"Watch"ing from close quarters

some clocks can only be followed or left alone..some clocks & "watch"es can be set...some have other uses also,some will not keep u in dark...some can "wake" u up...some keep blaring.. till u ask them to stop...some will stop the moment u ask them ..some will keep time..some so perfect that u wish u didnt have that one...some will never be set... some will skip a few sec to keep in step with u...halt a few to to allow u to catch up....some would stop and you would still keep them, for at least they are right twice a day ..some will make others look at you...some will make you not look at others...some  will tell u the same things in  different manners.... different things in some manners...and no matter how "watch"ful you are... time passes away..before you know what you were "watch"ing

God of Small Things

"i have always told myself i can be happy without u ..there will always be some sight i can cherish irrespective of ur presence , some taste i can savour even if u r not beside me,
the sunset is as rapturous....
the rose smells as sweet ....
the rain is as enticing...
the ghazal is as melancholy...
the breeze is as soothing...
the ice is as tingling... and then...
and then...i see our pics..pics where only we were there.. smiling..
smiling... at nothing in particular but in a life-is-beautiful kind of way..i try to smile the same way..i try to tilt my head as if leaning on ur shoulder..clasp my fingers around a imaginary wrist... but i cant..i can laugh more... but i can never smile the way i do when u r beside me... its then... that that i realise how much deeply i miss u"
concept borrowed "with permission"

Blogging about my getting boggled, when people ogle ;)

I hate when the 40 s something man pedaling on his cycle, cranes his neck, owl like to watch a 20s something girl right around the road bend. No, i have no problem with their ages..but to me its sort of indecent to make it so obvious.. doesn't it need to be done a little more subtly, in a more refined way... of course most of us "eye" a girl a second time,not in any amorous way..hmm...(i generalize..erring on the side of honour !!) but just as u would spare a second glance at a rose blossomed in a garden..fully aware that u may never see that again..
but to literally go out of your "way" or turn 180 degrees around, is something i at least cant associate with being well-bred.agreed u have your instincts to tackle, but like in so many cases where we hold our nerve for the sake of civility,a lot of embarrassment can be avoided.
Ideally "the one watching" must be the only one aware ..or as in more general cases "the one being watched" might also be added. but apart from these 2, i see no no reason why anybody else must be made privy to this. a subject and an object are enough..(predicates should be disposed of)as i see it..its a private act done in public.
The observer in no way should affect the observed and certainly there is no need of an audience to view this experiment being conducted day in, day out

having come so far..u might as well read it

u know what.. i am supposed to write something romantic today!! and am in the worst of moods to do so.Now it's not that i need a reason to get upset though, i can make trivial events substantial enough to offset the fragile balance between my getting along and sulking..nah..i have got used to it and so have a few people around me ;).i sometimes wonder if deep within i am a sadist..no its not that i love seeing people in pain or want to inflict suffering on them.. (in fact mosquitoes are the only mobile living things i can kill or rather try to kill.).what i actually mean is...if X gets upset because I am upset, i sort of feel happy..so technically i am rejoicing on a grief ..(please please dont stop reading this blog :-p)..
in case u r wondering what the F*** this is all about..it's just that i have a bad headache and not getting any sleep..so what better than banging on ur keyboard and have the gratification of immortalising it on the net.
will try and come up with something better soon,until then try the "I read " links down..people have suddenly become more productive..

Ye Dil Maange More.....

IPL off to a spectacular launch,malya sets the stage.....
capt vikram batra , died at the age of 25 and was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest award for valour

IIM Placements cross 1 crore again
Vikram Batra would have joined the Merchant Navy. He was to join the ship in Hong Kong. His uniform had been stitched, his tickets booked.But he changed his mind to join IMA.

Defining moment in the history of indian cricket, hails media
capt batra's unflinching courage helped 13 JAK Rifles to capture the all crucial peak 5140

Delhi Dare Devils,scare opposition
He hurled two grenades at the machine gun post and single-handedly killed three enemy soldiers in close combat

Maliaka-arbaaz split, a publicity stunt
when asked in an media interview if he was not afraid of death.he replied"yeh dil maange more"

Rumours spread on saif -kareena engagement
After the closest of encounters with death,he volunteers himself fearlessly for one final time

Kumari Mayavati unveils her own statue in memory of her continuing service..
Peak 4875 named after the late capt Batra,PVC

Ponting disappointed over his low price of $400,00
He is survived by his parents who have been awarded a petrol bunk by the govt

Cricket-ainment hogs media
"Sometimes an ordinary Indian can make a Rs 120,000 crore company feel humble. For every step we take, there's an inspired Indian leading the way " read an Indian Oil ad in his honour a decade after his death

!!
??

To each onto his own

my life has been a series of HR blunders,i detest people easily, needing no great convincing to do so..and the few i have managed to like have never felt the need to reciprocate ;)..so here i stand 22 years after i opened my eyes to this species called homo sapiens ; still looking for a shoulder to lean on, a pair of eyes to laugh with,a hand to clasp.its like what Maupassant says..i am like the statue in the middle of the market place,all around me,but none with me...so sometimes when i am walking, i ask myself if i should turn the other way and say hello to a long lost friend...check up what he is upto these days.and then i ask why..just for the sake of it ?? and i usually decide to go my way and open up my reluctant,lone, empty room.but this sunday i finally decided to turn the other way...with courage i climbed up those "hallowed" steps leading up to his room and with one long deep breath knocked on the door...
it was locked.and i saw it.it was shut upon me.and there the adventure ended.
i could have gone the next day,may be he would have been home,may be not.but the steps never turned the other way,and i have left the steps and something inside me unconquered

Indiscreet observations

in shantaram he says the the universe evolves towards increasing complexity..and in that case i am supree..mly evolved.the other day i was trying to pick a pastry from a confectionery and i brooded on my choices for 15 min straight.complexity comes naturally to me.i simply cant,inspite of all my efforts be simple.i bring so many trivial variables while even making a simple decision that i get lost juggling them."U think too much" my father keeps telling me..perhaps its simple only if u know what u want...for then the only thing remaining is to get it.but for somebody who is yet to be enlightened, everything is equally enticing and equally repelling.so i end up saying anything is ok for me..which actually is an euphemism for i cant decide which is best for me.that to me is a great weakness.i used to say i am not particular about the dresses i wear,i care least about them..blah blah..but then i realised that when i refuse to make a choice,i am giving up the control of my life however trivial that part of me is,which i found entirely acceptable..for in the end i should atleast have the satisfaction of having suffered due to my own choices.

It takes one to know one

it has happened to me before, a song i have heard umpteen times before,suddenly seems more meaningful,more soulful.a one liner i had never been able to understand suddenly comes alive.everything suddenly falls into place in a moment of epiphany.and i wonder then why i didn't understand it the first time i came across these , and i realise i wasn't ready then.i am more mature now.what is maturity but coming back to the same problem with greater preparedness...greater experience.each day something gets added to our repertoire of experiences.and then if u can recall... something surely becomes clearer.so what i do now is read, remember and wait till it strikes me with its meaning.all i can do is wait..but often its worth it.
i knew it was a nice line even when i first read it..but perhaps its only now that i understand what khaled hussaini meant when he said for u a thousand times over....

Thumba thanks ....demystified

5 people from a mediocre undergraduate college wanted to go to "THE IIM-B" annual fest and decided they were upto it.1 of them atleast went for the sole reason that he had no chance of entering it in the near future and this was his best chance to see and be at a place where people end up being offered salaries sooooooo much.his father thought this visit would inspire him to work harder and gladly agreed and pestered him to be there from day 1.(on the contrary this lad who ended up getting 70.49 in CAT went on to tell his father that he was a tinge disappointed with the standard at IIM-B..err..lets leave it at that)
so they went and 1 of them has been made to relive this sojourn,for this small talk he had on their way to the hallowed gate
1 of them to a shop keeper(respectfully)
"how far is IIM from here"
shopkeeper-"u'll get to know when u reach there"
(for some strange reason 1 of them persists trying to bring out the best in the man opposite him)
1 of them -"what i meant was is it possible to go on foot till there"
shopkeeper-"u can go on foot and if u want, u can go on aeroplane also"
1 of them baffled by this unexpected and uncalled-for effrontery,replies
"THUMBA THANKS" and walks away unruffled(ok..almost unruffled).
now more appropriate alternative replies came about later, benefited by hindsight...but the damage had been done and the phrase struck..thanks to YOU-KNOW-WHO.
anyway if u didn't feel this was funny..let me assure u, neither did 1 of them
P.S-much water has flown under the bridge since this happened and YOU-KNOW-WHO himself had to face a more embarrassing situation and what's more heartening...he managed this without a shopkeeper.

A Flying Kiss

Today was some kind of a seclusion,for me.no college,messages cost dearly..!!! so had to abstain from that,and needless to say everybody else felt the same way,and i didn't receive any either. as usual i started to think about myself,and others in myself.21 years is a long time,and add to it the 8 different institutions i went to in 5 different states, it's been one long itinerary.i wondered where that school bully atul is,that joker mahindra,that fat aditya,that 's' prerana(i don't even remember their surnames now),all lost to me now. that slender thread of acquaintance... it snapped as soon as our ways parted.am not complaining, i don't need them and neither do they need me,and moreover its even more stupid to try to sustain it for the sole reason that we happened to go by the same auto for 2 years and nothing ever since.i just sort of am curious to ask.. him if he still jerks his head while answering,if that blue friendship band is still with her,if mamta kulkarni still is his fav actress,if he still thought 'p' liked him more than me,would he blush if i remind him that he wanted to propose to 'a' way back in 6th ..if she still touches her ears when she says sorry..those little idiosyncrasies,trivial details, that made up their and part of my life then, to find in them a shared joy evoke a oh-so -innocent- feeling..all i would want to say is au-revoir and bon-voyage

HOT sympathies

I was listening to FM today morning, and I have this habit of picturising/visualizing (flashes upon that inward eye ;) a la daffodils) whether I am reading a novel or listening to a song, and this was an old song,I had never heard before, it was a duet, with lata at one end and am not sure of the male play back singer at the non strikers’ (watching too much cricket u see)
And it was a typical bollywood romance song, rain song I guessed, with the lyrics being extremely descriptive.
The heroine says” my dupatta stuck to me, rain kissed me and I trembled with desire”
And then the hero says” you yawned thus and I felt …”
Now which human in her senses would yawn when she is getting soaked head to toe in rain and dancing…beats me….Om Shanti Om.
We will come back to it some other time. That was not what I was trying to tell u.
Now my imagination is not only wild but realistic and holistic also, so I also tried to picturise lata mangeshkar evoking those emotions while singing in a closed, recording room with music directors and orchestra accompanists all senior citizens needless to say.
I wonder where these singers look for inspiration. Let me clarify, the hero can actually see the heroine, feel her and therefore INDULGE himself and u know.. get those APPROPRIATE expressions, but poor playback singers!!.in order that she sings that seductive song, she first would have to feel that she is trying to seduce somebody and then go on to sing it in that mood.
If that is the case of singers for 5 min of rubbish, imagine the case of dubbing artists who lend their voice to the entire film, imagine their plight, when they have to lend their voices to some intimate scenes ( much to familiar to all of u and better not elaborated here ).technically speaking isn’t that a tough ask…

Bliss(ed) -Blessed

not long from now,u might choose to say goodbye,I'll try and bring a smile upon myself then,but lets not think that ahead,while the road is so beautiful now.i try to identify the road we are passing through,they call it different names..u see.most are commonplace, some i disbelieve ,some i am not sure of,and the rest are too sweeping a generalization to make,so i decide not to look for answers,not for the fear of disappointment,but for the sheer risk of it..why worry about itinerary, when you are so cheerfully busy walking...
i thought solitude was bliss. that is, until you came bye...