility. Look carefully. "Fuck" can be used as all parts of speech. I mean, check this out...

As a verb(sing, dance, work)

I fuck. They fuck. We fuck.

As a noun(Thing/Person)

I don't give a fuck.

Or

Hey, Fucker! How's it going?

As an adverb(describes a verb, very, really)

This shit is fucking amazing!

As a Pronoun(He, she, it)

X is an ass. Fucker's also an idiot!

As an interjection(short exclamation, Oh! Ouch!)

FUCK!!! Oh FUCK!!!

Looks like we can't use "Fuck" as a conjunction, preposition, and an adjective. Strange.

The thing is, I've been looking for a New-Year resolution. "Studying" did not fit the bill. I wanted my goal to be realistic. 

"Reading more books" is already there on the list of resolutions. 

Losing weight is.... well, out of question. You see, when you have Adonis's blessing, you don't need to worry about your weight. Whoops! Now, I'm being cocky. 

So giving up my copyright word, at least from my regular jargon, seems like a good option. It is more than sufficiently challenging a task. And since I was on my way to doing this, unknowingly albeit, why not go all the way? Time to turn a bit "gentlemanly"!

So this post is to me, what the last day of binge drinking would be to someone planning on quitting drinking. 

Here goes nothing, then. There are 2 parts to a person's life, as far as speaking the English language is concerned. One part is "Before knowing about the word Fuck". The second part is "After knowing the word FUCK". 

Before knowing about the word Fuck, the word never existed for you, like all other things that never existed till we came to know about it. It's like Gravity or blackholes, or arseholes. We discovered them, understood them better, as we progressed with time. Some aspects of such phenomena still remain elusive to our understanding.  But just because we hadn't discovered these phenomenon, that never meant that these were absent.

After knowing the word FUCK

It starts as "the forbidden word". It turns into the word that makes you think that you sound cool. Then, you realize that maybe, it's not all that cool after all. Then comes a stage when your use of "Fuck" damages your image behind your back. And finally, comes the stage when you realize that it is high time that you break yourself out of the grapple of "FUCK", specially when the word starts haunting you in your dreams.

Some time ago, I was talking to someone, with whom I usually used "Fuck" very freely. But during that last conversation, I was almost about to utter "Fuck", and I changed my mind and said "Freak" instead. That's the power of dreams!!

 

To be very frank, the word hasn't lost its novelty in my head. Just that my use of the word has offended people I hold dear, despite not intending to do so. Besides, overusing "Fuck", like the overuse of anything too strong, simply lessens the impact of the word that it usually entitles itself to.

It's like using steroids in bodybuilding. It works like magic, steroids, when bodybuilders start using it. Then, the body starts developing tolerance to the steroid, which leads to its increased usage. Eventually, steroids screw up the health of the bodybuilder. 

Another example is something, I feel, I shouldn't be writing. But I'll write it anyway. 

It is like saying "I love you". If you say it to the right person, and if you time it right(whatever that means), it works like magic!! But if you go about saying that to too many people, the line just loses its importance, not only for the person you say it to, but also in your own head. 

Moral of the story being, use STRONG stuff sparingly. But don't keep yourself from using STRONG stuff at all, out of fearing its limited supply. 

That got a bit too abstract I guess. Nevertheless....

Chuck the Fuck,

Fuck the chuck,

Chuck the Chuck,

Fuck the Fuck,

At your head, a ball I chuck.

You need to duck, You need to duck.

If I chuck and you don't duck,

What the fuck! What the Fuck?

Pump it up!

Stimulus! Stimulus! Stimulus! No matter how many times does one repeat the word, even scream the word "STIMULUS" out loud, one can never end up over-emphasize the importance of stimulus in human life. It's what keeps us alive. It's what gives us a sense of what the world feels like. Survival relies on the ability of an organism's ability to respond to stimuli. Life has evolved, and continues to do so, to improve our ability to respond to stimuli. Else, all eyes, ears, nose, nose hairs, tongues, skin and all the senses, even the 6th one, go straight down the drain. Now, before my rant delineates me from the issue I shall rant further about, allow me to convince myself that I have driven home the importance of Stimulus in our lives......

........

........

I'm still convincing myself...

.......

.......

Aha! Convinced!

With that sorted, let's move on.

There are two types of stimuli. One is external. The other, well, no points for guessing, is internal.

External is all that we feel..... and blah...blah....blah about all that the skin, eyes nose, ears and the tongue doing their own thing. We know what they do. Yeah! Those things. I feel stupid saying what the 5 sense organs go about doing. Besides, it is sheer underestimation of the intelligence of the reader. Now why would anyone want to underestimate the intelligence of all the gracious, but nevertheless jobless people, who invest their precious time reading the stuff you painstakingly write? Huh?

So with external stimulus left to the reader's imagination, I shall move on to Internal stimulus. That way, I can save a ton of stuff that I'd otherwise have to write. Moving on!

Each one of us goes about doing our thing everyday. It could be fighting with fire, driving a bus, or a car, or another person crazy. It could be all the myriad of things that human beings have come to engage themselves in. But one thing common to everyone, no matter what we have, in the name of a job description, is this. We all experience a constant variation in the difficulty and intensity of work we have to get through from day to day. Just in case there is someone who does the same thing over, and over, and over, and over, and over again, each day, everyday, then your job.... 

But in most cases, let's hope that's not the case. I shall even take the liberty of hoping that what each one of us does, is something he/she is passionate about.

In that case, say one goes about doing his/her thing. One fine day, the task for the day looks particularly daunting. So difficult that the difficulty of the task that lies ahead is, maybe... just mayyybe, more than what you can handle. What does one usually do? In most cases, we slog it out, put in all we've got. And many a times, we find that we have gobbled more than what we can chew. That might not even be the case, but at least that's the impression we form in our head about the situation.

This is where internal stimulation comes into picture. Professional athletes use it a lot. Non-athletes use it too, but it is a lot more easier(common) to see an athlete use internal stimulation, than to see a layman on the road use internal stimulation. I know... I know.... All this yak about internal stimulation, but what on the planet is INTERNAL STIMULUS?

Quite frankly, I pulled the two words and the following meaning straight out of my ass. Internal stimulus is our innate ability to evoke an unnatural response to an external stimulus. Please don't look this up in a dictionary.
Here's the deal.It is always easier to do a daunting task when you have your insides pumping... HARD! You feel like you can deliver a 1000 watt shock to someone when you are excited about something. We also know this as the Flight-or-Flight response. Strangely, you don't need a dog chasing you to get all pumped up from inside. Of course, that said, a mad dog on your tail will surely help. But not necessary.

All one needs to do is look at the daunting task at hand in a condescending manner, and just get a bit aggressive about it. It is a bit like what The HULK does. He gets mad... followed by....err this...

HULK SMASH

Most often, when the task gets crazy-hard, you're not exactly aiming to hit the nail right on the head. You just want to bash the nail into whatever it was supposed to be driven into.

I read a bit of this "Internal Stimulus" on some page about Neuro-Linguistic-Programming(NLP), and never made much of it at first. But then, I saw how athletes train for peak performance. These guys(athletes) don't just go about training hard, and then training harder. They know how to tap into their latent energies. And that latent energy, we all have. The way the athletes do it, is specific to each athlete. But in most cases, they let out a shout, a growl, or some noise. Else, they rub/clap their hands vigorously, jump, or do something very animal-like, something that taps into our primal nature, that which lets us access the stronger version of ourself. And boy! Oh Boy! does it work!!

My coach at the gym told me to pump myself up before I was to lift a weight I hadn't tried to before. All I grunted was "LET'S DO THIS SHIT!!". And woala! Nailed it! I did get a few glares from the treadmill mongers, but who gives a damn?

Sir Richard Branson's coined phrase "Screw it, Let's do it!" is an example of a line he uses to pump up his, and his team's morale. Same principle. The more you get excited about something, the less daunting it seems.  Basically, you've tricked your body into the Fight-or-Flight response, without needing a dog to chase you.

The science behind getting pumped up is this. When we get all pumped up and excited, we prepare our entire nervous system to fire up. This in turn, overrides the imposed inhibitions on our body imposed by our surroundings, our perceptions, or more often than not, by our own fears.

I feel there's a certain symmetry in the universe. Be it that you lift weights, or that you're getting into one of the most riskiest propositions in your entrepreneurial career, or that you are entering a building on fire to save someone's life, or no matter what the daunting task is that is looking you right in the eye, PUMP IT UP!!

And if you're up against something too big to handle......

What's the worst that can happen?

There's something that you want to do. But each time you merely think about doing this one thing, your heart beats the hell out of itself. Within no time, you get second thoughts about going ahead with the thing you wanted to do just a while ago. If this has happened to us, we, in all likelihood, just try and evade the thoughts of doing that thing what we wanted to. Since the "THING" is getting irritatingly repetitive, let's choose an activity that could potentially give someone jitters, merely by the thoughts of it. How about calling someone close after an ugly fight? It's not as life threatening and sky diving. But the very thought of getting shunned/rejected by the loved one seems as life threatening as sky diving.

So "calling someone close after a fight" is the new "THING". If you have been in this position before, when you wanted to call someone, specially after differences between you and the other one, escalated into a showdown, you understand how it feels. The jitters, of how the other would react, or how the other would respond, or rather, not respond, are more than sufficient to keep most of us from making the call. Let the thought of making the call dwell on your mind for a little long, and we'll come up with thoughts that are as close to reality, as we are from Andromeda(the closest galaxy to ours, for sake of GK). Keep the thought in mind and sleep it over. It shall feel like you fought the most torturous battle in human history. Chances are that you still haven't made the phone call. Keeping the thought of calling the person is not going to help anyone. More so, it will remain an energy leech, that shall make you feel more drained of energy with every passing moment.

Ever heard someone say "What's the worst that could happen?" ? The folks who say this are the ones who generally do not fall into the "Liked-by-all" section of the society. But we don't like these folks because they are brash, uncaring, or inconsiderate. We dislike them for the fact that we can't do what these Worse-case-scenario-loving folks manage to pull off. And that is consistent with everything we hate in another person.

Our hatred for someone else stems from our inability to do what the person, whom we hat, can. The hatred, as strange as it sounds, is because of a deficiency we recognize/perceive within us. Strange, right? Even I thoughts so until very recently. And I am digressing all over the place! Back to the point.

So you've had the phone-call jitters for a while. If the "while" has become long enough, a sincere suggestion. There's no point trying to make the call. You won't make the call because, in all honesty, you can't make the call. Specially if you waited so long.

There's an interesting quote I came across somewhere. It went on the lines of

"We are afraid of leaving something behind/ changing out of the fear of what we might loose. Little do we think of what we could potentially gain from making a move/changing."

 Does that quote sound vaguely out of context? Or is it just me? Anyway, nice quote, and worth sharing. So there goes.

What most of us don't realize is that in a majority of situation, if not in all situations, we have very less to lose in the first place. In all likelihood, whatever be the outcome, it won't be life threatening. One could get oneself into emotionally difficult situations. But if you can't make your way through some emotional pain in your heart, you....don't deserve to live anyway. Die, human!

If your heart  pain sounds a bit more serious....

1) You might have developed some gas. Drink some soda, and burp your heart out! Wow! Then you can watch your heart fly out of your mouth! Okay! Lame.

2) Call an ambulance!! You've experienced a heart attack!

3) If the pain in your heart is psychological, and potent enough to get you to suicide, or cause harm to yourself, then

a) You're shit-stupid.

b) YOU....SHOULD....TOTALLY.....KILL YOURSELF!!

c) Maybe try making that call. You're going to die anyway. What more can you lose by making a phone call? For all you know, the person on the other end might talk you out of killing yourself. In that case, you'll save some counseling money. If you identified yourself in "#3", there is a good chance that your suicide attempt will fail. Why? Refer to point "a)". That's why. You can't even kill yourself properly. Let alone do anything else.

If you feel miserable, go around! Be grumpy! Wear a shitty face! Make people realize that your shit isn't in order! There's nothing to lose. And in case your shit is actually out of order, go take a dump! You'll feel better for sure.

And yes! There's nothing to lose! Worst case, as far as the phone call is concerned, you'll never get to talk to this one person you wanted to. Awww... So sad!...............

WHAT? You don't get to talk to one person, and that makes you feel like shit? There are 7 billion people on the planet! So there's no dearth of people you could talk to for an entire lifetime!

Giving our thoughts a chance at reality is the best thing we can do! Here's another quote I saw somewhere...

"The worst work-out is the one that never happened"

 I, being a fitness-fanatic find that line as something I can relate to. But it's not just phone calls and workouts. It's probably about everything in life. Goodness! When did I start giving advice on life?

But given a situation where there's something you want to do, ask yourself this..

What's the worst that can happen?

What's the very... VERRY bloody worst possible thing that can happen?

Give the question a genuinely serious thought. 10 out of 10 times, you'll say... "Oh! That's it? Not all that bad!"

Now that the phone call hasn't killed me, I guess I should try sky-diving!

Unbroken again

I don't like the way it hurts. Specially when I know that I am going to get hurt. Even more so when a part of me tells me a thousand times....

"Don't go there!! Don't go there!!!"

I go there nevertheless, thinking that I'm the man of steel.

And that nothing can harm me. 

But like steel, I have iron inside. But none of the things that shall allow me to bend. None of the things that will allow me to get away with a small dent. For I can withstand. And then.... I crack. Because I am brittle. 

And then, the river, whose flow I have been stopping for a while too long, breaks right through me, flooding everything, leveling everything that comes in its way. 

What had been a beautiful sight up until this day, will have long gone beneath.

Everything will be forgotten. For those who can't, will have to learn how to forget. And so, shall it go on.  

Or shall I fight with water? Now that I know that defeat is inevitable, why retreat? Not that by retreating, shall I redeem my chance to make history. Even a single step back, and water will encroach upon the little space that I had claim over. So I shall stand my ground, either till the tide recedes, or till I have breath in me. 

All the while, I still wonder...  Why did I go? For I knew as a matter of fact, what I was about to see. I knew how misery awaited me so dearly. And I knew that this evening would go by, with not an ounce of happiness in it for me.

Now, I feel like a sadist. Maybe I wanted to feel pathetic for a change. Maybe I wanted to see her. Maybe I wanted to see her steak her glance away from me. And maybe, I wanted to see how far I could go without breaking. But I did break. Although little did I know that I could mend myself so fast. And now that I feel stronger than ever before, let's do this all over again!

Anu Aunty

There are two types of people. Well, actually, there are many types of people. But for now, let's assume there are only two. Maths was made so much easy by a simple step called an assumption. Hence we shall follow suit here to. Finally, school education's coming of some use. 

Okay!! Back to the two types of people. The first category is "Those who try stuff". These folks, as the description goes, go around, trying stuff. The stuff they try could be anything. It could be things they know a bit about. It could be stuff they have absolutely no idea about, or have never tried before. It doesn't matter to them. They go trying new stuff, end up breaking and blowing up a lot of stuff in the process. They are generally the "YES men", not as in they say "Yes" to whatever you tell them to do. They say "Yes" to new experiences. These are the folks who preserve the child inside till the very end of their lives, basically fun people to be around. Show them something new to do, and these folks crack their knuckles saying "Let's do this shit!". I have a friend who matches the description of this sort of a person to the T. How did they come about the expression "To the T"? That's a topic for another post. So, my friend, he's 28. So he's super young. But considering that his surrounding is filled with 22-23 year olds, he's supposed to look and seem a bit older.  Thankfully he doesn't. This person is the sort you look up to being like ten years down the line. Fun, easygoing, enthusiastic and enterprising. The word "Cool" is an understatement, almost sounds derogatory, while describing such folks. Well. That's that. 

Now, coming to the other end of the spectrum.... Close encounters of the second kind... I call them the Anu Aunties. Maybe, the "How I braved Anu Aunty and founded a billion dollar company" fever is something I haven't gotten over. But I cannot find a more suitable name for the people that belong to the second type. Their life is an unending speculation. These are the folks who ask 4 people about how they look in their new outfit, and eventually end up wearing an old one. They'd rather lost their one worthless life, than try anything that's not written in a textbook. And now, I'm going to RANT! Anu aunties come in all ages, genders, and sizes. They are the NAY-Sayers, The plain Vanilla. They'll come up with 27 reasons not to do something, even before they have tried doing that something. Everything looks like a monumental task, completely worth avoiding. Everything must be tried and tested. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, they make up a big chunk of our surroundings. The worst part being that they're never satisfied. 

So 

a) You don't try stuff

b) Cry about how imperfect the world is.

If you combine a) and b), you get the perfect kitty party material.

I just realized that I'm bitching. Now, that's something new I just tried! Jokes apart, now that I'm forgetting the real reason as to why I started writing this post, I'll finish it before someone puts a bullet in my head. 

Try new shit! Shit could be brown, pale, watery, or even airy! (If you know what I mean)  Just be careful about the airy one. It could be silent, but also deadly!

And for the sake of heavens, do NOT offer advice on stuff you have not tried! Don't even think of running your mental simulator to speculate the result of doing something, specially if you plan on documenting your gibberish computerized result. It's useless. Even the guys who wrote the code for the program must have warned you of the 10% accuracy of the program's output. 

By the way, something just came up! There's something called the 3 second rule, about which I'd read a while ago. Look it up. Anyway, it say that...

If you want to do something, don't take more than 3 seconds to embark upon the thing you want to do, whatever be the thing.

The explanation to this was that if one were to take more than 3 seconds to decide upon doing something, our mind, with its inbuilt Anu Aunty will kick in,  preventing us from doing what we initially set out to do. So either you fight valiantly with your internal Anu Aunty, or you bypass her even before she has a chance to react. 

I feel like this entire post was more of a sales pitch for the book "How I braved Anu Aunty........". But never the less. Let's not allow the Anu Aunties take over the world. The world depends on us!

The #tag (Hashtag)

Before most of us got a glimpse of coding languages (#include<iostream.h>), the symbol "#" was only to be a sight on phones, cell phones, and also the keyboard. 

Here's the deal. Today morning, I saw on my newsfeed that one of my friends had liked someone's photo. I hovered my mouse over the link, The liked photo had a hash tag. I was curiously stupid enough to click the hash tag. That took me to another page, which was nowhere related to the first picture that my friend had liked. As in most cases, the photo that my friend had liked, was that of a girl. And again,  as in the case of most people who use hash tags on their photos, this lady had not a clue of why and how hash tags are used. Now that might sound rude, but that, in fact is the truth. Most of us have no clue why we use hash tags. More often than not, we use it thinking that it will up the "Cool" factor of whatever we post. Ever seen the photos of dishes people order in a restaurant? The photos have more hash tags than the number of people who have eaten the dish inside that photo in the past year. #nomnom, #yumm, #eatingoutside, #noteaten44days, #hungry are just a few of the common "foodie" hash tags. And then we have SELFIE photos hash tagged as #Selfie. Real smarts!

By the way, I'm sure that we know what the #tag is used for. Okay, I'm nowhere close to "sure" on that one. But simply put, they just cluster all related posts with the same hash tag together. So when you click on a hash tag, you have information related with the initial post where you saw the hash tag. To be honest, the hash tag that I had clicked on, was on a photo of an early Christmas party that was happening in the ladies hostel of my college. Nice! I, like most creatures with stuff hanging between our legs, thought

"The hash tag must be a common thing on many, if not all photos of the party."

Whoops. Apart from completely not seeing a single other photo of the Christmas party, I was directed  to some family function of a bunch of people from Singapore. I almost cried. The worst part was that every member of the Singaporean family was kind of old. And all the ladies looked in their middle age, the age when the middle of your body is all that exists. Brilliant!

To the ladies... Next time, when you do put a hash tag on photos, make it a coordinated effort with your gang. Don't simply go Lone Wolf. You end up directing excessively curious people to inappropriate pages. 

After this so-called morning debacle, my curiosity about the # symbol went straight through the roof. I knew about how the Hash tag became a "Twitter phenomenon" during Obama's 2008 election campaign, and how, thereon, it spread to other social networking sites like wild fire. Check this statistic of the use of the word "Hash" over time...

My screen was overflowing with all the tabs on the Hash tag. And all of a sudden, I began to wonder why the hell we had the * and # symbols on the Touch-Tone phones. The two buttons were never used unless you wanted to piss off the other person on the phone. But you could use any button on the phone on the phone to piss him/her, while you two were talking. So unless one were a baby, i.e. when one's hands could only reach the bottom rows of the telephone kept on the table, the "#" and "*" buttons were of no use. 

But go to a Computer nerd and mention the word "Hash". You'll be deluded with the entire history of the poor symbol, starting from its origin, to it's use in connecting telephone networks with computers, the whats, the nots and the what nots. 

I read a line in Wikipedia that stunned me a bit. It goes like this....

"The "*" is called the "star key" or "asterisk key". "#" is called the "number sign", "pound key", "hash key", hex key, "octothorpe", "gate" or "square". These can be used for special functions. For example, in the UK, users can order a 7.30am alarm call from a British Telecom telephone exchange by dialling: *55*0730#."

Nifty! Wow! All of this, just because my news feed showed me a friend of mine, who liked a girl's photo, who had mindlessly added a hash tag on her photo, that directed me to a Singaporean family's photo session! I never realized the power of frustration to get us curious. At  least, I can finally quote Einstein's famous line as my own!

"I have no special talents. I am just PASSIONATELY CURIOUS!"

Purging tears

Sometimes, it is a lot more difficult to let your tears out than holding them back. It takes a certain type of courage to accept the fact that you want to cry, despite wanting to tell everyone, even yourself that you don't feel like shedding your tears. Remember that heavy feeling in the chest that lasts the entire time that you try to hold your tears back? More importantly, remember the lightness inside after having opened the gates of the dam inside? It feels like floating on water.

Patience is surely a virtue. But how do you know of the exact duration of time that you need to wait before doing what you've been so patiently waiting to do?
Or is it that if you have waited far too long, it's better to not do what you thought you want to do? Because if you really, REALLY wanted to do something, you'd already have done the needful. Or so I feel. As in most cases, I don't know.
I know that I'm going to go off on a tangent, but my problem behaves like a rabbit.
The moment I come in sight, the rabbit tries to hide. It goes and stands behind the first thing in sight. But therein lies the problem. More than a hidden rabbit, my problem looks more like this....

A turkey hiding under a lampshade.

 Actually,  more than a turkey hiding under a lampshade, my problem looks more like an elephant in the room. Look like a I have a zoo right in front of me. Phew! So much for English's love for animals.
And since there is nothing going on mano-a-mano between the problem I am confronted with, and myself, it looks easier to ignore the entire situation, specially since it is a rabbit I'm dealing with, and not an elephant hurtling toward me. But doing so makes me feel like an ostrich burying its face into the ground.

For sake of illustration

And I wonder why I worry about stuff that shouldn't get me one bit perturbed in the first place. Another thing I'm wondering is if anything that I wrote so far, makes any worldly sense. I think not. And how, lack of comprehension can be a life saver!

Coffee High

A long time ago, it is said that a shepherd went about herding his sheep some place. To his observation, each time the sheep came back from their grazing session, they became a bit hyper. It was like the sheep had had a shot or two of espresso. The villagers thought that the sheep were possessed by some spirit after visiting their place for grazing. So they went and checked the grazing area, and found nothing. Alas, they were left to deal with their profound existential angst!

One smartie, from among the villagers, had the brains to check sheep dung after they were done dumping their load. Either this chap was smart, or he was just used to eating shit. Whichever be the case, he observed seeds in the sheep-poop. Just to clear the shit off the seeds, he burnt all the collected sheep-poop. Woah! This chap must've been smart! After burning all the shit, the entire place smelled like freshly roasted coffee. Smelling the coffee, Howard Schlutz came from nowhere, and hence, came forth the first Starbucks outlet! The milk for the coffee shop, obviously came from the sheep.

That's obviously not how Starbucks started. But the discovery of coffee happened in some very similar manner as described above. The sheep were eating the berry inside which, the coffee bean is found. Strange that one of the most highly consumed beverage was found in shit.

Now I'm not jobless enough to go around discussing the history of coffee. Or maybe I am. But I shall let the past be. What I plan to tell you is some other stuff.

I am a coffee enthusiast. I wouldn't use the word connoisseur, partly because I'm not too sure that I know how to spell the word, and partly because my experience with coffee has not extended beyond Nescafe Classic, the CCD-type espressos, and very few varieties of roasted coffees. Considering that there are certification courses for becoming a Professional coffee taster, which I haven't taken,  I'll share my humble experiences with you, instead of boasting of my coffee conquests.

In the life of a coffee enthusiast, there are stages.

Stage Zero- TO start with, you aren't the biggest fan of machine-made coffee.

Stage One is in the beginning with the time when an ordinary cup of coffee is sufficient to stretch your nights by about 2-3 hours. And then, you grow out of it. Basically, then you need more coffee.

Stage two is when you chuck the milk out. In most cases, that helps increase coffee's potency. So no need of upping the nightly dose... At least for now.

Stage Three is when one cup of even black coffee won't hold you out for long.

Then instead of the dose, you play around with the strength of your coffee.

Stage Four- When someone introduces you to the word "espresso"

Stage Five- You get the balls to try the "Double espresso", and.... you don't sleep for the next two nights. In fact, if you're a fitness fanatic, you end up doing push-ups all night, because of  all the coffee in your bloodstream!

Stage Six- You drink coffee just for its taste. Basically, you've made enemies with sleep. 

New, there's another thing about the quantity of coffee you get to put inside yourself. The so-called Coffee-High has levels of its own. And they are as follows.

1 -The coffee just managed to wake you up from your semi slumber state.(One cup of normal coffee)

2 -The coffee you drank woke you up completely. You're satisfied with your wakefulness.(A strong cup of black coffee)

3 -After drinking your cuppa, you feel like you're up and ready to take on the world!(Typical after an espresso)

4 -You're all geared up, raring to run at the speed of light! Taking over the world seems a lot easier now, than in level 3. This normally happens after a double espresso.

5 -You can feel both, your carotid and femoral arteries beating the hell out of your neck and thigh respectively. Even Redbull's wings ain't making you this crazy!This is after a triple espresso. And in case you have a flight to catch after this, you're met with the fear of dying in the plane, because your blood pressure has gone straight through the roof.

6 -If you reached this level, MAN! You know you're in for some trouble. Now, for some reason, you want to sleep. But oops! You can't. So you wallow in your helplessness for a while, hoping that you will get tired and somehow, fall asleep. And you've also lost count of how much coffee you've put inside of yourself. 

7 - Like Jordan Belfort(Dicaprio) says in the movie "Wolf of Wallstreet", this stage is called the "Cerebral Palsy" stage. The Coffee-Buzz that was supposed to take you to Infinity and Beyond, is now making you sit in one place, mindlessly... that too leaving your mouth wide open! You feel like you're about to evolve into a hyper conscious creature. But one look at you through anyone outside of yourself, and you'll realize that you look Hyper-stupid, sitting the way you're sitting, specially with more coffee in you than blood. 

8 -Death- I haven't reached this stage, and wouldn't like to, anytime soon. But I read somewhere that about 20 cups of coffee should get you to stage 8.

Who would have thought that Coffee can kill?

Wow! What a waste of the Human ability to write(type)!
In case anyone plans on asking his/her partner out for coffee, please keep them from reading stuff like this about coffee.

I must really be out of my mind....

Rally

In a game of tennis, and also in table tennis, when the two opponents have a go at each other with a continuous string of shots, one after another, for a rather long duration of time, it is called a rally. The official meaning(basically the one copy-pasted from Wikipedia) of the word Rally goes like this...

A rally starts with the serve and the return of the serve, followed by a sequence of continuous shots until the point is won by either player

It is a very testing situation, as with all situations that require focus and patience  simultaneously. A rally is 'almost' to tennis , what a stalemate is to chess. "Almost" because obviously, in a rally, one of the opponent gets away with a point. I per se, am not a big fan of sports. Neither do I have any affiliations to any political party. Besides, I'm just waiting for another hour to pass before I can gorge on some delicious Ela-ada in my college mess, today being Thursday. 

So, I have no clue of as to why I am ranting about rallies.Or, I'm supposed to give an impression that I have no clue, except I apparently do have a clue. Well, sort of... But it's got nothing to do with Tennis or politics. 

Ever been in a situation where you're talking to someone else, and suddenly, the other person involved in the conversation passes a sarcastic comment (or so you think), and then, you pass a sarcastic comment, and then the other person passes another sarcastic comment, after which you pass another sarcastic comment, just for the heck of one-upping the other person? And if you remember correctly, in case you've had an experience of this nature, such a conversation goes on pointlessly, and rather endlessly, until one of you realizes 

"What the hell are we talking about?"

Usually, that thought comes to neither of the parties involved in the conversation; the conversation, that has turned into a fight... But then what are friends for? Watching the conversation heating up, a friend usually comes up and breaks up the conversation, and then, everybody parts ways and lives happily ever after. Either that, or in the very rarest of rare occasions, the "What the hell are we talking about?" realization strikes one of the two arguers, if not both. If the realization strikes both the sides, then that is the definition of a Blue-Moon night! On this occasion, the moon is blue in color. Strange as it sounds, every occurrence of a Blue-Moon has coincided with a New(No)-Moon day, also known as Amavasya in Hindi/ Sanskrit.

All this, just because one of the fellows in the conversation misinterpreted the other's tone/ way of talking.  Or maybe, the other person was actually being sarcastic. You never know. 

But imagine if someone was being sarcastic, and one took their tone as being serious. In such cases, the shit that follows is usually epic. And besides, the person who thinks that the sarcastic person is serious, is actually pretty low on the IQ scale. Woah! That almost feels like a confession. Moving on!

Another case is when two people talking to one another are both being sarcastic. Or so is what either of them think. Or maybe  both are serious and both are under the  impression that the other is being sarcastic. And hence, begins another rally. I call this the "LAME rally". Both the parties are at each other's neck, volleying one lame comment after at each other. 

There are two ways out of this conversation. After a string of lame comments from either side, either of the sides has nothing more to make comments about the other. And then, there is a silence... a.k.a That Awkward Moment.

Both the sides stare at each other, and all of a sudden, they both fall to the ground in a fit of laughter. And everyone around keeps wondering "What the hell just happened??".

The second way out of the "Lame rally" is when the conversation gets so lame that random strangers come and break up the conversation. Sorry. No friends ever.. EVVER come to the rescue of twp people in a "Lame rally". The friends are always like 

"Woah! Who are these two? We don't know them!"

 I feel my friends are going to disown me after reading this. I don't know why though.

Piss off!

Life is not easy. I say this shamelessly despite having virtually walked on a bed of roses all  my life. Thank you  mummy! Thank you pappa! Wow. I just forgot that I'm 22. Never mind. To my parents, I still am the 4 year old tyrant, who's grown 1000 fold on the scale of TYRANNY, but strangely, has grown just a bit more than twice on the meter-scale. So now that I can rest assured of my ability to produce nonsensical strings of alphabets interspersed with spaces, I shall begin my rant for the day. 

Imagine this. You're sitting somewhere. In front of you, there's a girl, who's smell you can't resist. She's less than half an arm's length away, and you can touch her curly hair at any point of time you please, and doing so seems like the most exciting thing to do, given the circumstance, actually, given any circumstance. Now, think this.... This entire setup is in an examination hall. Amazing feeling. Right? Even while writing this, my chest deflated after writing the "Examination hall" part of the story. Crap! Why?

As though that's not enough. Since I was in an exam hall, I was sure that I had come here to write an exam, apart from all the tomfoolery that I had planned in mind. And the exam was an arduous 3 hour affair. Although I made it out in 2 hours, but that is an aspect of the story I intend to touch upon later, if not at all.

So the teacher handed me the question paper. The question paper was good. Nothing about the questions in the paper caught my attention, but for some reason, I sat and admired the quality of the paper that was used to print the question paper. Marvelous paper quality! So smooth! Even the edges were so sharp. I almost cut my hand(read Slit my wrist) while writing the examination. 

Well, I couldn't say a lot about the questions. They were just.......there. I stared at the question for almost half an hour. I was probably thinking that the answers to all the questions will come out printed on my answer sheet, just by me staring at the question paper. This went on for a while, and suddenly, I actually got a few of the answers on my answer sheet. No, They were not printed. Far from being printed, in fact. They looked like filthy scribblings. For a second, I thought why was it that I found the scribblings familiar. They looked so much like my own handwriting....

But then, the scribblings became more intermittent, with long pauses between intense sessions of scribbling. The fact that I was soon running out of questions to answer were the least of my problems, given that the questions that I could answer were a fraction of the questions in the question paper. The other thing I was battling with, was the aroma of the lady sitting RIGHT in front of me. I should have carried my nose-clips to the exam hall. This lady was doing her thing, writing the exam, bobbing about on her seat, playing with her hair, putting her hair on my table for more than half the time. And there I was, fighting my own little battles. I was just afraid of the worst thing that I guy would have to fight against, that too during an exam... For the first time in my LIFE, I prayed to "God knows WHAT", 

"Please! Please! Don't give me a boner. Not now! Please!"

 Someone heard my prayers. I guess it was the girl sitting to my left who heard my prayers. Which... is... by the way, not a good thing. I felt miserable. But I'm happy that my misery kept me from getting a boner. Ever had a boner in class? This is only for boys. Sorry, ladies! If you ladies were to get boners, we guys would have to RUN for life. Okay, bad joke. But to guys, we know for a FACT that getting a boner in the middle of a boring lecture is THE most frustrating thing that can happen. One second. Have I been ranting about boners for a while to long? Shit! Next topic. 

Fragrant lady in front...... CHECK

Shitty exam...................... CHECK

 Ah! The piss problem!!! That remains!

Here's the deal. In any given examination, there's always at least one creature in the exam hall who has to go through the ordeal of holding his/her urinary tract muscles tight, that too for long durations. It could be a teacher holding his/her pee, for there is no substitute invigilator who can substitute for him while he/she attends nature's call. It could be a student who forgot to pee before the examination, or who got a bit too enthusiastic about staying hydrated during the exam, and in the process, drank an extra glass or two of water. It could be anyone. But today, that anyone happened to be me. 

I was writing, looking out of the window, writing some more, then looking out of the window, and this kept happening. The smell of the lady in front was already spelling doomsday for my exam. Now, even nature began calling me. So many ladies, all at once? Wow! This day must be good. 

I went up to the invigilating teacher, and asked 

"Sir, may I go to the bathroom?"

 The fucker stood there, gaping at my face, as if I'd asked him to get himself castrated. Then he looked here and there. As if looking here and there would give him the answer to my question. So I repeated my question. He gave me the same blank look. His eyes gave me the look as though telling me...

"The person you're trying to reach is currently not inside his head. Please call again later."

  I repeated my question for the third time. The guy must have woken up from his deep sleep. And he said "No". After that, he murmured something that I'm sure even he, himself ,could not hear. So it was back to the answer paper for me. Now, I had the lady's smell, a ticking-bomb of a bladder, and least of all, the exam to handle, all at once. 

I managed to finish off as much of everything that I could make sense of. I'm not big on studies. So the amount of finishing off that's required from me is reduced there itself. Phew! That's the perk of not studying a lot. You can get out of the exam hall early to attend nature's call. Done!

What a relief!

A puny life

I try my best to keep out of issues that have any social relevance. It keeps me out of conscience clean for not having offended anyone. As far as my views on how things ought to go, are upstream to conventional wisdom. Moments before I started writing this post, I saw a bunch of photos uploaded by a friend of mine on Facebook. This friend, and many of my other college friends had recently made a trip to a facility that cares and nurtures children with mental disabilities. I never understood why I clicked the link to these photos. It is probably because in one of the photos that was on the tile of the photo album, I saw the most beautiful lady I've known for the past 4 years of my college life. And yes, her photo was damn beautiful! Goodness! 

But wait a second. I'm a bit tired of writing the same rant over and over again. I went through all the photos in the album, saw the beautiful lady more number of times than I could have asked for. But then, something struck me. It was the kids. Their faces just wiped my beautiful lady's face off my mind. I'd just realized that shit had hit the fan. These kids, all of them, had some form of incurable mental disability. No! They're not special! These kids are NOT FUCKING SPECIAL!! It's a bloody lie! It's the human attempt to mollycoddle our lies, because that's what we do best. We don't want to tell the truth. We don't even want to hear the truth! Any time we are faced with something we can't handle, we mince our words and make things sound like everything is fine. Sorry folks, it's not! I might get beaten up for what I said, and what I'm going to say. But I'll take my chances...

What are we out to prove, when we go and spend a few hours of our lives with these "special" children? Mind you, I'm not being condescending, despite my tone suggesting that I am. A few moments of sympathy, a few tears shed, and then WHAT? These kids don't need sympathy! They don't even need a single soul's empathy. Both, sympathy and empathy have no meaning for them.. Besides, showing sympathy is probably the worst kind of treatment you can give to any soul. But we feel sorry for them, for their fate. Their mothers, they don't smile out of any form of happiness. Their smiles are a form of helplessness. That's all they are left with. Their tears ran dry long ago. So all they do is smile, smile at their own helplessness. For laughter will sap them of the little energy that remains within. They see their child, contorted, and still bear hollow hopes of some miracle that will fix a piece of their own heart. But alas, they know for themselves, that is not going to happen. 

And we? We think that we are doing "Social service" by playing with these kids for a few moments. Agreed, we have only purest of intentions in our hearts when we volunteer to engage in such programs. Sadly, contrary to our belief, we don't make the lives of these children, nor their parents any easier when we visit them. As a matter of fact, we only make them realize their misery. 

The kids, quite honestly don't have a future. They will remain in the society as a pitiful and painful body to their parents, and more so, to themselves, in the case that these children realize what's in store for them, which I'm sure they do.  

The solution that popped-up in my mind is what scares me more. Instead of watching these souls wither away, without a purpose for themselves, why not put an end to their misery? Why not put them into their final slumber?

Sad part is that the humanitarian in each one of us will rise to the occasion and say...

"What right do we have to take the life of another man?"

 To that, I have a question in response. What are these kids doing? What are they going to do? And how on the planet do you think these kids will survive? That too, without causing inconvenience to themselves and to their parents? I frankly don't bother how the people around these children will behave, for they only have pity in their hearts. But wouldn't it be a bit more easier for the parents to sleep at night with a bit of peace in their hearts, that maybe, their kid's soul is at peace? That, instead of living with the piercing pain they feel every time they look into the eyes of their child, who, they know, is fighting a lost battle?

I'd wholeheartedly agree that I'm the most heartless of souls, who simply sits behind a screen, and types away whatever comes to mind. But consider this. Why sprinkle salt on fresh wounds, then allow them to dry, attack the healing site, and then sprinkle salt again? That too, when you know that you'll do this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again? Might as well cut the limb off, than see the limb rot...

Free-Fund ke SIYAPPAY!

If you happen not to be a north-Indian, then the title of this post means "Screw-ups, absolutely free!". Maybe the title doesn't mean that verbatim, but I shall leave the shortcomings of translation for you, the intellectual reader, to rectify. And now that I am done with all the sarcasm that was left in me, I shall start with my today's agenda, which is... that I SUCK at giving exams. I suck so much at exams, that I sometimes feel like a vacuum cleaner. Okay, not a vacuum cleaner, but I'm sure that with that analogy, I've driven my point home. Whose home, I know not. But anyway, moving on.

Here's the problem. I go, give an exam. During the exam, I do all the acrobatics on my chair, that confirms everyone's doubts of I being a monkey. Not that I'm not, but I like to maintain some discretion about my true identity. Shit! I just revealed my true identity! Ah, screw it. Who reads this anyway? Ya, so I'm monkeying around during the entire examination. During the last 5-10 minutes, I just recheck if I've done all the questions I'd intended to. And I happily miss to check for a few questions that I, in all probability, would have missed while attempting the question paper. Yeah. I'm that careless. And I'm consistently careless. In fact, I'm so careless, that I care less that I'm careless. Wow! What was that last line?

Fine, so I carelessly monkey around during the examination, and happily step out of the exam hall, still unaware of my careless crimes, that cause my exam results to commit suicide. Die!!! Results, Die!!! I do realize that I'm turning a bit hysterical. And maybe that's an understatement.

"Madness, as you know, is a lot like gravity, all it takes is a little push." -The Joker

And there I am, quoting a line from Batman again. Coming back to I exiting the exam hall. I walk about a hundred yards. Something in the back of my head is already telling me of my impending realizations. I walk another 20 yards, and there's a red bulb blinking inside my head. Then, from nowhere, a bunch of chaps walk by me while discussing the question paper. And I walk with my chest held high, thinking

"Eh! Pussies! Discussing the question paper after the exam's over."

 Little do I know that in another 20 yards, I'll hear of a question I never saw in my question paper. And then I say to myself....

"Shit! You screwed it up again!"

 It happens each time I go to give an exam. It happens EVERY TIME that I go to give an exam. It is either missing some questions, or making the most stupidest possible mistake you can conceivably make. And then, you feel like it's not worth living anymore! Nah... It's always worth living some more. Exams? Who gives a shit?

"What's the use of being a genius, if your marks don't reflect your intellect? Huh??" 

 That's a standard line I hear from my mom every time she has a look at my mark sheet. Actually, that's not exactly what she says. Here's what she actually says.

"What's the use of thinking that you're a genius, if your marks don't reflect your intellect? Huh??" 

 See? The whole  meaning of the sentence takes a U-turn. And my ego takes a bit of a hit. But irrespective of what my mom says, my reponse stays the same...

"Mom, I couldn't care lesser.

"मार्क्स-वार्क्स सब मोह-माया है!"(Marks-warks sab Moh-maya hai!- All this crap about marks is an illusion!)

 You know what? All that brazen attitude is fine, specially as long as you can walk  away with low grades into the next grade/semester. But now, the teacher whose subject paper I've screwed up, is the ruthless kind. Although I did learn a lot during his classes, he asked barely anything of what I grasped in class. Alas...

It is in times of desperation that you remember the girl who exited your life's stage. "Oooooh! Stupid child 'O' mine!". Please, don't click that link in the previous sentence! And it is also at such times, that you remember the blunders that you committed during interviews of companies that came to your campus. The worst part being that the moment I stepped out of the interview room, the correct answer popped up inside my head. So then, I feel happy that I was smart for being able to answer the question. I feel so happy that I forget the fact that I screwed up an interview just seconds ago. And when the results come out, and my name is not there in the list, I feel sad. But then, a voice inside me says...

"You were made for greater shit than being a cog in a corporation..."

And then I feel like this...

Phew! So much for self-depreciating humor...

You've got a message!

It's been a while since most of us have gotten "unused" to monophonic ringtones, the kind of sounds early Nokia phones used to make. I went to the college mess for breakfast and suddenly heard that Oh-so-familiar sound from someone's old Nokia. Or was it a new phone with the classic ringtone, I know not.

But since I have an exam tomorrow, I have all the time in my life to sit, ruminate and write about cellphones. So here goes nothing...

If you happen to be born after 1990, you have actually witnessed a paradigm shift in communications technology! The Cellular phone! It's not like the ones born before 1990 didn't witness the advent of the cellphone. But in case you were born somewhere in the 1920s, there is a good chance you didn't witness the paradigm shift in communications technology. The ones born in the 30s and 40s have spent their life abhoring the Cell phone, at least for the time they have been around it. And the folks born between 1950-80 are just getting by, thinking about the revolutions they witnessed in their lifetimes.  And last, but not the least, the folks born in the 80s are wondering what happened in the decade they were born in, for they are not sure if anything did.

The 90s kids, we couldn't have timed our entries better into this world! We grew up, I'd say EVOLVED with the cellphone! Having said that, it's not that we did BIG SHIT by synchronizing our births with the advent of th cellphone. Maybe we did. But just saying...

I remember my dad purchasing his first cellphone. As in most cases, it was a Nokia 5170. Not that I remembered the model number. I just Google searched "Nokia antenna phone", and Woalah! The 5170's was the first image to pop up! By the way, if you type "Google" as "google", the spell-checker gives a spelling error. There is no error if you type "Nokia" as "nokia". As a matter of fact, both "Nokia" and "nokia" are non-existent words. Strange. Why is Google so up its own arse? Eh? Well, that's another discussion for another day.

So, where was I? Oh ya! My dad bought the 5170. And at first, games on the phone were allowed. Basically, no "SNAKE", if you know what I mean. Besides, the phone was new, we were kids, and pissing dad off wasn't the most intelligent thing to do, or so we thought, rather so, I thought. So, for a 8 year old ME, the cellphone was an "off-limits" commodity.

By the way, in India, the cellphone craze began a tiny bit before Nokia. I personally know a few "early adopters", who payed Rs. 50000 to buy a cellphone, that looked the size of a telephone exchange! This was when local and STD rates were around Rs. 5/min and Rs. 10/min respectively. Again, why? Strangely, today, people still purchase phone worth Rs. 50000. Only difference being that this one phone is capable of doing the work of all the country's telephone exchanges put together! Moving on...

The Nokia phones had a bunch of ring tones. And this was all before the phone came with an mp3 player, if you remember. And we used to listen to the ring tones for fun. Bourgeoisie idea of fun I guess. I know. Even remembering this sounds stupid. Chuck it! The first big change to the cellphone was polyphonic ring tones. That just HAD TO BE a feature for a phone to qualify as "Worth purchasing". Then came the "Color screen". Then came the phone camera. These three features came into the market in quick succession.

And THEN, CAME the MOTO RAZR!!!!!!

The RAZR was the first sexy looking phone, without a doubt! It was so sexy, that it is still sexy, just in case anyone is still in possession of one. Wow! It looked like the sight of a ripped beach body, where everyone else on the beach looked like blobs of fat! And it was a fucking flip-phone! Till now, having a phone was considered stylish to an extent. But ripping a phone out of your pocket, jerking it to open the screen, and then putting it to your head to talk?? It was the stuff of movies!! That said, very often, the screen never flipped open each time you jerked th phone. Specially if you were with a lady you wanted to impress, I suppose. Then, you had to use your other hand to open the screen, which killed the phone's "coolness" factor. Maybe that's why the phone caught on, but never stayed for long... All because the folks at Motorolla made the screen hinge too tight! Sad..

Around this time, another thing was catching up, specifically in the corporate world. The thing with the QWERTY keypad.. The Blackberry! After the Moto Razr's sex appeal wore off, every grown up Tom, Dick and Harry wanted to look official. So Blackberries became a trend of sorts. Nokia had a stint with their E-series to give Blackberry a run for their money. Not the most successful move in history.

All this was still when cellphones were strictly not allowed in school. And if you did get on to school, you'd be considered a BOSS! In case you got caught ,your parents would tell the teachers.... "We gave it to our child for safety.". The teacher would have thought something like: 

"WHAT?? About 5 generations of Indians, if not more, went to school without cellphones. And as far as anyone knows, most of them did fine! And now, just because you can't deal with your kid's tantrums, you stuffed a cellphone into his/her hands? Goodness! You must suck as parents! Haven't you read the book "Parenting FOR DUMMIES" yet??"

Jokes, apart, the cellphone might have helped make the world a safer place for kids. Maybe... Just maybe. But let's agree that wasn't why you as kids wanted the phone. I'm sure none of us really said "Mom, Dad, could you get me a cellphone? I feel that the world is a very hostile place, and I'll feel a bit safer if I can reach you at any point of time". NO! That never happened! Not unless you were really smart. Most of us would have been like...

Mummmaaayyy! I want a cellphone because my friend's parents got him/her a cellphone!!!(For a majority of  the cases)

The touchscreen had raised its head by now, around 2005, although not in the mainstream cellphone market. But the PDAs , palm pilots, smart phones and a few other devices had touch feature. Mind you, XEROX, the company had already developed Touch Screen at the time Steve Jobs was out to artistically steal their User-interface for Apple's desktop computers, way back in the 80s. Goodness knows what took the "touch" feature so long to downscale.

For now, Nokia and Sony could revel in the success of their N-series, and Walkman series mobile phones.

All of a sudden, the iPhone struck. No on really understood what exactly happened. It must have been a fad in the U.S.A the very moment Steve Jobs gave his "Every once in a while, there comes a product that changes everything" speech. But here, in India, it was more of an underground movement, before iPhone became a fashion statement here, like it is now. The Chinese were the first to strike with their gimmicky iPhone lookalikes. They flooded the market with all sorts of things. This is even before the touch-screen fad hit the masses. And hence, as with all ill-timed maneuvers, no one payed heed to the Chinese folks doing their thing. Copying! But soon, mobile phone companies got insecure of this new thing that had hit the market by storm. So we had the Samsungs, the HTCs, and then, just a bit later, the LAVAs, Micromax, Spice and the rest. This has been going on for the last three years. The processor speed on one cellphone can run all of Nokia's 90s and early 2000s production facilities, and maybe even their current ones. If a mobile phone's instruction manual were the bible, words like RAM and megapixel would be blasphemy, given the times people boast of their phone's features. Strangely, despite processor speeds enabling cellphone functions beyond our ability to use them, despite that the iPhone has started to "bend" at its own whim, it still remains a style statement(Maybe not for long).

To the extent that.....

Earlier

You: "Mom! Where's my phone?"

Mom: Magically finds it out of thin air, and hands it over to you...

Now

You: "Mom! Where's my iPhone?"

Mom: (still)Magically finds it out of thin air, and hands it over to you...

Yes, I do realize that I have an exam tomorrow, and that I haven't studied a word in the last 2 days. And so, I shall take your leave. So give me your leave, and let me go! And stop bending over your phone!

P.S. : Just in case you have an uncle/ an older male in your family, who had a love marriage, and who happily gives you advice on how to go about dealing with the ladies, don't think much. Make use of his advice. The dandy fellow did all the hard work of wooing his lady... that too without a phone! The chap must've been a genius!