Tempus Fugit

I don't quite remember what car we were in; the trusty Maruti 800 doesn't fit as well into the mental picture I have as the hospital's Omni ambulance does. To be honest, I don't remember much at all – it was, after all, well past my bedtime, almost two decades back. What I haven't forgotten is being dazzled by the lights outside when Ma woke me up. We were about to reach the airport.

I rubbed my eyes vigorously, trying to wrest open my eyelids through sheer force of curiosity, as my mind sought to put an image to the roaring blast of airplanes taking off. One that had landed, though, was what we were waiting for, and the promise of Pa's invigorating hug got me out of my drowsiness. Plus the prospect of the amazing gifts he'd brought from the exotic foreign lands he was returning from, of course.

I don't remember most of the other gifts, but the second time I was to be dazzled that night was when my brother and I got our final presents – original Mickey Mouse and Goofy watches. My brother chose first, and I got Goofy.

***

The routineness of a school-going child's life had the effect of rendering the concept of keeping time redundant. Pre-recess, you'd wish teachers a good morning and the three 40-minute lessons after the noon's recess, you wished them… you get the idea. Cartoons for an hour after lunch at home were followed by playing in the parks outside till sundown. Catching up with parents when they got back from work passed time till dinner, which was swiftly followed by bedtime. So, it seemed only appropriate that we kids use the accessory of a wrist watch only when going out for special occasions – events that broke from the routine.

Watches were our ice-picks in the snow; tools a nifty turn of which would often be an invaluable way to get out of sticky situations, and dependable accessories in the wild terrain of unplanned events.

***

I almost never wore a watch to school – the few times I did, it lay pristine on my wrist till I had to stuff it into my bag before games. Ma gave me two, though, when dropping me off at Roorkee for the first year there. Use it well, and don't forget to take if off before you bathe, I was told. For the first month, it hung precariously on the hooks on the bathroom doors almost every day.

It was to prove invaluable, as the time I'd leave for breakfast before an 8 am class changed gradually from half past seven to not at all because I landed in class in my pyjamas a good ten minutes after it started. Various tunes like Violin Sonata No. 14 (by unknown), the Pirates of the Caribbean theme and Adele's Rolling in the Deep blasting away in the form of alarms ensured I saw the time every morning - or often afternoon - on a mobile screen first. But it was the watches I turned to surreptitiously in classes, dangerously on cycles, gingerly in the pouring rain, and as quickly as possible even in the unforgiving Roorkee winter.

***

The routine of work over the past few months, and my laziness to get those two old watches fixed meant I got used to going through days without the need to keep time again.

Yet, after I finally got new batteries for them, and wore one proudly last fortnight, I was horrified by myself when I instinctively lunged for my phone in the car to see if I was on time for a meeting. My mind slowly flashed to those early days in Roorkee, to those boring birthday party conversations I got out of by giving the watch a third glance, and, of course, to the magical night at the Delhi airport.

The wistful flick of the wrist that followed gave the watch a new, if only fleeting function, of time travel.

In the wells of silence

It was the kind of time and place where saying "I'm a voracious reader" didn't make you popular among the ladies. But, I used to say it nevertheless; at least, it made my English teachers happy, and that meant more chances for me to point out to the rest of the class, nose high up, that the P in pterodactyl was silent. No one gave two archaeopteryx hoots.

It was in such a time and place where the Library period in school was one of the least popular, right alongside the compulsory Music/Dance/Art and Moral Science periods. Yours truly wasn't a huge fan either, but only because we only had less than forty minutes to ravage through the wealth of the library's bookshelves. Now, I might give the impression that I was this nerdy read-it-all type kid who'd assimilated all the masters' literature. That'd be more than slightly taking you off-track. I hated the Classics section. Call it bad timing, but trying to read The Tempest when I was six-and-a-half years old wasn't the most memorable experience (still no excuse for missing the Brave New World question in Gokhale's quiz the other day), neither was Little Women or Jane Eyre. The Hardy Boys got too predictable too soon, Nancy Drew was pretty gay even for third grade, school libraries don't nearly stack as much of Ruskin Bond and R.K. Narayan as they should, and the Tinkles, Amar Chitra Kathas and Champaks would barely last twenty minutes before you were done.

This meant an alternate job had to taken up often during library periods: make everyone else read. This meant critically analysing every kid's tastes, trying hopelessly to find that perfect romance for the girl whose roll number was right next to mine, keeping the class topper away from further academic reading, and generally taking a rap from the librarian for roaming around the library harrying everyone into reading, often too enthusiastically to her irritation.

So very often, I'd be shown through mime the Maintain Silence poster, but my low attention span would quickly take me to the one right alongside it. The first time I saw a Keep Calm and Carry On poster, I was immediately reminded of that old library, with its high, pasty, dull-yellow walls, the almost-ancient wall-clock, the Maintain Silence scream and the World Book Day poster alongside it. Celebrated across the world today as World Book and Copyright Day, it urged us into reading more. But to most heady seven and eight-year-olds of 1997, the day it was celebrated was more interesting, and ironically, it reminded them of one of the most critical reasons that took them away from reading. The 23rd of April was one day before one Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar's birthday.

Bad choice, United Nations. For India, at least. Happy 39th, Sachin. Thank you for everything, and it's only thanks to you, though, that at least I remember the other day I was talking about. Not too bad a choice, then, eh?

Red Letter Days? Not.

As another cold winter morning began with me wiping my drool off the pillow, I had a weird feeling in my stomach that told me it wasn’t going to be a great day. But it could as well have been the excess sambhar from the previous night. With this conundrum in my drowsy, lazy mind, I made my way to the toilet seat, where I proceeded to forget what I was doing and fall asleep in a pose not completely unlike The Thinker.

After some frantic shouting, shoving and shooing, I was out the door and into, well, a place I only knew as our front porch, but one could see no further than his own feet. Negotiating each step carefully while still trying to keep that icy wind off my nose, I somehow managed to see our school bus’ lights in the distance and made a dash for it. Getting in only after an exhausting sprint to the next stop, I got on wondering why I wasn’t allowed to take my Hero Kidd bicycle to school like my brother was. Even the usually chirpy driver seemed grumpy, and as I moved ahead, my usual spot with the Antakshari/Name-place-animal-thing gang was taken. I had to wind my way through to the back to stand between a couple of hard-nosed seniors I had no idea about.

Classes began, and my fears were confirmed when I missed two out of five spellings in the English class, earning the teacher’s rebuke. I was caught talking in the next class, and the week’s only P.T. period couldn’t have come sooner. At the football field, it was the usual: Chenab and Ravi versus Ganges and Satluj. Now, Satluj and Ravi simply hated each other; they were green and we were red- we had to! In those days of scrawny eight-year-olds, I was the ball-bashing midfielder. Well, that was more because every other kid wanted to be a striker, the fat-ass was the goalkeeper, and the abject losers were stationed at the back. Somehow managing not to fit in any category, I stuck around in the middle of the yellowish park jumping into tackles and passing it to the silkier, more skilful players up ahead. Trying to win one such ball, I rammed into one of the Satluj strikers, and having missed the ball completely, brought him down crashing to the cries of a badly mispronounced “Penalty!”. The penalty was duly argued over, taken a few times over in haste and finally agreed upon, and slotted. Now banished to the dreaded keeper’s position, I sulked between the posts. It did get better, though, as a couple of saves denied the rivals a win, and the match finished as a diplomatic draw. And my days as the permanent goalkeeper had well and truly begun.

The lunch break followed, and after filling myself with Mumma’s delicious creations, I finally thought the day wasn’t turning out that bad. As I went to relieve myself before the last period of the day started, I felt, well, relieved. The cold indolence of the morning had given way to exhaustion in the midday sun, and I let the bad day out; my head began to lighten. Strutting back in to the class with a dazed smile, I put my hand out and softly spoke “May I come in, Ma’am?”. Even before she could turn and nod, my daze was ended by loud screams. “The post office is open!”, “Letters, anybody?” and as it dawned on me, to the bemusement of the now-amused teacher, a loud chorus began... “Shame shame, puppy shame...”
I still pretend I don’t remember what happened next, but like that midsummer night which was to come a decade later, I remember every minute of that infinitely long last period and the subsequent bus ride home. They even sang “Shame shame, puppy shame” in the bus during Antakshari! I got through that day, and if I’d seen the Star Wars series by that time, I’d have known I was well on my way to becoming a true Jedi.

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is the Force.

The Sultan of Swing- Part I

The round, friendly Kashmiri at whose once-home we were staying called out to us all from downstairs, and I shouted from the couch to my companion in his bed: it was time for dinner. Ever since we had been driven from the Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station after an exhaustingly boring forty-hour train ride to this quaint little three-storey guest house, I had been starving. While the others all crashed to sleep, my hunger kept me up through the three hours or so till dinner. As I sped downstairs, a dozen other fourteen-year-olds and a handful of adults stood waiting near the steaming, but closed containers. As one bespectacled, oily-haired adult groaned “It’s a good ten minutes past nine. Late again. When will we sleep?”, the round Kashmiri’s even rounder wife turned up panting. “The curd you wanted. The helpers mixed things up in the morning. I had to set the milk again, and...”. “Alright, alright! What do we have today?”, barked another teacher in front of me. As the Kashmiri with the greying beard and wizening, yet bright hazel eyes took off the lid, I breathed loudly Kamal ki kakdi. The teacher turned around as if I’d cursed him in French, but the man with the lid in his hands was glowing through the steam. “Lotus stems in spicy red gravy, sir”, I answered to no question from the teacher, quickly adding before he could point that out “A Kashmiri specialty”. He walked away to get himself rice, and as I served myself, the host couldn’t hide his glee. “Are you South Indian? Then how do you know about our dish?”, he asked. All I came up with was “I like food, from anywhere.” He moved along to tell me about their chicken special, when my vigorous shake of the head brought a slight dip in his spirits. “You’re vegetarian, too? Those people should’ve told us they’re sending all South Zone people here. They always...” “My friend here, though, will love this”, I said quickly as I dragged my partner, who was then told the story of how tender the chicken needs to be in Hindi tinged with Punjabi. He nodded on and smiled nervously, even though he couldn’t get a word. I couldn’t afford distractions as I poured ladle upon ladle of piping-hot rajma onto my plate.

One would have to be as dumb as Paris Hilton’s Chihuahua to not notice the tension in the air. The large portico behind the guest-house’s entry gate served as the dining area, which was torn through the middle by a silence best described as killer. An occasional spiteful glance here and there would be met with equal acrimony: the two sides mentally murdered each other repeatedly. Before we could think of a way to avoid it diplomatically, we were right there, in that deserted centre. Stuck in no man’s land, we had to decide which side to take. As my partner nudged me in the side to help decide, I made the soundest decision I could think of: stay close to the food. Our choice was made, and we, too, were now being quartered and battered in the other side’s mind. I went up to the nearest soul who didn’t look like homicidal, and asked why there were two sides looking at each other like wolves about to tear into each other. He replied with a question- “Where are you from?”. As quizzical as it seemed, I answered Visakhapatnam. “Didn’t they put the Andhra guys in another place?”. I wondered how long till I’d have answers instead of more questions. After three more, he bothered to help me. “Those cocky asses- they’re all from Bangalore. Think they’re like bloody Americans. Keep making fun of us for no reason. Think that 50Paisa guy is cool, and we’re not...” and he launched into a tirade of expletives, ending in Tamil. I nodded on, carefully picking out the chillies from my raita, and swallowed one when he asked “You’re with us, right?”. I grinned and said “Bloody Northies put too many chillies in curd, don’t they?”, earning his widest smile and silently praying to God for mercy.

For as far as I could remember that early in the morning, I woke up in a room before anyone else did for the first time ever. My roommate and partner proved to be a tough log to shake, and I was all clean, dressed and ready when he finally got up. It was five minutes to the end of breakfast time, and he rushed down with me as a thinner crowd stood having buttered bread and boiled eggs. I could notice no one of the Chennai side from last night and my partner yawned loudly. “Here comes another one from In Da Club”. That comment elicited a roar of laughter, as more jokes, almost all ending with da or something to with Rajnikanth, ensued. We took a corner and spoke softly in Telugu, when one of them walked up to us and said “You guys aren’t speaking Tamil. Not from Chennai?”. “No, we’re from Visakhapatnam, actually.” “Come on, you mean Vizag! Don’t make it so long! Hi, I’m Easwar.” Sides were asked to be chosen again, and we side-stepped again, but the rest of the meal did go smoothly. Both the sides weren’t too bad actually, and when my partner asked me who I preferred, I couldn’t pick one.

Before we left to crash in front of the TV again, I went up to the landlord and asked where we’d be taken, and when. He said “Those who had their slots today are gone already. All but two Chennai teams, and most of the Bangalore crowd. It’ll come back to pick you all up in about two hours. You’ll be going to Eagle Studios. That’s in Film City, Noida. Not too far from here.”

(To be continued)

Stories of the Sabbath

Easily the best part of my ninety-minute bus commute to work is the stretch between the Sector-8 and Sector-11 bus stops. As the conductor announces the arrival at either, I’ve put Kane and Abel, Six Suspects and Two States down over the past week, for those precious few seconds I get to look at my school. One such early morning, I was mildly surprised to see no barrage of cycles in the stand. Between the (now) four buses, below the arch bearing the school’s name, the principal’s almost-ubiquitous car was also missing. I took a look at my watch, which showed the time to be quarter to eight. I wondered why the school would be so desolate so close to the opening time when the bus radio announced how the overnight rains had given Vizag a most pleasant Saturday morning. I recalled one-upping every kid in the township from any other school as ours had a five-day week, and felt sad I’d forgotten that very fact.

Even though it was always Sunday’s less-celebrated cousin for us school-goers, Saturday was most welcome as it heralded the dawn of the weekend: no getting up at seven, no sprints to avoid missing the bus, and best of all, (early in the new millennium) Premier League games. The absence of Power Zone on Cartoon Network and the ESPN School Quiz would dull the afternoon; nonetheless, not looking forward to the stern class-teacher’s rebukes early next morning made holy Sabbath a winner in its own category. Since Sunday would be an off-day for the parents (and would have Bournvita Quiz Contest in the morning, some new movie in the afternoon and a trip to Delhi, more often than not, in the evening), Saturday nights brought no fever, as the spectre of Monday Tests loomed ahead. All the same, the NTPC Club, as I hope the Scuttling Shuttler would corroborate, screened new movies in the auditorium on Saturday evenings.

Even the weekend harbinger changed quickly as school gave way to coaching after Class Ten. The unforgiving six-day week meant Sunday’s little brother was in no way different from the other five. Those same kids we’d been troubling with cries of “Saturday bhi school ja rahe ho?” for ten short years, were now slyly-grinning classmates. The worst part? The weekly tests from school which for so long had nurtured Monday morning blues (and for brief periods, Fridays and Tuesdays, too) had now decided to take over on Sunday, not only ruining the best day of the week, but killing Saturday evenings, too. Truly Black Sabbath.

The return of the two-day weekend in college couldn’t have been more welcome. I could once again pick on some poor ex-classmate who’d graduate on six-day weeks, and sleep in peace on Friday night (or in most cases, early Saturday morning) with no lectures or weekly tests to look forward to. The college weekend is a great leveller, as Sundays now can’t claim any bragging rights and too many times, I forget the distinction between the two days of the weekend.

Back home, in the summer holidays, I can’t distinguish between any days of the week, as I’m down sleeping or up eating no matter what Shani, Mangal or Shukra have in mind. This summer with the internship, whenever I do take the 400N that takes me past my alma mater, I realise why they love to say “Thank God, it’s Friday!”. I realise, I miss the good old Saturday.

Mostly Harmless

The English language has never ceased to throw gentle surprises, dramatic shocks or globs of spit at learners it considers alien. While the Queen may grab the opportunity of the odd snort at the rookie addling his verbs and prepositions (I sat in the toilet seat and felt cold, so took out some tissues, you know), even the vim-filled boaster isn’t spared from the deep holes lurking in India’s secondary lingua franca (by assuming ‘enigma’ to be of Italian origin, making it an enema).

Even yours truly hasn’t been spared (almost) similar embarrassment. Having assumed the phrase to imply ‘logic, driven by sentiment’, I concluded a long argument as Class Monitor to ask the girls’ representative to attend the Student Council meeting by quipping “Come on now- for our posterity’s sake.” It took me a few years and a dictionary to figure out the wide-eyed stare and cold shoulders I was given ever since.

The school, though, was no stranger to such occurrences. After all, in its history of Physical Education Trainers, it had had one who strictly believed in the policy of students forming straight circles, while another’s voice had once bellowed through the quadrangle, screeching “All aaf you sould come with paalissed sooes and saacks from tomaarow!”. Then, there’s the unverified legend of a Class 4 kid explaining his misspelling of psychologist by exclaiming “Ma’am, I only forgot to P!”.

Somehow, it’s these little anecdotes that survive the relentless march of time over those twelve wonderful formative years. Not many would remember the Eshans and the Pushyamis, but the (deliberately?) misspelt ‘Assoul’ on the toilet walls remains as ageless as television’s Ba. And this very idiosyncratic human trait - endeared by some, and troublesome for others – is what keeps the smiles going for posterity’s sake.

Loony List 1: Delicious Dishes Dug

First things first, merry Christmas everybody! It’s a relief of a holiday for parents, which means my face is administered a thorough check-up by Mom, and all possible remedies for those blackheads/ whiteheads/ pimples/ what-not are peacefully ignored as I go on practising my classy albeit slow rendition of N.I.B. by Black Sabbath on my guitar (whose story can be found here).

 

I’d been to my school yesterday, and the breathless wait notwithstanding, I shuddered when I reached the gate and in another one of the now-common panic attacks that I have, I feigned a phone-call and went past the gate some five more times, waiting for a mate to turn up to give me company. But, fate is cruel to cowards, and as I ran out of balance and patience, I mustered enough courage to walk till the portico and start running through the notice boards. Ah, nothing’s changed, I thought to myself as I ran through the list of school’s achievements. Cowardice still had me in its grip, though, as I didn’t dare to step inside fearing a barrage of teachers to wish, and catch up with. Wait a minute- this is what I had turned up for! But, I continued to stand, stare, feign a few more phone calls until one of the organising alumni turned up, and a few greetings and conversations later, so did the mate I was waiting for.

 

Unfortunately, I had conveniently forgotten the fact that school functions rarely begin on time- we had reached dot at half past three and there were only four souls to be seen in the hallowed quadrangle, and I looked at the stage where the morning assemblies were held, a smile on my face. Mate and I then proceeded for a walk around the school’s corridors, revisiting many an old classroom, and also commenting on what a disgrace it was to put class ten on the first floor alongside ten-year-olds. The old store-room, later converted into a room for the then-newly restarted class eleven had now been made the maths lab. Mate said he still felt like throwing around things in that room; for us, it’d always be the dump yard.

 

Old teachers were greeted, names forgotten and retold, memories revived, many a smile here and a smirk in jest there- nostalgia was clearly the order of the evening. Two hours later, spent roaming around in the grounds and the cycle stand, we went back to the quadrangle to see more excited pass-outs bumbling about, and a few girly shrieks were heard and ticked off. The teachers were definitely having a ball- some even posing for pictures with every single alumnus they met- God only knows when, or even if, you people will turn up again. I was disappointed to see the sea-change in one of my favourite teachers- the prim and proper (as in that wonderful story in class six whose name I forgot) lady was now a hasti-khilti friendly teacher. The earlier avatar was so much more memorable, I thought to myself. The favourite class-teacher was seen, too, and after a gasping exclamation of ‘Murty!’ she was lost in work and other alumni, not to be seen again for the rest of the evening.

 

The school in twilight and dark has always fascinated me, and as the clock went past 180 degrees, the alumni meet officially began. By this time, most other batch-mates had duly turned up, and after an initial measly four, it was our year’s batch with the highest strength, and also the highest level of complacency as we totally ignored the speeches, poems, woeful anchoring and the usual hullabaloo associated with social occasions. People from many a batch came and spoke about their colourful memories from school- no one, unfortunately, was in a comic mood, and as my erstwhile classmates continued to push me onstage, my reservations took over and I stayed put. Meanwhile, one by one, people went on stage, spoke something into the mike, and went to receive what-looked-like-mementos from the new principal. What’s he ever done that I haven’t in school, I muttered. Later, I found out, everyone was going on stage at random, giving their name and what they were doing now, and then went on to receive some tokens of gratitude. Pulling along a friend who said she still hadn’t overcome her stage fright, I went to those steps to the stage where I’d been so few times, but each being memorable in its own right. The friend went, spoke uncharacteristically confidently into the microphone, leaving me to follow as she went on to collect her souvenir. Yours truly put a spring in his step, jumped up to the podium, put his mouth to the microphone, and spake thus:

“Good evening, everyone! My name’s M.V.R. Murty and I’m from the class of 2005. Questions asked- What’s your name, batch and what’re you doing now? My name and batch I’ve told you already, and what am I doing? Well, at present, I’m embarrassing myself on stage!”

 

Most teachers who cared to hear in the front row either gasped, put up a contorted expression, or just said- Still the very same. He won’t ever change!

 

The principal said while handing me the souvenir, “I didn’t get a word of what you said. Still, hope to see you next year!”

 

Same here, Ma’am! Same here...

 

P.S.- Oh, did I forget? I’m scrapping the lists idea. I’m too lazy to make those lists. I’m too lazy to change the title as well.

 

P.P.S.- The accompanying friend later thanked me for helping her fight her stage fright. When asked if I ever had some, I quipped “Didn’t you hear me speak into the mic?” and smirked confidently. She said “No, obviously!”

All Apologies

I’m back again. I tried it all. I saw two riveting Bourne movies, felt too tired to watch Wall.E and saw one of my, and, as I found out later, one of Aamir Khan’s favourite movies- Forrest Gump once again. I saw four days of high-quality cricket- as expected in a clash between the world’s top two teams. I stared at Shambhavi for about 133 seconds but even good looks can’t save a show as doomed as G-Talk is. How can you expect a show hosted by too incorrigibly unintelligent, nosily noisy and irritatingly giggly chicks- one not even pretty- to survive my remote’s ungrateful juggernaut? I tried sitting online- visible, for a change- for four hours at a stretch and that too not in the happy hours. I even tried becoming a regular viewer of Saas, Bahu Aur Saazish but nothing worked. The only option that’s been left untried is that gleaming DVD in the back of the laptop case containing 3 seasons of bites of heaven in the form of that goddess called Cobie Smulders. I restrain myself from doing that because of my unspoken law of following a maximum of three TV shows at a time. Thankfully, Heroes has completed season three. But, two episodes remain for me to watch. I even went outside- alone, for the first time in these holidays. But, even that venture ended up in me either muttering about all the stupid people along the way, or humming Society by Eddie Vedder.

 

This overwhelming lack of zest has left me in a state where even my grammar has taken a beating. Good music gives respite only for a few minutes. Even the Sudoku is now done and thrown away with contempt. Television is a drag- even with over a 100 channels, although discounting the vernaculars, it’s probably six dozen. I’ve become the epitome of the lost geek- I lack passion for everything. The only thing that interests me apart from chatting with my family, is chatting with a pair of twins I haven’t met in nine years. But, they live in a time-zone that’s almost a mirror image of time here- an eleven-and-half hour time gap. Other people I’d like to chat with are either in situations where I’d rather not bug them with whines like this, or are never to be found. The only thing to look forward to seems to be the school alumni meet four days away. Even Douglas Adams’ sequels seem rather dull- I only read a chapter a day now, compared to a book a day some time ago.

 

The last way I wanted to post again was this. Oh, I had such brilliant plans. Or what I thought to be brilliant. The prevailing cynicism, though, now suggests that I’d be the only one who’d think so. OK, I’d let it out. I had planned to make seven lists of my top six for the year gone by- 42 things of the year. The last list, to be published on the last day of the year, was supposed to be my top six moments of the year. Others were the top six songs I heard in the year, top six movies seen, six things that I’d rather not have happened with me, six people to watch out for in the year to come, six dishes I totally dig, and six quizzes I’d love to do in the next year but trust myself to be too lazy to make. But it all seems like a worthless exercise now. I can’t believe how I’m able to survive without little or no passion for almost anything. The usual spring in my voice on the phone is now replaced by a morose ‘pata nahi’ for just about everything. Even the prospect of staring at the usually-mesmerising Parizad Kolah doesn’t sustain my interest for more than a minute now- probably because Navjot Singh Sidhu’s incessant, unnecessary laughter kind-of puts me off. I find Raghu’s blatant bleeping on Roadies more interesting. That and the promise of Premier League football may make for a better weekend. Or else, they might make for another long drag of a post.

 

If only I had that NDTV Imagine pack. Oye, It’s Friday seems to be a bit of relief from the mundane bunch of TV shows nowadays. So does Fantastic 5 on MTV. But it’s only a five-minute filler, as the name may suggest. Oh, if you’re really on the dole, then try reading the whole of the Tickr on MTV- you’ll realise there are more jobless people than you- a fact that may be comforting, in the right mood.

 

P.S.- Roadies this season so far seems to be heading for only one word- DUD. The auditions throw up stupid people, and the ones chosen are even more so. Plus, there’s no chick factor, either, yet. The Ahmedabad and Bangalore auditions, for instance, were a farce.

 

P.P.S.- Sometimes I almost feel people with exams right now are darn lucky. And, curse Microsoft for not putting Minesweeper in Vista Business. Now, how do they expect one to be busy?

Nostalgia, Nineties and New pinch!

I was thinking that I’m about to go crazy. I do that quite often. Think, that is. I had to wait for another day. A full two hours away. Jason Bourne gladly obliged...

 

It’s 1:47 a.m. as I start typing out yet another post- I’d made a note on the sidebar before I started the movie lest I forget what it was to be about. Dad just purchased that ubiquitous GRE preparation book. For Big B. I laid my hands on it a day before he could. The look of the packet gave away the fact that it wasn’t a second-hand copy. Boy, no! It was a spanking new 2008 edition cover. White and a shade of sea green whose precise name I don’t know- my vocabulary is limited when it comes to colours. I guess turquoise and fuchsia are as far as I go. (The fact that MS Word 2007 thinks it’s spelled right has me very pleased!)

The packet looked inviting, even more inviting than the bunch of The Hindu newspapers- Deccan Chronicle is entertaining alright but you can’t survive without a proper newspaper for more than four days. (May I gleefully add, I actually went through over half of the Sunday magazine supplement today- and I must say, it’s a most wonderful joyride!) The clock has just gone past 2 a.m. and my internet connection’s happy hours start now. I’ll just move over to the room with the router, and be right back. You may go and pick up a cuppa coffee, till then...

 

OK. I’m back. So, where were we? Yes, I’d just laid my hands on Big B’s brand new book, and opened it with little or no regret. The smell of a new book is intoxicating, highly pleasurable, and in this case, brought back some sweet memories...

 

The re-opening of school is this seriously amazing time- the holidays are long beyond a point, and even the fiercest of school-haters get bored enough to want to go back to school. Ah, back to school! The phrase was all over- on people’s lips, their bags, the stickers on their books. Oh! The best part about being back to school was new books! The long waiting in the non-existent queues, the ever-present heckling over the prices, and the overwhelming curiosity to see how colourful the books would be! The big fat ones were always eyed with suspicion, and although one would be very happy to see they were not going into his/her packet, the curiosity to hold even those mountains was always present in the back of the mind. It would be one long, seemingly longer wait to get home and scythe through those packets and lay our hands on the shiny new books! Oh, boy! The calls from the parents to wait till the haldi (turmeric) was applied were almost always disdainfully ignored- at least when it came to the books of that one wonderful subject. After all the covers had been compared- even those of Big B’s- our greedy hands would go straight to the English books- the readers, to elaborate. We’d finish off the whole book the very night- the Maths and Science books would lie untouched for most of the year, leave alone that particular night! But the English books were spared that fate- when the reader was finished being read, and discussed animatedly, sometimes even the main course book, better known as MCB or even MSB in some places, would be scourged for stories, if any.

I remember how my spirits weren’t so high waiting for the class 9 English books, having read Big B’s already. The change in CBSE syllabus couldn’t have come at a better time! Plus, it had stories by O. Henry, R.K. Narayan and Guy de Maupassant- a total joy for short-story lovers! The poetry section was classy- although the archaic language tried its best to make it difficult to digest. I also recall how classes 11 and 12, where I’d shifted to the A.P. state syllabus, were so very disappointing, with almost all stories being repeated, and very few good new ones. Big B had better ones, including the first-ever detective novel- The Moonstone- for full novel-reading. We had Treasure Island, for god’s sake! Brilliant book it is, but more than half of the class had read it multiple times years ago! Not me, though. But I sympathised, and thus, echoed the disappointment anyway.

Anyway, my favourite English reader was the one we had in class 7- not sure whether it was the one published by Oxford or McMillan. But it had some of the most brilliant stories- especially considering the fact that it was a class 7 book. The likes of Riding The Divorce Express, The Slaughter Of The Lamb (by Roald Dahl, I guess), The Monsoon by Khushwant Singh and Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling are still revered greatly. After You, My Dear Alphonse was nice, too.

And, for the record, I screwed my chance of topping my school in the class 10 board exams in English, thanks to some unforgivable mistakes like not knowing what to fill in ‘He came home and took ___ his boots.’ I had no idea, for some reason, and guessed ‘out’. I got 95. My teachers weren’t too pleased. And, the state board? Don’t even talk about it. Class 11 boards- I thought I wrote a near-perfect paper and got 90. I toned down the language, shortened my answers, actually read a guide for English (a total disgrace, forced upon me though) and after writing the class 12 paper, said confidently- “I challenge you to give me anything less than ninety-freakin’-nine.”

 

I got 80.

What's in a name?

The end of another calendar year is near. Ergo, so is this blog’s first anniversary- better known as the first bloggiversary. And, less than a month before the D-day, the blog’s name has been changed as notified in the previous post but mostly ignored. Hmph. I guess that’s because I never explained the change. Well, here goes...

Yours truly was sitting in this delightfully warm room in Noida, and with the cable’s limited capability, was reduced to watching a half-hour ‘news’ report on how four friends hacked another friend to death during a drunken night out. Infotainment at its very best, one might say. Another might just throw up on him. But, one might just deftly change the channel, to a totally unintelligible Tamil channel and then decide to just shut the idiot box for good. This is exactly what I did, as I sat down to type out one of my longest posts. And, change was the thing on my mind, as I thought up more interesting about-me’s for Orkut and Facebook, and this page wasn’t spared too, as I thought ‘The Geek speaks... or rather types!’ wasn’t even a joke any of the Big Bang Theory quartet would’ve appreciated, and, Amy Lee, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, Jena Malone (who played Christopher McCandless’s sister in ‘Into The Wild’) and a few other arbit crushes and idols crossed my mind, and, the next thing I know, I have a new title for this webpage! Of course, implementing that change, and publishing that post, were 8 hours of sleep and a 4-hour flight away. But, then, after that patient wait, spent dreaming about playing the Sultans Of Swing guitar solo in front of my tenth grade batch, and reading the in-flight magazine twice over (ignoring the stupid lofty ads, of course), the changes were duly made, and they shall stand till the next change of mood comes along, ignoring peacefully the challenges posed by nostalgia, incumbency, and a fetish for choosing easily memorisable dates for occasions.

Whoa! Was that sentence long? Grammatically correct, but the structure was surely something my high-school teachers won’t be proud of. I remember telling one- my class-teacher for two years, and one of my favourites- about my blog. She did express a sense of happiness, pride, and some more emotions you would associate with teachers when you meet them after a long while. But, little curiosity was exhibited. Boy, they do know how to dodge these kinds of situations! Never once was the link to my blog asked for, and lost in conversation, I forgot to give it, too. Sad. I guess I’ll get a banner, or wear a T-shirt, to publicise my blog at my school’s alumni meet. I wonder if I’ll be kicked out unceremoniously. Or worse, not allowed to enter in the first place. But I know it’s a dead idea, anyway- I’d be too lazy and too frugal to get that T-shirt made in the first place. The Black Sabbath T-shirt, on the other hand, is a much better idea. And one I think I am going to go ahead with. Oh, in the sudden change of topic, I forgot to mention- I’ve become a huge fan of Black Sabbath over the past couple of months. But, Dire Straits still rule- Crazy Train was toppled by Brothers In Arms. Tandoori Nights, though, continues to play in the background. If loving you was wrong, I don’t wanna be right... (A highly nasal) Rabba Rabba...

 

By the way, back home, and I haven’t learnt any lessons from all my previous holidays, and continue to sit watching TV series and movies on the computer, when not fulfilling the role of Couch Potato. TV’s seen a sea change, now though. No more K-serials on Star Plus. That’s probably robbed the pleasure, and killed the routine, of many a housewife, and working ladies, too, across the country. I know this is coming very late but I had to experience the change to talk about it- and although the channel listings are full every time I press ‘Guide’ on the remote, the hole left by the removal of these serials, not just on the channel, but in our lives, is yet to be filled. Afternoons and nights aren’t the same anymore. This, of course, has given a great opportunity for the other contenders for the No.1 channel spot to rise, especially when one of them has a Balaji show running on it. But, Bani can never be a Tulsi or a Parvati. I still remember, when we’d shifted to Vizag, and had survived in a house without cable television for a few months (Jai Hanuman, Suraag and Chitrahaar were the saviours then), how everyone had a glimmer in their eyes, when they discussed Mihir’s killing-off, and subsequent bringing-back-to-life. I remember reading in newspapers, that Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs, Noida residents would prefer) had actually taken out rallies in many cities, demanding a change in the story, to bring Mihir back. Considering that, the response to this taking off air of the very same serials, has been quite muted. It’ll also be interesting to see how Smriti Z Iraani and Sakshi Tanwar (thankfully, no numerological name change for her) will come back to try and break away from the moulds of the immortal Tulsi and Parvati, respectively. And also, whether Ekta Kapoor will ever deliver something as legendary as KSBKBT and KGGK ever again- these along with KBC, have been enchanting TV viewers since their almost simultaneous release nine years ago.

Speaking of KBC, in what seems to me as an attempt to regain viewership, Star One is now telecasting ‘Legends of KBC’, a collection of classic celebrity KBC episodes. Interesting it will be, to see whether it does gather eyeballs. What has caught mine, though, are some really interesting advertisements. The Futures General insurance ad, showing how a family helps their elderly grandma blow all the candles on her birthday cake, and the new Airtel ad, with Shreyas Talpade rolling back the years with his father, manage to bring a smile to one’s face, and I consider them to be delightful ads. The new Virgin mobile ad, although not as brilliant as its predecessors, remains characteristically cheeky, and gets the point across, importantly.

 

Sigh! There goes another attempt at a short post! There goes another attempt at a good post! There goes another post... (A sigh of relief may now be let out by you without any reservations)

 

P.S.- Do check out my Orkut About Me. And the status message, too. Puhleez!

P.P.S.- Whatever the post may suggest, I liked Kahiin Kisii Roz (not sure about the spelling) the most, as I had a brief crush on Mouli Ganguly, and for the legendary Ramola Sikand. Just to clear the air, I watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Scrubs, mostly, nowadays.

P.P.P.S.- Kung Fu Panda is an awesome movie. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is forgettable. Memento isn’t- condition or no condition. And BBT season two is off the hook!