From the X-Files (Part 2) .. Those Crazy Years

[Blogger's Note: An e-mail exchange between Aroon and me that talks about those four crazy years. The e-mail itself was sent some time around Feb 17th 2005 (a good 3 years after those 4 crazy years) ... the intent in his own words .. "and yet I have done little all these years since those times to even set eyes upon your countenance, or to speak with you of your trials & sorrows, or to know of your joyous crushes". Aroon's e-mail was titled "Is this Love ?" and my response was titled "This is Love"]

Is this Love ?

Where do i begin?

The invention of the phrase (phrase isn't it?) "bitch bastard" that even today brings warmth to my heart, or

The stolen gift of IPv6: The next Internet Protocol from the refli that I'll hold dear till my last breath leaves me, or

The many blissful nights (and mostly days) of sleeping on your floor which you begrudgingly permit in spite of your inability to self-gratify, or

The pool of urine that was found between my sleeping place on your floor and your cot, that until today hasn't had its source resolved, or

Your tolerance (and hidden love) of Julie, the bitch that found solace on your bed, and your feigned fits of anger at her, or

The daring breach of the locked-tower of sundial in Jaipur, or

The comps, god forbid I forget them!, or

The drunken spells of violence, targeted at khus and Das, or

You just being the friend you can be, or .........

Where do I begin? Is this love?

This is love

If our hearts are the doors of a temple then what is the key that opens it ? Love !!! Love !! Love !! Love !!

~ Translated from a song in Pelli Sandadi ( a Telugu movie by Raghavendra Rao, B.A. The song: Hridayam ane kovila thallupu theriche thaalam ? ... Prema !! Prema!!Prema !!!)

I could just carry on from where u signed off ....

The ticketless train travel from Bikaner to Loharu 'coz we thought it was more important to keep our stomachs happy ... or

Our midnight visits to ANC where the only word that counted was "karara" while the cook tried to figure out whether you were Sai-baba or Jesus Christ (incarnate of course) or

Chaco trying to decode what comps meant while Saiku was trying to figure out why the Time Cigarettes we gave him were always more kick-ass than the ones he bought or

Our nocturnal (and afternoon) visits to Golden Dragon where Hemantji would oblige us with old food, adulterated CDs and a credit that if evaded could put off his plans to buy a car by a couple of years or

The names like "random duckling", "Naamka", "boo...babu" that have stuck to people even today while (luckily) "granny" never got too popular!!

If this isn't love then what is ?

From the X-Files (Part 1)

[Blogger's Note: I wrote this on 29th Oct 2003 a long time before blogging was cool. I sent it to my wing - a group of people I had stayed with for 4 years in Pilani and had an absolute blast. Since then, nothing has changed much, the sun is the same in a relative way but I'm older, shorter of breath and four years closer to death. However, I still identify very much with what I wrote]

I'm back cooking a different Story

"My job requires mostly masking my contempt for the assholes in charge, and, at least once a day, retiring to the men's room so I can jerk off while I fantasize about a life that less closely resembles Hell."
~ Lester Burnham to his boss in American Beauty ...

I know none of us are doing this badly ... but I'm sure we can do better. We were a wing. Common belief is that we still are a wing. Fatefully, if all of us were to get run down by a big red bus today, history would remember us as folks who came, screwed around and passed out .... I don't have an idea or a super wave that's gonna get us to where we ought to be. At the same time I can't define where we ought to be 'coz that's just restricting the limit to the amount we can do in a lifetime. All I know is that there's definitely more we can do ...

I don't use the word 'hate' too many times but I can tell u that I hate working for someone else ... it's not in my blood ... I probably would hate working for myself too (and claim that it's not in my genes) but I still dunno that and I'm willing to take the risk and find out ... I dunno how many feel the same way as I do ...but it would be great if I have U folks on board with me ... I don't even know what I'm planning to do ... but we have brains and we can sit and discuss ... we don't have to start tomorrow ... we can sort our lives out for a couple of months and then decide what we should be doing ... and all of us don't need to join at one shot ... it's a crazy world ... and people have made money ... so no reason why we shouldn't be making money ... and we get to be our bosses ... and we get to decide who we wanna work with ... (of course if we wanna be successful honestly ... we might not have much of a choice on who we wanna work with :p)

Just look at the wing ... we do have folks who can do wonders ... and what are we doing instead ... a couple of us cross a country to watch a movie in which an aging fart cleans up the so called 'mess' around him ... at times I wonder if he can clean his own mess after he's done ... one guy's obsession with cars made him do a Masters in Information Systems in BITS and just to make sure he could get even closer to cars he's doing an MBA now ... defines Irony .. one's married and planning to build a house ... the other isn't married and is planning to buy a house ... I can't say much to u folks ... except that real estate is business too ... in fact real estate is good business ... ask Donald Trump ... ask K.P Singh. A couple of us are in college talking about SIP, Thakurs and the universe ... u guys are working with ideas of tomorrow ... let's sell a few of these ... I hear clinks on the other side of the cardboard .... do U hear them too? Girls recently turned 'majors' are not even a 'minor' hiccup ... it's just a way of life ...Colombian girl friends and salsa classes can still be in ...everybody needs respite ... so can working with the Shankaracharya ... Motorola and Cisco are build to last companies ... maybe we can make a build to last company too ...what say 'Huzur' ? Wear your shirt. In the room

I've wanted to send this mail for quite sometime ... was a little scared to be honest... thought U guys would think I was crazy .. and that I had lost it ...I'm sending it now ... 'coz ... what the fuck ... who the fuck really cares ... I lost it a long long long time ago ..

Those weird eaters

After living on and off a suitcase for close to 6 years, I decided I'd write about some food habits that have stood me in good stead when the going got tough. As you'd realise the going never really gets tough ...

1. Corn Flakes goes better with yogurt than milk. Ranjith introduced this to me when he came over to London for a weekend and I didn't have milk in my fridge. As a Telugu I usually tend to have yogurt for my regular cravings of Perugu-Annam with Aavakayi Pacchadi (curd rice with mango pickle). I haven't moved back to milk ever since ... except in rare occasions when I've had milk but no yogurt in my fridge.

2. Poha tastes amazing when prepared with a little white wine in it. I was making breakfast/brunch for Ranj and Chandra and I decided it would be Poha day. Mid way through this Ghati preparation I found something amiss. I added a dash of white wine and everything fell into place. Both of them were unable to place where the additional zing to the Poha had come from and when I did tell them they found it pretty interesting. (Even if they didn't show it they must have found it freaky to find a place other than church where they could have something made of wine at 10:00 A.M on a Sunday morning).

3.In general, if I thought my guests would find the food too spicy, I'd add a dash of lime. If I thought that's not going to work I'd add tomatoes and I'd continue with yogurt and wine and end by removing the green chillies from the food (I call it the placebo effect). If this still don't work, just order from a take away. (Don't forget to ask for spicy food else I'd bet you a silk pajama that your guest is going to find the food bland)

4. I have decided to call my sandwich invention as yogurt and pickle spread sandwiches after realising how simple it was to make them and how much better they tasted compared to those vegetable and cheese sandwiches that I had grown tired of. This tastes best with Priya's garlic pickle (though taking this to work means you need to carry some mouth wash along as well). The preparation is simple:
a. Toast the bread (Optional). For best results try brown bread
b. Spread pickle on a slice of bread
c. Glaze it with some yogurt.

5. At any point of time if you started cooking and realised you've run out of spices Don't Panic (Yes, I know, even the Hitchhikers Guide tells you the same). Just pick up a pickle and add two tablespoons of pickle into your curry. It works like a charm. I tired this in Potato Korma, Brinjal Curry and even with Chicken.

Flash Fiction

This morning I was 'kindly' introduced to Flash Fiction. Inspired by Hemmingway's six-word flash:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn

I thought I'd publish my first six-word flash as well:
Flash Fiction: Never written ... Never read ...

First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 3)

[Blogger's Note: This is the last in a series of 3 articles]

"Who is this Ram? Is he a Civil Engineer ? Which Engineering College did he graduate from ?" When I first saw Karunanidhi's translated tirade as subtitles on NDTV it took me a couple of minutes to realise that the kalaignar was actually taking potshots at the adarshapurush (Perfect Man) of the Ramayana, Lord Rama (a.k.a Shri Ram, Ramar, Ramudu ...). The debate was on the Archeological Survey of India's petition to the Supreme Court. The petition had urged the Court to not treat the lime shoals between India and Srilanka (Adam's Bridge/ Ram Setu) as evidence of a bridge that was built by Lord Rama and his Vaanar Sena (Monkey army) to cross over to Lanka and fight Raavana.

It wasn't surprising to hear this from the DMK. The DMK has always felt that the Ramayana was an allegory to the victory of the Aryan Race over the Dravidians and the eventual sanskritisation of then India. While the rest of India looks at Lord Rama as the ideal man (husband, brother, son and father) who went to war against a tyrant in Lanka, the DMK views Rama as a son who was too meek to stand up to what was right, as a brother who let a pair of slippers rule from Ayodhya, a husband who doubted his wife's integrity and a dad who fought his own children out of arrogance. To the contarary, Ravana is treated as a tragic hero, a learned and spiritual man with a keen ear for music, a man who respected women (though he abducted somebody else's wife) as he never forced himself on Sita during her days in Lanka. Things were more militant with DMK in the days yore - Periyar, the founder of the Dravidian movement would make it a point to garland Rama statues with slippers every Ram Navami.

Well, the Dravidian point of view is not what I'm trying to convey through this article. What struck me was how Karunanidhi, an elected head of the state said what he said. As a Freedom of speech proponent I don't find anything wrong with someone expressing their beliefs. As an elected head of state in a pluralistic society, he may well have crossed the line and should have acted with more restraint. It would be interesting to see the reaction if he said something about Jesus Christ (Who is this Jesus ? Is he a Marine Biologist ? How did he know exactly where and when to cast the net to catch a bounty?) or the Prophet Mohammed [PBUH] (Who is this Prophet [PBUH] ? Is he a Sound Engineer ? Did he have any patents on quality hearing aid techniques? How else could he have heard the message of the Lord broadcast from so many millions of miles away without any glitches ...[except for those Satanic Verses]?). Personally, I think the Central Government in a bid to portray itself as the protector of the minorities would have asked him to step down as the Chief Minister of Tamizh Naad.

Well, the double standards of the current central government is not what I'm trying to hint at through this article. When Columbia Uni invited Ahmadinejad as a guest, he went onto his pet topic - questioning the occurrence of the holocaust. It’s difficult to refute something that occurred so systematically, but if a person has a particular belief then we must either let it be or prove him wrong. What we should not be doing is to try convicting him for an alleged crime. I still do not understand why denying the holocaust should be treated as a crime or even be treated as Anti-Semitism. In those lines Mr Karunanidhi must be convicted as well and so should Mr Rushide. In Columbia, Mr Ahmadinejad was more conciliatory - he felt there should be an open debate on the holocaust. Maybe a handful of undergard researchers is all it takes to open Mr Evil's eyes.

It is impossible to draw the line for freedom of speech, just as one man's Freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. In such a case not having a line is the only line that must exist. Say what you feel like and pay the price for it - burnt State buses and a daughter's house damaged as in the case of the Kalaignar or a fatwa in the case of Mr Rushdie that has kept him in constant fear and hiding or a probable conviction for the Iranian President in some land when his diplomatic immunity ceases.

First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 2)

[Blogger's Note: This is the second in a series of 3 articles]


Columbia University invited Global Terrorist No.1 (or 2, depending on the mood), Enemy No. 1 (or 2 depending on the mood), State sponsor of Terrorism (it’s not George Bush Stupid …) and Holocaust denier - the democratically elected President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a part of the World Leader’s Forum initiative. The bosses in Columbia will pass the buck if there’s too much heat about giving a platform to an extremist (it wasn’t the President but a Professor of some nondescript course who actually made the invitation) and others will pat their backs and say how Columbia upheld Freedom of Speech by listening to a tyrant ramble on stage. Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia in his opening remarks said, "Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator" and then added "You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated". In between he exposed Iran's "hideous designs" on various issues, and wrapped it up with a parting salvo "I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions". Mr. Bollinger’s remarks reminded me of a hymn from the Vedas:
"Mathru devo bhava
Pithru devo bhava
Aacharya devo bhava
Athithi devo bhava"
(Respect one’s mother, father, teacher and guest just as you respect God).
Sure, Mr. Bollinger would not have read the Vedas but I think he did go overboard in inviting someone and then being so extremely judgmental, that the very values that Columbia stood up for in making the invitation i.e. Freedom of speech looked like mere lip service. What Mr. Bollinger did was to exemplify the perception of American Foreign Policy in the Middle East – ignorant, belligerent, bullying and ugly.

Sometime in March 2006 Mr. George W. Bush, who in some parts of the globe is perceived to be Global Terrorist No.1, Enemy No. 1 and State sponsor of Terrorism, visited India. The Indian government tried very hard to have him address the Indian Parliamentarians in the Parliament house. When a significant number of Parliament Members threatened to heckle him, the Government decided to have Bush address the masses from Purana Qila, the Old Fort. When Bush did address the group of Parliamentarians, he was given a standing ovation from time to time. He wasn’t heckled and he wasn’t reminded of his numerous gaffes that he had made. Athithi devo bhava indeed!!!

First Amendment and Article 19 (Part 1)

[Blogger's Note: This is the first in a series of 3 articles]

I seem to be going on a blogging spree whenever India wins in cricket. Beating Pakistan is no mean feat and winning the tournament in a format where we've just played one international T-20 match prior to this World Cup surely needed tons of self belief. To do that without the trinity of Indian cricket is like America winning the war on Terror in land-locked Afghanistan with just the Navy. The Indian media have covered this so much that the only risk I’d carry if I continued talking about the Men in Blue is that I’d sound like a broken gramophone record.

What I would like to dwell on is an interesting comment that Shoaib Malik made in the Post Match Award Ceremony. His exact words were “First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world."(Many thanks to Cricinfo’s Mukul Kesavan’s blog at: http://blogs.cricinfo.com/meninwhite/archives/2007/09/scenes_from_a_final.php for the comment). If I were to take Shoaib’s comments at face value, what he meant was one or more of the following:
1. Shoaib’s team was not only playing cricket for Pakistan but also for the entire Muslim world.
2. The Indian Muslims do not count as Muslims in his eyes or they were rooting for Pakistan en-bloc and were sorry that India won. I think the latter is extremely improbable as we had Irfan Pathan picking up 3 wickets for a measly 16 in 4 overs (which included the prize scalp of the other Pathan, albeit the Stupid one – Shahid Afridi)
3. Muslims in Chechnya and Bosnia, the Abu Sayyaff in Philippines and the Palestinian brethren, who probably don’t follow the game anyway, want Muslims to win across those dirty non-believers. As if they haven’t had other things to worry about.

For a moment let us assume that Shoaib as a non-native speaker got done in by the occasion (Young captain, losing a nail-biting final to arch-rivals India, not sure of the reception back at home). In such a scenario we could construe what he meant as one or more of the following:
1. Shoaib meant “Pakistanis back home and Pakistanis all over the world” which would make it a pretty innocuous comment. I still do not agree with his apologetic tone though, he made it sound like it was a disgrace losing to India when to the contrary Pakistan should have been proud of their fight back. Shoaib should have acknowledged the fact, that at the end of the day, the game of cricket won (pardon me for that famous cliché being re-used)
2. Pakistanis and Muslims are interchangeable. In such a case, (as Mukul points out in his blog) spare a thought for poor Danish Kaneria. The Hindu in the Muslim team, who was just made Muslim.

Either way, there is no point castigating (or castrating ... sorry couldn’t help that one either) Shoaib Malik. In a free world he has the freedom to speak what he wishes to (ofcourse with a certain amount of discretion) and I don’t think Shoaib crossed the line irrespective of what he meant. At worst, he sounded foolish, stupid and parochial. At best he sounded like somebody out of sorts with a foreign language and maybe he should start using more Urdu in his post match speeches.